You’ve completed your Self Assessment tax return – congratulations! Now comes the slightly less exciting bit: actually paying what you owe to HMRC.
The good news is that paying your tax bill is pretty straightforward. Here’s everything you need to know about what you might owe, when you’ll need to pay HMRC, and how to get it all sorted.
How much will you owe?
Once you’ve completed your Self Assessment tax return, HMRC will notify you about any tax or other payments you owe.
If you filed a paper return, this could take a few weeks. But for online returns, it’s usually instant – the system automatically calculates everything for you once you’ve submitted all your information.
Your Self Assessment bill will include:
- Income tax – based on your earnings across the tax year
- National Insurance contributions – what you owe on your self-employed income
- Student loan repayments – if you have an outstanding student loan
But here’s where it can get tricky: depending on your circumstances, you might also need to pay something called payments on account.
What are payments on account?
Payments on account are HMRC’s way of helping you avoid a single, massive tax bill. They require you to partially prepay next year’s tax bill in two separate instalments. The first is due on 31 January, and the second on 31 July.
Here’s the critical bit though: this is in addition to the tax you owe on 31 January for the previous tax year. We really can’t stress this enough.
If you’re required to make payments on account, HMRC will let you know after you submit your tax return. Each of the two payments is generally 50% of the previous tax year’s income tax bill (so it excludes National Insurance contributions and student loan repayments).
You’ll need to make payments on account if your outstanding tax bill is for more than £1,000 and you paid less than 80% of your income tax bill outside of Self Assessment (for example, through your salaried job).
This is yet another reason why completing your Self Assessment well ahead of time is a smart move – there’s nothing worse than realising you owe more to HMRC than you’d budgeted for!
If you’re curious about how much you might owe as a freelancer, Hnry has a handy tax calculator that can help you estimate what you may owe in income tax, National Insurance, and student loan repayments.
When is your tax payment due?
Any tax and other payments you owe HMRC are due on 31 January the year after the tax year you’re filing for.
So if you’ve completed your tax return for the 2024/25 tax year, your payment would be due by 31 January 2026.
It’s crucial that your payment clears by this date. HMRC charges interest and penalties on late payments, and the longer you wait to pay, the higher the charges get. Not ideal for your bank balance!
Payment methods
HMRC offers a few different options for paying your Self Assessment tax bill. You’ll need to make sure your payment clears by the due date, whichever method you choose.
💡 For specific payment options and instructions, check out the guidance on the gov.uk website.
Early payments earn interest
Here’s a silver lining: if you pay your tax early, you could actually earn interest on it. Not a bad deal! For more information, visit the gov.uk website.
Let Hnry handle the lot
Honestly, keeping track of tax payments, payments on account, and multiple deadlines isn’t exactly thrilling – especially when you’d rather be focusing on actually running your business.
This is why Hnry exists. For just 1% +VAT of your self-employed income (capped at £600 +VAT per year), we automatically set aside everything you owe to HMRC every time you get paid, including:
- Income tax
- VAT (if applicable)
- National Insurance contributions
- Student loan repayments (if applicable)
We’ll also complete your Self Assessment tax return for you, keep your expense records for the required five years, and we’re Making Tax Digital-compatible so you don’t have to worry about HMRC’s upcoming changes.
Basically, we’re the all-in-one tax solution that means you never have to think about tax again.
Join Hnry today!
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