Marriage Allowance: How to Claim Your £252 Tax Break

If one of you earns under £12,570 and the other pays basic-rate tax, you're probably leaving £252 a year on the table. Marriage Allowance lets the lower earner hand over part of their unused personal allowance to their partner. It takes about ten minutes to set up and the saving renews automatically every year.

Roughly 4 million couples qualify. About half of them haven't claimed.

How it works

Everyone gets a tax-free personal allowance of £12,570 in 2025/26. If you earn less than that — maybe you work part-time, or you're not working at all — some of that allowance goes unused. It just sits there doing nothing.

Marriage Allowance lets you transfer £1,260 of your personal allowance to your spouse or civil partner. Their tax-free amount goes up from £12,570 to £13,830, and they pay 20% less tax on that extra £1,260.

The saving: 20% x £1,260 = £252 per year.

Not life-changing money, but it's yours for the cost of filling in a form.

Who qualifies

All three of these must be true:

1. You're married or in a civil partnership (living together doesn't count)
2. The lower earner makes less than £12,570 a year
3. The higher earner is a basic-rate taxpayer (income between £12,571 and £50,270)

If the higher earner pays 40% or 45% tax, you can't use Marriage Allowance. And if the lower earner's income is close to £12,570, the benefit shrinks — transferring £1,260 reduces the lower earner's own personal allowance, so they start paying tax on part of their income. The full £252 saving only applies when the lower earner makes £11,310 or less.

How to claim

The lower earner applies, not the higher earner. Two routes:

• Online at gov.uk/apply-marriage-allowance — you'll need both National Insurance numbers
• By phone on 0300 200 3300

Once approved, HMRC adjusts both tax codes automatically. The transfer continues each year until you cancel it or your circumstances change.

Backdating

If you were eligible in previous years but didn't claim, you can backdate up to four tax years. That could mean a lump-sum rebate of up to roughly £1,250 (the exact amount varies slightly by year, since the personal allowance has changed over time).

HMRC sends the rebate as a cheque or adjusts your next tax bill. Apply through the same online form and select the years you want to claim for.

When to cancel

Tell HMRC if:

• The lower earner starts earning over £12,570
• The higher earner moves into the 40% tax band
• You divorce or dissolve your civil partnership
• One partner dies (the surviving partner keeps the allowance for the rest of that tax year)

Cancel through the same gov.uk page or by calling HMRC.

Typical scenarios

One partner stays home with children. This is the textbook case. If one of you has no income while the other works full-time on a basic-rate salary, claim it.

One partner works part-time. Same thing. Part-time earnings under £11,310 mean the full £252 saving.

Both partners work full-time. You almost certainly don't qualify. If both of you earn over £12,570, there's no unused allowance to transfer.

One partner is retired. If they receive only the state pension (currently up to £11,502 for the full new state pension), they're under the personal allowance and can transfer. As long as the working partner pays basic-rate tax, you qualify.

See your take-home

Use our salary calculator to check how Marriage Allowance affects your household tax bill.