Get ready for the new tax year

▼1. Submit your employment allowance claim

You need to send a submission to claim for employment allowance at the start of each tax year.

In the 2025/2026 tax year, the employment allowance for eligible employers is increasing to £10,500,00. This reduces your yearly employers National Insurance liability.

To check if your eligible and how to claim, read Employment allowance.

▼2. Check for employee tax code changes

For the 2025/26 tax year, the personal allowance and emergency tax code remain the same at £12,570 and 1257L.

This means you won't need to update any employee tax codes by default, but you do need to remove w1/m1 flags.

To check if the HMRC have issued any changes to individual employees tax codes, you can log on to the government gateway.

How to access your PAYE online services

Sign into the government gateway. For more information, read PAYE Online for employers.
Sign in with your credentials.
From the Business tax account home page, select Messages and PAYE for employers messages.
Select View your Tax Code Notices.
From the Tax Year drop down, select the new tax year (2025 to 2026).

How to update the employees tax codes

You can either change the tax codes in the employees' record or when you process the first pay run of the year. You’re presented with a list of all your employees and their current tax codes. For more information, read Update an employee's tax code.

▼3. Choose your HMRC reporting frequency

This is how often you produce your P32, submit Employer Performance Submission (EPS) and pay the HMRC. This isn’t how often you pay your employees.

CAUTION: Once you perform a pay run, it locks the reporting frequency. You can't change this again until the following tax year.