Student Loan Overpayment Calculator
This loan overpayment calculator shows whether voluntary overpayments are worth making on your plan and income. For most UK graduates they are not: the balance is written off after 25 to 40 years, so money paid in early is only saved if you were going to clear the loan in full anyway. This tool tells you which side of that line you are on before you pay anything.
To set a target clearance date and see the monthly overpayment it needs, use the early repayment calculator. To compare overpaying against investing the same money, use the investment vs overpayment calculator. Every tool is listed in the UK student loan calculator directory.
Your Details
Adjust the inputs and assumptions. Results update instantly.
Threshold: £29,385 | Rate: 9%
Advanced: override plan parameters
Annual overpayment: £1,200
Assumptions
Used for Plan 1/4: lower of RPI or Base+1%.
Example: Plan 2, £35,000 salary, £40,000 balance, £100 extra a month. Enter your own numbers.
Outcome: written off
Do not overpay
Your balance is written off after 30 years whether you overpay or not: £54,844 is cancelled even after £100 a month.
Overpaying costs you £36,000 over the life of the loan and buys you nothing. There is no implied return to quote, because the money does not come back.
Overpayment Analysis
What this means
Paying £100 a month costs you £36,000 more over the life of the loan than not overpaying.
Without overpaying you pay £15,160 in total, and £135,306 is written off after 30 years.
Next step
- whether to overpay your student loan - Sets out when overpaying helps and when it does not.
- how Plan 2 works - Covers repayment, interest and write-off for 2012 to 2023 starters in England and Wales.
- current interest rates for each plan - Shows the current rate for each plan and how it is set.
- Check your write-off date - Enter your plan and course end year to get the month your balance is cancelled.
Interest rate now (2026-27)
4.8%
slides with your income, capped at 6%
Implied return on overpaying
None
the money does not come back
Lifetime paid, standard
£15,160
£135,306 written off
Lifetime paid, overpaying
£51,161
£54,844 still written off
It costs you
£36,000
over the whole life of the loan
Time saved
None
interest saved: £44,463
How this is worked out
(£35,000 − £29,385) × 9% ÷ 12 = £42.11
Your mandatory Plan 2 (2012–2023) repayment on the 2026-27 threshold. The £100 you are modelling is on top of this and is entirely voluntary.
How this is worked out
£51,161 − £15,160 = £36,000
A positive figure is what overpaying costs you: you hand over more in total than you would have done.
How the implied return is worked out
Month by month, we compare what you hand over when overpaying against what you would have handed over on the standard schedule. Early on you pay more; later, once the balance has gone, you pay nothing while the standard borrower is still paying. The implied return is the annual rate at which those two streams break even. When the loan is written off either way the savings never arrive, so there is no return and we say so rather than quoting the interest rate as though you had earned it.
Rates, assumptions and sources
Every figure below is the 2026-27 published figure, read from this site's single source of truth at page-render time[source]. The 6% Plan 2 and Postgraduate interest cap covers the 2026/27 year only and is not assumed to continue[source].
| Plan | Threshold | Rate | Interest | Written off | Threshold freeze |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 2 | £29,385[source] | 9% | 4.1% to 7.1% by income, capped at 6% for 2026-27[source] | 30 years[source] | Frozen at £29,385 until April 2030 |
Write-off is counted from the April after the course ends, not from the course-end date itself, and the Plan 2 interest bands (£29,385 lower, £52,885 upper) are frozen alongside the Plan 2 repayment threshold.
This calculator also assumes
- RPI
- 4.1% (editable above)
- Bank base rate
- 4.00% (editable; only affects Plans 1 and 4)
- Salary growth
- 0.0% a year
- Threshold used
- £29,385
- Write-off horizon simulated
- 30 years
Growth, inflation and long-run interest figures are assumptions, not published rates. Change them and the projection changes.
Thresholds and rates are the 2026-27 published figures[source]. Assumptions are shown above and can be changed.
Understanding Overpayments
Overpayments reduce your balance faster and can save interest, but they’re not always optimal. If you won’t clear the loan before write-off, voluntary payments usually mean paying more over your lifetime. There is no penalty for making extra repayments[source]. For the full reasoning behind when overpaying is and is not worth it, read should I overpay my student loan.
Related student loan calculators
The student loan overpayment calculator answers one specific question. For the full picture, start with our UK student loan calculator on the homepage, work out what leaves your payslip each month with the monthly repayment calculator, or check what you can borrow with the student finance calculator. Every tool on the site is listed in the UK student loan calculator directory.
- early repayment calculator: the extra monthly payment needed to clear your loan by a target date
- investment vs overpayment calculator: whether the same money does more in the market than against the loan