A P45 is one page with thirteen numbered boxes, issued in four parts. It records your pay and income tax for the tax year to your leaving date — and it is the single thing that stops your next employer taxing you on an emergency code.
What Is a P45?
A P45 is the form your employer must give you when you stop working for them. Its full title on the form itself is “Details of employee leaving work”. It states the tax code you were on, the date you left, and how much you have been paid and taxed since the start of the tax year on 6 April.
Its job is narrow but important: it carries your pay-and-tax history from one employer to the next so that PAYE keeps working. Hand it over and your new employer picks up exactly where the old one stopped. Do not hand it over and, in HMRC's own words on the form, “you will have tax deducted using the emergency code and may pay too much tax”.
What Does “P45” Actually Mean?
Nothing, in the way people expect. HMRC's PAYE paperwork has always been numbered in a P-series — P11D for benefits in kind, P45 for a leaver, P50 for a repayment claim, P60 for the end-of-year summary, P85 for leaving the UK. The number is a catalogue reference, not an abbreviation, and the letter does not stand for a word. “P45” became shorthand for being dismissed purely because it was the form that arrived when a job ended.
Two consequences worth knowing. First, the form is real and current — despite years of speculation that Real Time Information would abolish it, the P45 still exists and employers must still issue one. Second, most are now produced as a PDF from payroll software and emailed or posted to a payslip portal rather than printed on the old four-part carbonised stationery. A PDF P45 is a valid P45.
Every Box on a P45, Explained
A P45 has thirteen numbered items. Boxes 1–8 appear on every part; boxes 9–11 appear only on Part 1, the copy that goes straight to HMRC. Your employer certifies that items 1 to 11 are correct.
| Box | What it is called | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Employer PAYE reference | Office number and reference number for your old employer's payroll. HMRC uses it to match the record; your new employer does not need to do anything with it. |
| 2 | Employee's National Insurance number | Your NI number appears — but note that no National Insurance amount appears anywhere on a P45. The form carries income tax only. |
| 3 | Title, surname or family name, first name(s) | As held on your old employer's payroll. It should match the name HMRC holds, which is normally your legal name rather than a preferred name. |
| 4 | Leaving date | The last day of your employment, which is not always the day you last physically worked and not the day you were last paid. |
| 5 | Student Loan deductions to continue | A marker, not an amount. If it is set, your new employer restarts Plan 1, 2, 4 or 5 deductions immediately instead of waiting for HMRC to tell them. |
| 6 | Tax code at leaving date | The code your old employer was operating, plus a Week 1/month 1 box. An 'X' there means the code was non-cumulative. |
| 7 | Total pay to date and total tax to date | The cumulative figures for the tax year — including any earlier employment whose P45 you handed over. Printed with the week or month number. Completed only if your code is cumulative: if there is an 'X' at box 6, HMRC's form says there will be no entries here. |
| 8 | Works number/payroll number and department or branch | Your old employer's internal reference. Harmless, and often blank. |
| 9 | Employee's private address and postcode | Part 1 only — the copy that goes to HMRC. It is not on the parts you hand to a new employer. |
| 10 | Gender | Part 1 only. |
| 11 | Date of birth | Part 1 only. |
| 12 | This employment pay and tax | The pay and tax from this job alone. HMRC's form spells out the relationship: "If no entry here, the amounts are those shown at box 7." So a filled-in box 12 that differs from box 7 is the giveaway that box 7 includes an earlier job. |
| 13 | Employer's certification date | The date your old employer signed the form off, alongside their name and address. Employers certify "that the details entered in items 1 to 11 on this form are correct". |
The two boxes people confuse. Box 6 is your tax code. Box 7 is the money — total pay to date and total tax to date. They are linked: box 7 is filled in only when the code at box 6 is cumulative. If box 6 carries an 'X' in the Week 1/month 1 marker, box 7 is deliberately left empty, because a non-cumulative code never tracked a year-to-date total in the first place.
What Is Not on a P45
Just as useful as the list above, because these are the things people expect to find and cannot:
- No National Insurance figure. Your NI number is at box 2, but the amount of NI you paid is not on the form anywhere. NI is not cumulative in the way income tax is, so there is nothing for the next employer to carry forward. If you need your NI total for the year, it is on your P60 or your payslips.
- No reason for leaving. There is no box for resignation, redundancy or dismissal. A P45 cannot tell a new employer how your last job ended.
- No salary. Box 7 shows pay to date, not an annual rate. A new employer can infer a rough figure from the pay and the month number, but the form never states a salary.
- No pension contributions, no benefits in kind. Those live on your payslip and on a P11D.
- No employment dates other than the leaving date. Your start date is not on it, so a P45 cannot show how long you worked somewhere.
A Worked Example: What a £31,000 P45 Looks Like
Take someone on a salary of £31,000 who resigns with a leaving date of 31 August. The tax year began on 6 April, so August is month 5 of 12. They are on the standard cumulative code and this is their only job. Here is what each money box would show:
| Box | Entry | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Leaving date 31 08 | Last day of employment |
| 6 | 1257L, no 'X' | Standard code, cumulative, £12,570 allowance |
| 7 | Month 5 | April is month 1 |
| 7 | Total pay to date £12,916.67 | £31,000 ÷ 12 × 5 |
| 7 | Total tax to date £1,535.83 | Five twelfths of the £3,686.00 a full year on £31,000 would cost |
| 12 | Blank | Only one employment this year, so box 7 already covers it |
Two details that surprise people. The tax figure is income tax only: the £614.33 of National Insurance they will also have paid over those five months appears nowhere on the P45. And the tax to date is exactly five twelfths of the annual bill, because cumulative PAYE spreads the £12,570 personal allowance evenly across the year — £1,048 of tax-free pay a month.
Want the equivalent numbers for your own salary? The take-home pay calculator gives the annual income tax; divide by 12 and multiply by the month you leave in.
The Four Parts — and Who Gets Which
A P45 is issued in four parts, but you only ever handle three of them, which is why HMRC's own note to the employee begins “The P45 is in 3 parts”:
| Part | Goes to | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Part 1 | HMRC | Sent by your employer through payroll. You never see it. It is the only part carrying your home address, date of birth and gender. |
| Part 1A | You | Marked “Copy for employee”. Keep it. You may need it for a tax return. Copies are not available — the form says so in terms. |
| Part 2 | Your new employer | They keep it. It also carries the printed notes about going abroad, claiming benefits and going self-employed. |
| Part 3 | Your new employer | They complete the second half of it with your start date and their PAYE reference, and report it to HMRC on their first Full Payment Submission. |
How to Use Your P45 When You Start a New Job
- Check the leaving date and tax code first. An unexpected 'X' in the Week 1/month 1 box at box 6 means box 7 will be empty and your new employer has no year-to-date figures to work from.
- Separate Part 1A and file it. Keep it with your payslips and P60s. This is the part you cannot replace.
- Give Parts 2 and 3 to your new employer, unaltered, on or before your first payday. HMRC's instruction is not to alter them in any way.
- Do not send them to HMRC yourself. The one exception the form allows: if you do not want your new employer to see the details, you may send the parts to HMRC with a covering letter naming your new employer — accepting that you may overpay tax for a while.
- Check your first payslip. The code should match box 6 and, if box 7 was completed, the taxable-pay-to-date figure should have picked up your old pay. If it has not, see what to do when your tax code is wrong.
When Do You Get a P45?
After your final pay run, not on your last day. A P45 can only be produced once payroll knows what your last payment was, so the sequence is: last day → final payslip → P45. If you leave on the 20th and are paid on the 28th, the P45 follows the 28th.
There is no statutory deadline for a P45, which is the key difference from the P60 (due by 31 May). Employers are required to provide one and HMRC expects it without delay, so in practice it arrives within days of the final payslip and almost always within a month. If it does not:
- Ask payroll directly — the commonest cause is simply that your final pay has not been processed yet.
- If the employer refuses, or has ceased trading, contact HMRC on 0300 200 3300. HMRC holds the same figures, because your employer reported every payment in real time.
- You are not stuck in the meantime. Your new employer can start you correctly on a Starter Checklist, and any over-deduction is corrected once HMRC issues your code.
What Period Does a P45 Cover?
The current tax year only — from 6 April to your leaving date. A P45 never spans two tax years, and never reaches back into a previous one. If you leave in April, your P45 covers a few weeks; if you leave in March, it covers almost the whole year.
Within that year it may cover more than one job. Box 7 is cumulative: if you gave your current employer a P45 from an earlier job this tax year and your code was cumulative, the pay and tax from that earlier job are folded into box 7. Box 12 exists to unpick exactly this — it shows the pay and tax from this employment alone, and HMRC's note says that if box 12 is blank, box 7 is the whole story.
Is a P45 a Payslip?
No, and the difference matters when someone asks you for proof of income. A payslip is a record of one payment; a P45 is a record of the tax year to date at one moment. A P45 also omits things a payslip shows — National Insurance, pension contributions, student loan amounts, expenses.
| Payslip | P45 | |
|---|---|---|
| Covers | A single pay period | 6 April to your leaving date |
| Issued | Every payday | Once, when you leave |
| Shows NI | Yes | No |
| Shows pension | Yes | No |
| Legal right to it | Yes, on or before payday | Yes, when you leave |
| Replaceable | Usually, from payroll | No — copies are not available |
If you need to evidence earnings for a mortgage or a landlord, payslips plus a P60 are stronger than a P45. See how to read your payslip for the line-by-line version.
Starting a Job With No P45
Common and fixable. Your new employer asks you to complete a Starter Checklist (what used to be called a P46) and picks a code from the statement you tick:
| Statement | Your situation | Typical code applied |
|---|---|---|
| A | This is your first job since 6 April and you have had no other taxable income | 1257L on a cumulative basis — the full £12,570 allowance, backdated |
| B | This is now your only job, but you have had another job or taxable benefit since 6 April | 1257L Week 1/month 1 — the allowance from now on, nothing backdated |
| C | You have another job or a pension as well as this one | BR — every pound taxed at basic rate, because your allowance is being used elsewhere |
Where the employer has no details at all, the fallback is 0T, which gives no allowance but does apply the full band structure. None of this is permanent: HMRC issues a corrected code once it has matched you up, and your employer applies it automatically.
What Emergency Tax Actually Costs You
“Emergency tax” is not a penalty rate. It is a normal code operated non-cumulatively, so it gives you one twelfth of the personal allowance each month and ignores everything earlier in the year. The cost is therefore the allowance you have already accrued and cannot reach.
Worked example. You are out of work from April to August and start a job on £36,000 in September, with no P45, so you are put on 1257L Week 1/month 1 for the remaining 7 pay months:
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Monthly gross | £3,000.00 |
| Tax-free pay allowed each month under Week 1/month 1 | £1,047.50 |
| Tax deducted each month | £390.50 |
| Tax deducted over 7 months | £2,733.50 |
| Actual liability on the £21,000 you really earned | £1,686.00 |
| Overpaid | £1,047.50 |
That overpayment is exactly £12,570 × 5/12 — five months of unused personal allowance, one for each month you were not earning. A P45 would have carried those months across and the correct tax would have come out first time.
Statement C, or a lost code, is worse. On BR the same £21,000 is taxed at 20% from the first pound: £4,200.00, or £2,514.00 too much. (0T produces the same result here only because £3,000.00 a month sits inside the basic-rate band, which runs to £4,189.17 a month; above that, 0T starts charging 40% while BR does not.)
You do not have to wait for the tax year to end to get it back — see how to reclaim emergency tax and the emergency tax calculator.
Leaving Mid-Year: Why Your P45 Often Means a Refund
PAYE assumes you will keep earning at the same rate all year and spreads your allowance accordingly. Stop earning part-way through and you have paid tax on an income you never actually received — so the allowance for the remaining months goes unused, and that is a refund waiting to be claimed.
How much, for someone who stops work and has no further taxable income that tax year:
| Salary | Earned by month 3 | Tax overpaid | Earned by month 6 | Tax overpaid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £25,000 | £6,250 | £622 | £12,500 | £1,243 |
| £35,000 | £8,750 | £1,122 | £17,500 | £1,257 |
| £45,000 | £11,250 | £1,622 | £22,500 | £1,257 |
| £60,000 | £15,000 | £2,372 | £30,000 | £2,230 |
Three things decide how you claim it, and your P45 is the evidence in all three:
- Straight into another job? Nothing to claim. Hand over Parts 2 and 3 and the correction happens in your next payslip.
- Claiming Jobseeker's Allowance or ESA? Take the P45 to Jobcentre Plus. The form's own note says they will pay any refund due “when your claim ends, or at 5 April if this is earlier”.
- Not working and not claiming? This is what form P50, “Claiming tax back when you have stopped working”, is for — and the P45 supplies the figures. See how to check whether you have overpaid tax.
Two cases have their own forms rather than a P50: if you are leaving the UK, use form P85, which the P45 itself points you to; if you are becoming self-employed, register with HMRC and settle up through Self Assessment instead. Note that National Insurance is never refunded this way — NI is charged on each pay period in isolation and there is no annual reconciliation.
What To Do If You Have Lost Your P45
Start from the fact printed on the form: “Copies are not available.” Your old employer cannot legally reissue a P45, and asking them to is the one route that will not work. What does work:
- Fill in a Starter Checklist instead. A new employer can set you up correctly without a P45 at all. Tick statement B if you have had another job since 6 April.
- Check your HMRC personal tax account. Your employer reported every payment under Real Time Information, so HMRC already holds your pay and tax for the year — often more up to date than the P45 was.
- Ask your old employer for a statement of earnings. They cannot reissue the P45, but they can put the same figures in a letter, which is generally accepted where a P45 would have been.
- Use your final payslip. The year-to-date columns on it carry the same taxable pay and tax figures that went into box 7.
If you never received one in the first place, that is a different problem — chase the employer, then HMRC, as set out above.
P45 vs P60 vs Starter Checklist
Three documents, three moments in the PAYE year. The quickest way to keep them straight:
| P45 | P60 | Starter Checklist | |
|---|---|---|---|
| When | When you leave a job | End of the tax year | When you start a job |
| Deadline | None set in law | 31 May | Before your first payday |
| Covers | 6 April to leaving date | The whole tax year | Nothing — it is a declaration |
| Issued by | Old employer | Employer you are with on 5 April | You, to a new employer |
| Shows NI | No | Yes | No |
| Replaceable | No | Yes — ask for a duplicate | Yes — fill in another |
You will not get a P45 and a P60 from the same employer for the same period. Leave part-way through and you get a P45 from the old employer and a P60 from whoever you are with on 5 April — and that P60 will include the earlier job's pay if you handed the P45 over. Leave on 31 March and you get a P45 only; there is no employment on 5 April for a P60 to describe.
The Awkward Cases
- You earned nothing, or paid no tax. You still get a P45. Box 7 simply shows the pay with nil tax. Employment, not tax, triggers the form.
- You are 16 or 17. Age is irrelevant. If you were on a payroll, you get a P45 when you leave.
- You worked there three days. Still a P45. There is no minimum length of service.
- You were dismissed. Same P45 as a resignation — the form has no field for how the job ended.
- Your agency moved you to a different umbrella or PAYE entity. That is a change of employer even though the work did not change, so a P45 is due from the old one. Under a TUPE transfer, by contrast, employment continues and no P45 is issued.
- Does a P45 expire? Not formally, but it is only useful within the tax year it covers. Hand a P45 dated in a previous tax year to a new employer and they must ignore the pay and tax figures and use a Starter Checklist instead.
- Two jobs at once, leaving one. You get a P45 from the one you leave. Do not give it to your remaining employer — it will disturb a code that is already correct. Let HMRC reconcile it. See tax on a second job.
- The tax code looks odd. An S prefix means Scottish rates, a C prefix means Welsh rates, and a K code means deductions exceed your allowance. If it looks wrong, check it with the tax code explainer before your new employer operates it.
- Self Assessment. Part 1A is what you copy from: the pay and tax at box 7 (or box 12 for this employment alone) go on the employment pages of your return, which is precisely why the form tells you to keep it.
P45 FAQs
What is a P45?
A P45 is the form your employer must give you when you leave a job. Its formal title is “Details of employee leaving work”. It shows your tax code, your leaving date, and your total pay and income tax from 6 April up to the day you left, so your next employer can tax you correctly instead of using an emergency code.
What does P45 stand for?
Nothing. HMRC numbers its PAYE forms in a P-series — P11D, P45, P50, P60, P85 — and the number is a catalogue reference rather than an abbreviation. The phrase became slang for being dismissed simply because this is the form that arrives when a job ends.
When do you get a P45?
After your final pay is processed, not on your last day — payroll cannot produce it until it knows what your last payment was. There is no statutory deadline, unlike the P60's 31 May, but HMRC expects it promptly and in practice it follows your final payslip within days.
What does a P45 show?
Thirteen numbered items: employer PAYE reference, your National Insurance number, your name, your leaving date, a student loan marker, your tax code at leaving, and total pay and tax to date — plus your address, date of birth and gender on the HMRC copy only.
What is the difference between box 6 and box 7 on a P45?
Box 6 is your tax code at the leaving date, with a marker for Week 1/month 1. Box 7 is the money — total pay to date and total tax to date, with the week or month number. Box 7 is completed only when the code at box 6 is cumulative; an 'X' at box 6 means box 7 is left blank.
Does a P45 show National Insurance?
No. Your National Insurance number appears at box 2, but the amount of NI you paid is not on a P45 at all — the form carries income tax only. For your NI total, use your P60 or your payslips.
Does a P45 show the reason for leaving?
No. There is no box for resignation, redundancy or dismissal, so a P45 cannot tell a new employer how your last job ended. It shows only the leaving date.
What period does a P45 cover?
The current tax year only, from 6 April to your leaving date. It never spans two tax years. It can cover more than one job in that year, though: box 7 is cumulative, so it includes pay from an earlier job whose P45 you handed over. Box 12 shows this employment alone.
Which part of the P45 do I give to my new employer?
Parts 2 and 3, unaltered. Keep Part 1A yourself — it is the copy for the employee and it cannot be replaced. Part 1 goes straight from your old employer to HMRC and you never see it.
What should I do if I have lost my P45?
Employers cannot issue duplicates — the form itself says “Copies are not available”. Complete a Starter Checklist for your new employer instead, check your pay and tax in your HMRC personal tax account, or ask your old employer for a statement of earnings.
How much does emergency tax cost without a P45?
It costs you the personal allowance you have already accrued but cannot reach. Someone out of work from April to August who starts a £36,000 job in September on a Week 1/month 1 code pays £2,733.50 of tax instead of £1,686.00 — £1,047.50 too much, refunded once the code is corrected.
Do you still get a P45 in the UK?
Yes. Real Time Information changed how employers report pay, but it did not abolish the P45 and employers must still issue one when you leave. Most are now a PDF from payroll software rather than the old four-part paper form — a PDF P45 is still a valid P45.
Is a P45 a payslip?
No. A payslip records a single payment and shows National Insurance, pension and student loan deductions. A P45 records your income tax position for the tax year to your leaving date and shows none of those. For proof of earnings, payslips and a P60 are stronger.
What is the difference between a P45 and a P60?
A P45 is issued when you leave a job and covers 6 April to your leaving date. A P60 is issued by whoever employs you on 5 April and covers the whole tax year. A P60 shows National Insurance; a P45 does not. A P60 can be reissued; a P45 cannot.
Do you get a P45 if you earned nothing or paid no tax?
Yes. The trigger is having been employed, not having paid tax. The form is still issued with the pay figure shown and nil tax. The same is true at any age and after any length of service, even a few days.
Will I get a tax refund from my P45?
Often, if you stop working part-way through the tax year, because PAYE has spread your allowance over a full year you did not work. Go straight into a new job and it corrects itself. Claim Jobseeker's Allowance and Jobcentre Plus pays it. Otherwise the P45 supports a form P50 claim — or a P85 if you are leaving the UK.
Related Guides
Keep reading with these related guides and calculators:
- P60 Explained — the end-of-tax-year summary, and the one form you can get reissued
- How Tax Codes Work — what the code at box 6 actually does to your pay
- How to Read Your Payslip — the line-by-line version, including everything a P45 leaves out
- Week 1 / Month 1 Codes — the non-cumulative basis behind the empty box 7
- How to Reclaim Emergency Tax — what to do once you are already on the wrong code
- Tax in Your First Job — the Starter Checklist route, from the beginning
- Form P85: Leaving the UK — the refund route the P45 itself points you to if you are emigrating
- Take Home Pay Calculator — the annual figures behind the pay and tax on your P45
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