YOU could be owed hundreds or even thousands of pounds if you made unnecessary loan repayments without realising.
Most university graduates have their student loan repayments automatically deducted from their wages each month.
But hundreds of thousands are accidentally overpaying their student loans each year and are completely unaware of it.
Some could be owed hundreds or even thousands of pounds.
In the last tax year, it’s estimated there were more than one million student loan overpayments.
While it’s often helpful to overpay on loans to clear your debt faster, this might not be the case for many graduates.
That’s because Government data shows two-thirds of people won’t clear their student loans before they wipe after 30 years.
For these people, overpaying small amounts won’t reduce what you’ll pay in future so it can be worth getting the money back.
Higher earners who think they will clear the loans in time may gain from overpaying as there’s less time for interest to build up, so they may not want to get their money back.
Reclaiming overpayments takes just minutes and you can do it online – here’s everything you need to know…
When should I be paying my student loan?
You’ll need to pay back your student loan if you’re earning above a certain wage threshold.
The threshold at which you pay back depends on what repayment plan you’re on – which is based on when you started your studies and where in the UK you lived before you went to university.
You can check which plan you’re on by signing in to the Government website.
Plan 1
- England – undergraduate starters 1998 – 2011
- Wales – undergraduate starters 1998 – 2011
- Northern Ireland – starters from 1998 to today, including postgraduates
Repayment threshold: £26,065 a year, or £2,172 a month.
Plan 2
- England – undergraduate starters 2012 – 2022
- Wales: undergraduate starters 2012 – today
Repayment threshold: £28,470 a year or £2,372 a month.
Plan 3
- England – postgraduates
- Wales – postgraduates
Repayment threshold: £21,000 a year or £1,750 a month.
Plan 4
- Scotland – undergraduate starters 1998 – today, including postgraduates
Repayment threshold: £32,745 a year, or £2,728 a month.
Plan 5
- England – undergraduate starters from 2023 onwards
Repayment threshold: £25,000 a year, or £2,083 a month.
How do I know if I overpaid?
There are four main reasons you may have ended up overpaying – we’ll go through them all.
You repaid the loan in some months but didn’t earn enough over the year
Student loan repayments are taken out of your wages whenever you’re paid.
Whenever your earnings go over the equivalent of the annual repayment threshold for the month, you’ll have to pay.
However, you may have earned over the minimum income threshold in some months but not over the course of the full year.
This could happen if you:
- Only worked for part of the year
- Took on extra shifts in a specific month
- Moved to a higher or lower paid role mid-year
- Earned a bonus which put you over the threshold for that month only
- Went on maternity or paternity leave for part of the year.
If your total income is less than the annual threshold over the course of a tax year (which runs from April 6 to April 5) then you can reclaim.
You’ve been put on the wrong plan
In the last tax year, almost 18,000 graduates overpaid because they were put on the wrong repayment plan.
This can happen if your employer makes a mistake, or if you made an error when filling in the student loan section of the HMRC starter checklist form.
We’ve explained above how to check which plan you’re meant to be on.
You’ve started repaying too early
If you started university from 1998 onwards and were a full-time student, you wouldn’t have needed to start your loan repayments until the April after you finished your studies.
So if you graduated in 2025, you won’t need to start paying anything back until April this year – even if you’re already earning above the repayment threshold.
Almost 37,000 overpayments in the previous tax year were because graduates started repaying too early.
This can often happen because your employer made a mistake, or if you made an error when filling in the student loan section of the HMRC starter checklist form.
You had money deducted after the loan was fully repaid
If you’ve finished paying off your student loan, it’s possible you still could have had payments taken out.
The Student Loans Company lets graduates make their last two years of repayments through direct debit to stop them overpaying.
But for those who didn’t sign up to make their payments this way, there is a risk they could still have the money deducted from their pay packets in error.
HMRC should pay you back this money automatically but it can take time.
How to claim your money back
There’s no time limit for reclaiming so you can still do it even if the overpayment was years ago.
If you can, try to gather your old payslips, payroll number and a PAYE reference number.
You can still try to claim back if you don’t have these, though.
If you overpaid because you didn’t hit the repayment threshold over the full year, you can request your refund from the Student Loans Company website.
You’ll need to sign in to your online repayment account and select ‘request a refund’.
The SLC will then check for any refunds from previous tax years you might be eligible for.
Once you’ve requested a refund, it will be processed in 28 days and the money will be paid into your bank account.
Make sure your bank details are correct first so the payment can go through.
If you’re looking to do this for the 2025-26 tax year, you’ll need to wait for SLC to get in touch first before you can make a refund request.
If you were put on the wrong student loan plan, you should speak to your employer first to let them know.
You’ll then need to contact the SLC to get your refund processed.
You can call on 0300 100 0611 (for Wales it’s 0300 100 0370 and +44 141 243 3660 from overseas).
If you’re reclaiming for the current tax year, SLC will need to have received your earnings information from HMRC first.
You can call the same numbers if you started repaying your loan too early.
When you get through you should explain your situation and ask them to refund the money you’re owed.
It can help to dig out any old payslips and your payroll number.
If you had money deducted after your loan was fully repaid, you don’t need to do anything.
That’s because a refund should be automatically be paid into your bank account.
Alternatively, the SLC may contact you to tell you how to reclaim.
In both scenarios, you should keep your contact information including your bank details and email address up to date.
