§ 01 — The picture
Compare Outside IR35 Limited Company, Inside IR35 Umbrella, and Permanent salary side-by-side. Every calculation step is shown. No signup, no funnel, no ads on the calculator.
About sixty seconds · Calculations in your browser · Permalink your scenario
§ 02 — Chronicle
Between April 2025 and April 2026, three reforms compounded to change the answer for nearly every UK contractor. Most existing calculators have not been updated.
01
06 APR 2025
Secondary threshold also drops from £9,100 to £5,000. Cost of running payroll through both Limited Companies and Umbrellas climbs immediately. Most calculators built before this date are wrong.
02
06 APR 2026
Basic rate dividend tax rises from 8.75% to 10.75%. Higher rate from 33.75% to 35.75%. Every limited-company calculator built for 2025/26 now shows the wrong number.
03
06 APR 2026
HMRC's Joint & Several Liability rules reshape the umbrella supply chain. The IR35 small-company threshold also rose from £10.2m to £15m, shifting status determination back to ~14,000 contractors.
§ 03 — The honest answer
At a default £12,570 director salary with no pension contribution, permanent employment narrowly beats Outside IR35 Limited Company at most contractor income levels post-April-2026. This is not a bug — it's the consequence of the new dividend rates compounding with the corporation tax marginal band and PA taper.
Pension contributions, retained profit, and legitimate business expenses can flip it back. But the default story has changed, and most calculators are still telling the old one.
£30,000
£25,120
£24,403
£21,972
£50,000
£39,520
£38,862
£34,439
£69,000
£50,577
£50,570
£45,006
£115,000
£74,257
£72,293
£68,105
£150,000
£90,658
£88,821
£79,806
All figures · 2026/27 · England Wales NI · Director salary £12,570 · No pension contribution · Umbrella margin £25/wk × 46 wks · Computed live
§ 04 — Why this
01 — Transparency
Tap “show maths” on any output and see the full ledger — gross, employer NI, corporation tax with marginal relief, dividend tax band-by-band, PAYE. No black boxes.
Annual company income £115,000.00
Less: Director salary −£12,570.00
Less: Employer NI −£1,135.50
Less: Corporation tax −£23,093.04
Less: Dividend tax −£18,353.27
Net take-home £72,293.19
02 — Compare
Outside IR35 Ltd, Inside IR35 Umbrella, and Permanent salary — side-by-side, syncing inputs.
03 — Privacy
Calculations run in your browser. Inputs live in the URL — share, bookmark, no account required.
04 — Clean tools
The calculator is the product. Ads only appear on editorial guides where you have informational intent.
05 — Sources
Every rate cites a HMRC source. Updates within seven days of each Budget.
06 — Future-proof
The engine treats rates as data, not code. Adding a new tax year is a single-file update — no other code changes. Means your numbers stay current after every Budget.
/lib/tax-engine/rates/
§ 05 — The promise
Every line of math is sourced. Every assumption documented. If a number on this site looks wrong, the methodology page should tell you exactly how it was computed — and a single source link should point you to HMRC for the underlying rule.
§ 06 — Common questions
Tap any question to expand. For anything we haven't answered, the methodology page covers the calculation rules and the sources page links every rate to HMRC.
§ Latest from the guides
§ 07 — End of issue
Type your day rate. Watch the math run live across all three structures. About sixty seconds.
