April 6 marks the start of the new UK HMRC tax year, for 2025 to 2026.
It's a big date for new allowances - it's when your pension, personal allowance, an ISA or self-employed financial allowances all renew.
For private pensions, your annual allowance is the most you can save in your pension pots in a tax year (6 April to 5 April) before you have to pay tax. You’ll only pay tax if you go above the annual allowance. This is £60,000 this tax year.
Your tax-free Personal Allowance
The standard Personal Allowance is £12,570, which is the amount of income you do not have to pay tax on.
It decreases if your income is over £100,000. For every £2 you earn over £100,000, you lose £1 of your tax-free Personal Allowance.
There is currently a petition to raise the HMRC income tax personal allowance threshold from £12,570 to £20,000, which has received more than 230,000 signatures and a response from the treasury, although there were no changes in the Spring statement 2025.
The petition to Parliament was started by Alan David Frost, saying: "Raise the income tax personal allowance from £12570 to £20000. We think this would help low earners to get off benefits and allow pensioners a decent income."
Signatures can still be added here.
New HMRC tax year for pensions
Your annual allowance applies to all of your private pensions, if you have more than one. This includes:
- the total amount paid in to a defined contribution scheme in a tax year by you or anyone else (for example, your employer)
- any increase in a defined benefit scheme in a tax year
If you use all of your annual allowance for the current tax year, you might be able to carry over any annual allowance you did not use from the previous three tax years.
New HMRC tax year and ISA allowances
Never quite got your head around ISAs. It’s a piece of cake – just watch this
— Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) April 2, 2025
Feel free to share pic.twitter.com/WgcF2VU3Xw
The new financial year is also key for anyone looking to save tax-free with a cash ISA, as it's the new period for the accounts, which can see savers add £20,000 a year tax free.
There are 4 types of Individual Savings Accounts (ISA):
- cash ISA
- stocks and shares ISA
- innovative finance ISA
- Lifetime ISA
You do not pay tax on:
- interest on cash in an ISA
- income or capital gains from investments in an ISA
If you complete a tax return, you do not need to declare any ISA interest, income or capital gains on it.
Every tax year you can save up to £20,000 in one account or split the allowance across multiple accounts. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April.
You can only pay into one Lifetime ISA in a tax year. The maximum you can pay in is £4,000.
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New tax year for self-employed workers
If you're self employed - it's also the date that all your tax allowances renew, and the date by which you should have made all your claims for the previous year by. If you have all the information you need and are feeling enthusiastic, it's even the first day you can file a 2024-25 tax return.
If you need to send a Self Assessment tax return, fill it in after the end of the tax year (5 April) it applies to.
Self Assessment is a system HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) uses to collect Income Tax.
Tax is usually deducted automatically from wages and pensions. People and businesses with other income must report it in a Self Assessment tax return.
You must send a return if HMRC asks you to.
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