Which student loan plan am I on?
Which “plan” you’re on depends on where you studied and when your course started — not on anything you chose. It decides your repayment threshold, your interest rate and how many years until any remaining balance is written off, so it’s worth being sure before you rely on any numbers, including the ones from the calculator.
The plans, roughly
Your plan depends on where you applied for student finance and when your course started. You can’t choose it, and if you’ve borrowed more than once you could be on different plans for different loans.
- Plan 1. English or Welsh students who started before 1 September 2012, and Northern Irish students, whether they studied an undergraduate or postgraduate course and whatever year they started.
- Plan 2. English students who started an undergraduate course (or a PGCE) between 1 September 2012 and 31 July 2023, and Welsh students who started an undergraduate course (or a PGCE) on or after 1 September 2012, whatever year (Plan 5 applies to England only).
- Plan 4. Scottish students, undergraduate or postgraduate, whatever year they started. The Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) uses one plan type for everyone.
- Plan 5. English students who started on or after 1 August 2023 on an undergraduate course or a PGCE, under the reformed system.
- Postgraduate Loan. A separate plan for an English or Welsh Master’s or Doctoral course, repaid alongside whichever undergraduate plan you’re also on, if any.
These are the plans this site’s calculator covers, with their thresholds and rates as used from the 2026–27 tax year. See the disclaimer for where those figures come from.
Why this matters
Plan 2 and Plan 5 in particular are easy to mix up if you started university around 2023, and the difference is significant: Plan 5’s threshold is lower (so repayments start on a smaller salary) but the loan runs for longer before anything unpaid is written off. Getting the plan wrong in the calculator can flip the entire overpay-or-invest verdict.
How to check for certain
Guessing from memory isn’t reliable enough for a decision involving real money. The definitive way to check:
- Sign in to your student loan repayment account. Your plan type is shown there, and you can download your “active plan type letter”.
- Ask your employer which plan they have you on. If it differs from your letter, show them the letter so they can update payroll. See is my employer using the right student loan plan?
- Check your annual statement from the Student Loans Company, which is normally available in your online account by the end of August.
If you have both an undergraduate plan and a Postgraduate Loan, both apply at the same time — you’re not on “one or the other.”
Once you know your plan, head to the calculator and pick it from the dropdown; the threshold, share of income and interest rate are filled in automatically.