Apprenticeship Levy Calculator, 2026/27
If your group's annual pay bill is heading above £3 million, the apprenticeship levy becomes a monthly payroll cost alongside employer National Insurance. Enter your expected pay bill to see whether it applies and how much is due.
The apprenticeship levy calculator runs on the rates and thresholds HMRC has published for the 2026/27 tax year, so the figures you see reflect the position your company is actually filing on rather than a historic set of bands. Change any input and the result recalculates immediately, with no sign-up and nothing sent anywhere.
If you are a director of a UK limited company, use it as a first look before a decision rather than as the decision itself. The levy rate is 0.5% of your total annual pay bill, with a fixed annual allowance of £15,000 to offset it. Real company positions bring in other income, reliefs, group structures and prior year adjustments that a single page of inputs cannot see, which is why the workings are written out below under corporation tax & limited company. Read those, then check the numbers against your own accounts, and speak to us if anything looks materially different from what you expected.
Last reviewed 12 September 2026 for the 2026/27 tax year. Reviewed by Waqas Sagar, Member of ICAEW, Fellow of ACCA, Fellow of AAT.
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Result, 2026/27
Apprenticeship levy due for the year
Levy before the annual allowance
0.5% of your annual pay billAnnual allowance offset
Approximate monthly payment via PAYE
Illustration only, figures are based on the rates you have selected and the information entered. Please check your own position with us before acting.
Estimates for the 2026/27 tax year using published GOV.UK rates. Switch between 2026/27 and 2025/26 above.
How this is calculated
The apprenticeship levy is charged at 0.5% of your total annual pay bill, meaning gross salaries, bonuses and most cash earnings subject to Class 1 secondary NIC, before deducting employer National Insurance itself. Every employer gets a fixed annual allowance of £15,000 to set against that charge.
In practice this means only employers with a pay bill above roughly £3 million actually pay any levy, since below that the allowance covers the full 0.5% charge. This calculator applies the allowance to your gross levy figure to show the net amount due for the year, then divides it by twelve to show the approximate monthly PAYE payment.
Connected companies or charities, those under common control, must share one £15,000 allowance across the group rather than each getting their own, so groups need to agree in advance how to split it between employers on the Employer Payment Summary.
What the levy pays for
Levy payments accumulate as digital funds in your apprenticeship service account, topped up with a 10% government contribution, and can only be spent on approved apprenticeship training and assessment costs for employees, not on wages or general training.
Funds expire 24 months after they enter your account if unused, so employers who pay the levy but do not run an active apprenticeship programme can lose the value entirely, which is a common reason companies review their training plans once they cross the threshold.
Practical points for growing companies
Because the £3 million pay bill threshold is not indexed in the same way as personal allowances, employers can cross it through ordinary wage growth or headcount increases without any change in policy, so it is worth monitoring your pay bill each tax year rather than assuming last year's position still applies.
Non-levy payers can still access apprenticeship funding through co-investment, where the government pays 95% of training costs and the employer pays the remaining 5%, so smaller companies below the threshold are not excluded from apprenticeship support.
What this means for your company
Treat the result as a planning figure for the 2026/27 tax year. If it changes what you were about to do, take a director's salary, a dividend, a large asset purchase or a filing decision, check it against your own accounts first. We can review the position with you and confirm the tax treatment before you commit.
Frequently asked questions
Who has to pay the apprenticeship levy?
Any employer, or group of connected employers, with an annual pay bill above the point where 0.5% of the pay bill exceeds the £15,000 allowance, broadly a pay bill above around £3 million.
Is the apprenticeship levy the same as employer National Insurance?
No, they are separate charges. Employer NI is paid on individual employees' earnings above the secondary threshold, while the levy is a flat 0.5% charge on your whole annual pay bill, reported and paid through PAYE.
What happens to levy funds if I don't use them?
Funds in your apprenticeship service account expire 24 months after they are added if not spent on approved training, so unused levy contributions are effectively lost rather than refunded.
Can connected companies share the £15,000 allowance?
They must. Connected companies or charities under common control share one £15,000 annual allowance between them and need to decide the split at the start of the tax year via their PAYE submissions.
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