Plan 5 Student Loan Repayments: What Changed in April 2026

You're on Plan 5 if you started an undergraduate or PGCE course in England on or after 1 August 2023. This is the newest repayment plan, and the first cohort became liable to repay from April 2026.

If you started before that date you're almost certainly on Plan 2, which has a different threshold and a higher interest rate. It's worth checking your plan type in your online student loan account, because being on the wrong one means the wrong amount comes out of your pay.

You repay 9% of whatever you earn above £25,000 a year. The maths is simpler than people expect: if you earn £28,000, you're £3,000 over the threshold, so you repay 9% of £3,000, which is £270 a year, or about £22.50 a month.

Crucially you do not repay 9% of your whole salary. Earn exactly £25,000 or less and you repay nothing at all. Repayments come straight out of your pay through PAYE, so you don't have to set anything up yourself.

Plan 5 charges interest at RPI only — that's the Retail Prices Index measure of inflation, set at 3.2% for the year to August 2026. Unlike Plan 2, there's no extra 3% premium stacked on top.

That said, the interest barely matters for most people. Because the loan is written off after 40 years regardless of the balance, the vast majority of graduates never clear it. What you repay each month depends only on your salary, not on how much interest has built up.