Marriage Allowance Transfer Checker (UK, 2025/26)

Marriage Allowance requires legal marriage or a registered civil partnership. Cohabiting couples — even with children or decades together — don't qualify. Divorced or dissolved partnerships don't qualify from the dissolution date.

Add up all taxable income (salary, self-employment, pension, rental, interest above the Savings Allowance). The partner whose total is below £12,570 is the "non-taxpayer" — they're the one transferring their allowance.

The higher earner must be in the basic-rate band: above £12,570 but at or below £50,270 (rUK) or £43,662 (Scotland). If they're at higher rate (40%/41%/42%), you don't qualify. The calculator flags this automatically.

Check each of the 4 prior tax years. If both eligibility conditions held, claim that year. Even if your circumstances changed in a year (new job, pay rise), you can partial-claim. Deadlines run 4 years from each tax year-end.

The lower earner logs into their HMRC Personal Tax Account and clicks "Apply for Marriage Allowance". You'll need both partners' NI numbers. Approval takes 2–4 weeks; backdated refunds arrive by cheque or bank transfer.

After approval, check that the transferring spouse's code changes to 1131N and the receiving spouse's to 1383M. If codes don't update, call HMRC on 0300 200 3300 within 30 days — delays cause temporary over-deductions.

At the start of each tax year (April), check that both partners still qualify. A promotion, switch to self-employment or return to work can change eligibility overnight. HMRC's auto-continuation assumes nothing changed.

HMRC doesn't actually move cash — it reduces one partner's Personal Allowance by £1,260 and raises the other's by the same amount. At 20% basic rate, the higher earner pays £252 less tax (£1,260 × 20%). The lower earner pays nothing extra because they weren't using the allowance anyway. The transfer is exactly tax-neutral for the non-taxpayer and exactly £252 favourable for the couple.

If the lower earner has income of £11,400, they have £1,170 of unused Personal Allowance. Transferring £1,260 appears to leave them £90 short — but in practice, any shortfall below £1,260 simply becomes usable tax-relief headroom, not a cost. The transfer is capped; you can't transfer more than £1,260.

These are two different schemes. Married Couple's Allowance (MCA) is only for couples where one partner was born before 6 April 1935 — it's worth up to £1,108/year but is being phased out. Marriage Allowance (MA) is for all other qualifying married/civil-partnership couples and is worth £252/year. You cannot claim both simultaneously.

HICBC kicks in when one partner earns over £60,000 (2024/25+). If the higher earner is near the HICBC threshold AND qualifies for MA, the £252 saving may be offset by a smaller HICBC increase because MA reduces their taxable income slightly. The calculator doesn't model HICBC — run both calculators if you're near £60k.

See your household post-allowance take-home with the Take-Home Pay Calculator. If either spouse has NI gaps, check ROI with the NI Gap State Pension Top-Up ROI Calculator. For self-employed partners, map payment dates with the Self-Assessment Payment Schedule Calculator.