Autumn Budget 2026 and Student Loans: What We Know
A preview, not a prediction. The Budget is on Wednesday 28 October 2026. This page separates what is already policy from what has only been recommended, and carries no guesses about what the Chancellor will announce.
Key Takeaways
- The Budget is on Wednesday 28 October 2026. It is John Healey’s first Budget as Chancellor, and the first of Andy Burnham’s government, which took office on 20 July 2026.
- No student loan measure has been announced or trailed. The one question most readers have — will the Plan 2 threshold freeze be reversed — has no answer today, because the Government has not given one.
- This is the Budget the Treasury Committee meant. On 7 July 2026 it said the Government has a moral obligation to reverse the freeze at the next Budget. On 13 September the Government neither accepted nor refused, saying only that the system stays under review.
- Nothing about your repayments changes before Budget day. The Plan 2 threshold is £29,385, the rate is 9% above it, and Plan 2 and Postgraduate interest is capped at 6% until 31 August 2027.
- Do not budget on a reversal. A select committee recommendation, a backbench Bill and a minister’s sympathy are not law. Plan your finances on the rules as written, and come back on 28 October.
In this article
The Autumn Budget is the biggest scheduled day of the year for UK student finance, because it is the one occasion on which a repayment threshold, an interest rule or a write-off term can be changed in a single sentence. This one matters more than most: the previous Budget created the Plan 2 threshold freeze, a cross-party select committee has since told the Government to undo it at this Budget, and the Government has pointedly declined to say whether it will.
So this page is written as a preview and nothing more. It sets out what is confirmed, what has been formally asked for, and what is simply unknown — and it keeps those three things in separate boxes. We have not filled the gaps with guesswork. A page that predicts a Budget looks foolish the moment the Budget lands, and it is no use to a borrower deciding whether to overpay this month.
If you are reading this after Wednesday 28 October 2026: go straight to What the Budget Announced. That section is rewritten on Budget day with the measures themselves.
What Is Confirmed About the Budget
These are facts, taken from HM Treasury’s own publications rather than from press reporting. They are about the event. None of them is about student loans, because nothing about student loans has been confirmed.
| Confirmed | Detail |
|---|---|
| Date | Wednesday 28 October 2026 |
| Chancellor | John Healey, in post since 20 July 2026. This is his first Budget. |
| Prime Minister | Andy Burnham, in post since 20 July 2026. |
| Education Secretary | Lucy Powell, in post since 20 July 2026. Student finance policy sits with her department, not the Treasury. |
| OBR forecast | An economic and fiscal forecast is published on the same day, alongside the Budget. |
| Representations | HM Treasury’s Budget Representation Portal closed at 23:59 on Wednesday 9 September 2026. |
What the Chancellor has said about it
Three statements are on the record. Quoted here in full, because the paraphrases in circulation are not always accurate.
“Today, I’m confirming the date of my first Budget as Chancellor will be Wednesday 28th October. This will be a Budget that moves money and power out of Westminster, and into every postcode around Britain. It will be built on fiscal discipline. It will meet our fiscal rules.”
“Fiscal credibility is the bedrock of economic stability and national security. That is why we will abide by the fiscal rules, ensuring we retain a buffer to protect us against uncertainty and the impact of instability in the Middle East.”
“The Prime Minister and I are in lockstep in our commitment to meeting the fiscal rules at the upcoming Budget: to balancing the books, with a buffer to protect against uncertainty, to controlling borrowing to bear down on inflation, and reducing long term pressures on our public finances.”
The detail nobody has noticed: the published text of the Chancellor’s Growth Speech on 7 September, his main pre-Budget economic address, does not mention student loans, graduates or tuition fees at all. The Budget commitment he did make in it was a roadmap to fiscal devolution — business rates retention and a share of local income tax for Mayoral Strategic Authorities from 2028. That is not evidence of what he will or will not do on student loans. It is simply the sum of what has been said.
What the Budget Announced
The Budget has not happened yet
It is on Wednesday 28 October 2026. There is nothing to report here, and we have not filled the space with predictions. Nothing in this section is a forecast, because this section is empty.
What this section will carry on the day
- Whether the Plan 2 repayment threshold freeze from April 2027 is reversed, kept, shortened or extended.
- Whether the frozen Plan 2 interest rate thresholds (£29,385 and £52,885) are touched, which is a separate measure from the repayment threshold and is routinely confused with it.
- Any change to the Plan 5 threshold, currently £25,000 and frozen with no published review date.
- Anything said about the 6% interest cap beyond 31 August 2027, when the current cap period ends.
- Any change to tuition fee limits, maintenance loans or grants for 2027-28 and the 2027/28 academic year.
- The exact paragraph and page in the Budget document, so you can check us.
- An honest note if the answer is nothing. Budgets frequently say nothing at all about student loans, and a silent Budget is a real outcome that we will report as plainly as a noisy one.
We update this page after the Chancellor sits down, and again once the Budget document and the OBR forecast are published, because the detail that matters to borrowers is usually in the document rather than the speech. Until then, treat every figure you read about this Budget and student loans as unconfirmed.
Will the Plan 2 Threshold Freeze Be Reversed?
The honest answer
Nobody knows, and the Government has not said. That is not us hedging — it is the actual state of the public record. Asked directly by a select committee to reverse the freeze at this Budget, HM Treasury and the Department for Education replied that they keep all aspects of the student finance system under review. They did not agree and they did not refuse.
It is worth being precise about what is at stake, because the freeze is often described loosely. Budget 2025 froze the Plan 2 repayment threshold at £29,385 for the tax years beginning April 2027, April 2028 and April 2029, with the first uprating due in April 2030. Nobody pays a penny more because of it until 6 April 2027. This Budget falls five months before that date, which is why campaigners treat it as the last clean opportunity to undo the measure before it starts costing people money.
What is true in favour of a change
- A cross-party Treasury Committee has formally recommended reversal, and called it a moral obligation.
- The Government declined to rule it out, which the Committee Chair has read publicly as room to keep pressing.
- The Education Secretary has said Plan 2 interest is “egregious” and “needs looking at”.
- The ministers who made the decision are no longer in post. This is a new Chancellor’s first Budget.
What is true against one
- Reversal costs money. The Treasury Committee put the annual cost at around £355 million by 2029–30.
- The Chancellor has repeatedly and publicly committed to meeting the fiscal rules with a buffer.
- The Government has already refused most of the Committee’s other recommendations outright.
- Its stated Budget theme is fiscal devolution, and student loans have not featured in any pre-Budget speech.
We are not going to weigh those columns for you and call it analysis. Both lists are true, neither is a decision, and a Chancellor’s first Budget is exactly the kind of event that defeats confident prediction. What you can safely do is plan on the rules as they are written today. If the freeze goes, you will be better off than you planned. If it stays, you will not be caught out.
Policy, Recommendation or Speculation
In the weeks before a Budget these three categories get flattened into one another, and a recommendation starts being reported as a plan. This table keeps them apart. Check anything you read elsewhere against the Status column before you act on it.
| The claim | Status | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Plan 2 threshold frozen at £29,385 for April 2027, 2028 and 2029 | Government policy | Autumn Budget 2025, 26 November 2025 |
| Plan 2 interest rate thresholds frozen for the same three years | Government policy | Autumn Budget 2025, 26 November 2025 |
| Plan 2 and Postgraduate interest capped at 6% to 31 August 2027 | Government policy | Department for Education, 7 April 2026 |
| The Budget will be on Wednesday 28 October 2026 | Confirmed | HM Treasury, 31 July 2026 |
| The freeze should be reversed at this Budget; a “moral obligation” | Recommendation only | Treasury Committee report, 7 July 2026 |
| All aspects of student finance are “under review” | Government position, not a commitment | HM Treasury and DfE joint response, 13 September 2026 |
| A statutory review of Plan 2 repayment terms and thresholds | Bill before Parliament, very unlikely to pass | Student Finance (Review) Bill, 15 September 2026 |
| The Chancellor should use this Budget to give graduates “breathing space” | A call, not a policy | Dame Meg Hillier, Committee Chair, 13 September 2026 |
| Any specific student loan measure at this Budget | Unknown. Nothing announced or trailed | No source, because there is none |
On the speculation row, deliberately
We are not repeating pre-Budget rumours, including ones we have seen. As at 20 September 2026 HM Treasury has announced nothing about student loans for this Budget, and we have found no on-the-record briefing that would let us report a measure as likely. An anonymous pre-Budget story costs a reader nothing to read and a great deal to act on. If a measure is put on the record before 28 October, it will appear in this table with the Status column filled in honestly.
What Is Already Policy
Whatever happens on Wednesday 28 October 2026, these are the rules in force now. They are unaffected by speculation, and they are what your payslip is calculated from this month. A Budget can change them prospectively; it cannot change what has already been deducted.
| Plan | Threshold | Rate | Write-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | £26,900 | 9% above threshold | 25 years |
| Plan 2 | £29,385 | 9% above threshold | 30 years |
| Plan 4 | £33,795 | 9% above threshold | 30 years |
| Plan 5 | £25,000 | 9% above threshold | 40 years |
| Postgraduate (Plan 3) | £21,000 | 6% above threshold | 30 years |
Thresholds and rates for the 2026-27 tax year. 2027-28 figures are not published yet.
The Plan 2 repayment threshold freeze
Frozen at £29,385 for the tax years starting April 2027, 2028 and 2029, with the first uprating due in April 2030. It applies to Plan 2 borrowers in England and Wales only. Nothing has reversed it. The mechanics and worked examples are in our Plan 2 threshold freeze guide.
The 6% interest cap
In force since 1 September 2026 on Plan 2 and Postgraduate loans in England and Wales, instead of the usual RPI plus 3% maximum of 7.1%. It covers the rate period to 31 August 2027 and has not been extended beyond it. It does not apply to Plan 1, Plan 4 or Plan 5. Current rates for every plan are in our interest rates guide.
The interest thresholds, which are a different thing
Plan 2 interest slides between £29,385 and £52,885 of income: RPI only at the bottom, RPI plus 3% at the top. Budget 2025 froze both of those figures alongside the repayment threshold. Freezing them does not raise anyone’s monthly deduction — it raises the interest added to the balance of people earning between the two. If this Budget mentions “the Plan 2 thresholds”, check which set it means.
RPI
The March 2026 RPI figure of 4.1% sets loan interest for the period 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027. The Government has declined to switch from RPI to CPI, noting only that the ONS will bring CPIH methods into RPI from February 2030. That is a statistics change, not a student loan policy change.
Plan 5
The Plan 5 threshold is £25,000 and frozen. Budget 2025 set no review date for it and none has been published since. Plan 5 interest is RPI only, so it never carries above-inflation interest and the 6% cap does not apply to it.
How We Got Here
This Budget is the end of a chain that starts at the last one. Read in order, the five events below explain why 28 October carries more weight for graduates than a normal fiscal event.
26 November 2025: the previous Budget creates the freeze
Then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves froze the Plan 2 repayment threshold at £29,385 for three years from 6 April 2027, and froze the Plan 2 interest rate thresholds for the same period. That is the measure everything since has been an argument about. See Budget 2025: the Plan 2 threshold freeze explained.
7 April 2026: interest capped at 6%
The Department for Education capped Plan 2 and Postgraduate interest at 6% from 1 September 2026 for the 2026/27 academic year, in England and Wales. Proof that student loan terms do move between Budgets, and not only at them.
7 July 2026: MPs name this Budget
The Treasury Committee found a moral obligation to reverse the freeze at the next Budget, and found three instances in which official communications amounted to mis-selling. The next Budget is this one. Our full write-up is at the Treasury Committee student loans report.
20 July 2026: the government changes
Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, John Healey became Chancellor and Lucy Powell became Education Secretary. The freeze survived the change of ministers, but the people who would have to defend it did not. The realistic options are set out in what the new government could do on student loans.
13 and 15 September 2026: no answer, then a Bill
On 13 September the Government replied to the Committee. It agreed to tell future applicants that loan terms can be changed, and on the freeze it neither agreed nor refused — see the Government response. Two days later Tom Gordon MP introduced a Ten-Minute Rule Bill seeking a statutory review. Neither changes a single repayment.
Read as a chain: a Budget created the freeze, a committee asked for it to be undone at the next Budget, the Government did not answer, and the next Budget is now five weeks away. That is the whole reason this page exists. It is also the whole reason it does not pretend to know the ending.
What to Do on 28 October
Practical, and short. Most of a Budget day is noise, and almost none of it changes what you should do that afternoon.
1. Wait for the document, not the speech
Student loan measures are frequently absent from the speech and present in the Budget document and the accompanying costings. If the speech says nothing, that is not yet an answer.
2. Check which threshold any announcement refers to
The repayment threshold and the two interest thresholds are different numbers with different effects. A change to the interest thresholds alters your balance, not your monthly deduction.
3. Check which plan and which nation
The freeze is a Plan 2 measure in England and Wales. Plan 1, Plan 4, Plan 5 and Postgraduate borrowers are unaffected by it, and Scotland and Northern Ireland set their own terms. Find yours on our plan pages.
4. Note the start date before you change anything
Repayment changes usually take effect from the following 6 April, and interest changes from the following 1 September. A measure announced on 28 October may not touch your payslip for months.
5. Do not make an overpayment decision on Budget day
Whether voluntary overpayments make sense turns on whether you will clear your balance before write-off, which no single Budget measure settles. Work out where you actually stand with the monthly repayment calculator first.
Until then: nothing has changed. The thresholds above are the ones being used to calculate your deductions right now, and they remain correct whatever is or is not announced on Wednesday 28 October 2026.
Sources
- HM Treasury, “Budget to move ‘power and money out of Westminster, and into every postcode around Britain’”, 31 July 2026. Confirms the date and carries the Chancellor’s video message in full. gov.uk
- HM Treasury, “Chancellor letter to the Treasury Select Committee (TSC)”, 31 July 2026. The letter to Dame Meg Hillier commissioning the OBR forecast for 28 October. gov.uk
- HM Treasury, “Chancellor John Healey’s Growth Speech 2026”, 7 September 2026. gov.uk
- GOV.UK ministerial roles, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Records John Healey in post from 20 July 2026, succeeding Rachel Reeves. gov.uk
- Treasury Committee, Student loans: Broken and unfair?, 7 July 2026. publications.parliament.uk
- Treasury Committee news release, “Government has moral obligation to reverse freezing of student loans repayment threshold”, 7 July 2026. committees.parliament.uk
- GOV.UK, “Interest rate cap introduced to protect Plan 2 borrowers”, 7 April 2026. gov.uk
- GOV.UK, “Student loans: interest rates and repayment threshold announcement”, 10 August 2026. The 4.1% RPI figure for the period to 31 August 2027. gov.uk
Every threshold, rate and write-off period on this page is read from this site’s shared student loan constants, which cite GOV.UK and House of Commons Library briefing CBP-10654. The 2027-28 figures are not published yet. The £355 million annual cost of reversing the freeze by 2029–30 is the Treasury Committee’s own figure, quoted in its report.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the Autumn Budget 2026?▼
Wednesday 28 October 2026. HM Treasury confirmed the date on 31 July 2026, when the Chancellor asked the Office for Budget Responsibility to prepare an economic and fiscal forecast for publication on the same day.
Who is the Chancellor delivering it?▼
John Healey, Chancellor of the Exchequer since 20 July 2026 in Andy Burnham’s government. It is his first Budget. Rachel Reeves, who announced the Plan 2 threshold freeze at the previous Budget, is no longer Chancellor.
Will the Plan 2 threshold freeze be reversed at this Budget?▼
Nobody knows. The Government has not said. Asked directly by the Treasury Committee to reverse it at this Budget, HM Treasury and the Department for Education replied on 13 September 2026 that they keep all aspects of the student finance system under review — neither agreeing nor refusing. Anyone telling you the answer today is guessing.
Has anything about student loans been announced for this Budget?▼
No. As at 20 September 2026 no student loan measure has been announced or trailed by HM Treasury for this Budget. The published text of the Chancellor’s Growth Speech of 7 September 2026 does not mention student loans, graduates or tuition fees.
Do my repayments change on Budget day?▼
No. Repayment changes normally take effect from the following 6 April and interest changes from the following 1 September, so even a measure announced on 28 October 2026 would not reach most payslips immediately. For the 2026-27 tax year the Plan 2 threshold is £29,385 and the rate is 9% above it.
What would reversing the freeze cost the Government?▼
The Treasury Committee put the annual cost of reversal at around £355 million by 2029–30. The Chancellor has said repeatedly that this Budget will meet the fiscal rules with a buffer. Both statements are on the record; neither tells you what he will decide.
Does the 6% interest cap continue after this Budget?▼
Not automatically. The cap on Plan 2 and Postgraduate interest covers the rate period from 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027 and has not been extended. Whether it continues is a decision for the Department for Education about the next rate year, and is not necessarily a Budget matter at all.
Does this Budget affect Plan 1, Plan 4, Plan 5 or postgraduate loans?▼
Nothing has been announced for any plan. The freeze under argument is Plan 2 only, in England and Wales. For 2026-27 the Plan 1 threshold is £26,900, Plan 4 is £33,795 and Plan 5 is £25,000, all repaid at 9% above the threshold, and the postgraduate threshold is £21,000 repaid at 6%.
Related Resources
Budget 2025
The Budget that created the Plan 2 threshold freeze, and what it costs borrowers
Treasury Committee Report
Why MPs said the freeze must be reversed at the next Budget
The Government Response
Why “under review” is neither a yes nor a no on the freeze
The Student Finance (Review) Bill
A Ten-Minute Rule Bill seeking a review, and the honest odds on it
Plan 2 Threshold Freeze Guide
The mechanics of the 2027 to 2030 freeze and what it costs you
Student Loan Interest Rates
Current rates on every plan and how the 6% cap works
Student Loan Calculator UK Editorial Team
Editorial Team
This page is maintained by the Student Loan Calculator UK editorial team, checked against GOV.UK and Student Loans Company guidance. Read more about our editorial approach.