Which form do I need?
Three different forms, one underlying problem. The right form depends on whether you've emptied the pension pot and whether you have any other taxable income for the rest of the tax year. If you're not sure, the decision tree below covers the four common situations.
- 1 I've taken part of my pension and the pension still has money in it→ Use form P55. This is the most common case — a single UFPLS or one-off drawdown payment with money left in the pot, and no plans to take more in this tax year.
- 2 I've emptied the pot and have no other taxable income→ Use form P50Z. Typical fit: a small pot taken in one go by someone who hasn't yet reached State Pension age and isn't working.
- 3 I've emptied the pot and have other taxable income (a job, the State Pension, another pension)→ Use form P53Z. You still get the refund, but HMRC needs to know about your other income to calculate it correctly.
- 4 I already file Self Assessment→ You can wait — your SA return will reconcile the overpayment when you file it. But you can still file P55/P50Z/P53Z to get the money back sooner. Just remember to declare the withdrawal and any refund already received on your SA return.
Why emergency tax happens — the worked example
The single sentence version: HMRC's payroll software runs on monthly cycles, and when your pension provider asks the system how much tax to deduct from your first withdrawal, it answers as if that payment were one month's pay times twelve. The longer version is worth understanding because it explains why providers can't just 'fix' the over-tax and why the burner-withdrawal trick works.
- Your first withdrawal hits the provider's payroll run. The provider doesn't
have a current cumulative tax code from HMRC for your pension, so it must apply an
emergency Month-1 code (often shown as
1257L M1or1257L W1/M1). - The system pretends this is one month of pay. It allocates 1/12 of your personal allowance (about £1,048), 1/12 of the basic-rate band (next ~£3,142 taxed at 20%), 1/12 of the higher-rate band (next ~£6,225 at 40%) and everything above at 45%.
- Apply that ladder to £20,000 in one go. Most of the payment slams into 40% and 45% bands. The tax bill is roughly £7,641.
- What you actually owe — if this £20,000 is your only income — is the tax on a single annual amount of £20,000: personal allowance covers the first £12,570, the remaining £7,430 is taxed at 20% = £1,486.
- The over-tax — the refund you're owed — is roughly £6,155. Reclaim via P55/P50Z/P53Z.
Figures use rUK 2026/27 bands: personal allowance £12,570; basic rate 20% up to £50,270; higher rate 40% to £125,140; additional rate 45% above. Scottish rates differ slightly but the Month-1 over-deduction is similar in size.
The three forms compared
Same outcome, different starting situations. All three forms can be filed online via your Personal Tax Account, or downloaded and posted in. The online route is materially faster.
| Form | Use it when | Where to file | Typical refund time | Online? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P55 | You've taken a taxable lump sum but the pension still has money left, and you don't plan to take more in this tax year. | GOV.UK | 4–8 weeks | Yes |
| P50Z | You've emptied the pension pot and have no other taxable income for the rest of the tax year (no job, no State Pension yet, no taxable benefits). | GOV.UK | 4–8 weeks | Yes |
| P53Z | You've emptied the pension pot but have other taxable income (a job, the State Pension, another pension, taxable benefits). | GOV.UK | 4–8 weeks | Yes |
HMRC's published service standard is to process correctly completed claims within 30 days. Real-world experience clusters at four to eight weeks for online submissions; postal forms can take longer. You'll need your P45 from the pension provider (issued after the taxable withdrawal), an estimate of any other income for the rest of the tax year, and your National Insurance number.
Worked example — what you actually pay on £20,000
Assume Sandra takes a £20,000 taxable pension withdrawal — the bit left after she's already taken her 25% tax-free PCLS — and it's her only income for the tax year (early retiree, State Pension still years away). Under a normal cumulative tax code she'd pay about £1,486. Under the Month-1 emergency code she pays roughly £7,641. The difference is a refund waiting to be claimed.
| £20,000 taxable withdrawal | Calculation | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| Expected (correct annual tax code, no other income) | £12,570 covered by PA; £7,430 × 20% | £1,486 |
| Emergency Month-1 deduction at source | 1/12 PA, 1/12 of each band; payment treated as 1 month of a £240,000 salary | £7,641 |
| Refund due via P55 | M1 tax minus correct annual tax | £6,155 |
If Sandra has other income — say, a part-time job paying £15,000 — her expected tax on the £20,000 is higher (the personal allowance is already used elsewhere) so the refund is smaller. That's why the form asks about your other income: HMRC needs to know what your real tax bill on the withdrawal should have been to work out the over-tax. The calculator below does the same maths for your own numbers.
Will you be over-taxed? Inline calculator
Excludes the 25% tax-free PCLS — enter the taxable portion only.
Salary, State Pension, other pensions, taxable benefits — all combined.
You're likely to be over-taxed by £6,155 on a £20,000 withdrawal with £0 of other taxable income. HMRC's published service standard is 30 days from receiving a complete form; in practice most online claims pay out in four to eight weeks.
Estimate only. Uses rUK 2026/27 bands and HMRC's standard Month-1 mechanic. Real refunds can differ slightly because of part-year income, marriage allowance transfers, Scottish rates, or PAYE adjustments already in flight. Always check the figure HMRC actually issues on your P800 or refund letter.
Three real scenarios
Situation: Wants £40,000 net for a kitchen extension. Takes £53,333 as a single UFPLS — £13,333 tax-free, £40,000 taxable. Has no other income this tax year.
Sandra's pension provider applies the Month-1 emergency code. On a single £40,000 taxable withdrawal, the system treats her as if she earns £480,000 a year — well into additional-rate territory and with her personal allowance fully tapered. The deduction at source is roughly £16,641.
- Expected tax (no other income, full PA): about £5,486
- Month-1 tax taken at source: about £16,641
- Over-tax / refund: about £11,155
Because the pension still has money in it, she files P55 online via her Personal Tax Account the week after the withdrawal lands. HMRC pays the refund five weeks later by bank transfer. The kitchen happens on schedule; the £10,000+ over-tax doesn't sit unrecovered for nine months.
Situation: Has a small legacy pension worth £30,000. Recently retired, State Pension doesn't start until 67. Decides to take the whole pot in one tax year.
Geoff takes £7,500 as tax-free PCLS and £22,500 as taxable income, in a single payment. With no other taxable income this year, his expected annual tax is about £1,986. The Month-1 mechanic deducts roughly £8,766 instead.
- Form: P50Z (pot empty, no other taxable income this year)
- Refund: about £6,780
- Filing route: online via GOV.UK, with his P45 to hand
HMRC issues the refund six weeks after submission. Once the State Pension starts at 67, it'll come on top — but for this tax year, the P50Z form is the right one because Geoff is confirming to HMRC he's not earning anything else.
Situation: Earns £22,000 from a part-time job. Decides to draw £5,000 of taxable income from a small pension to top up holiday spending. Pension still has £40,000 left.
On Linda's part-time salary alone she's a basic-rate taxpayer. The marginal tax cost of an extra £5,000 of pension income is just £1,000 (20%). But the pension provider, with no cumulative tax code on file for the pension specifically, applies Month-1. The system treats the £5,000 as £60,000/year of new income on top of any other coded earnings, and deducts roughly £953 at source.
- Refund: about -£47
- Form: P53Z wouldn't fit (pot isn't empty); the right form is P55 (partial withdrawal, money left, other income disclosed on the form).
Linda files P55 online and gets the refund in four weeks. For her, the bigger lesson is the one for next time: a token £100 burner withdrawal a few weeks before the £5,000 would likely have prompted HMRC to issue a correct cumulative code to the pension, and the Month-1 hit would have been on a much smaller payment.
Most of the over-tax happens on the first taxable payment from a given pension scheme — because that's when HMRC hasn't yet given the provider a cumulative tax code. The workaround is to deliberately make your first taxable withdrawal a tiny one. Take a token £100 (or even £1 with some providers) as your first taxable payment. The provider deducts Month-1 emergency tax on that £100 — a few pounds at most — and reports the payment to HMRC. HMRC then issues a proper cumulative tax code to the provider for the pension, usually within two to four weeks. Your next, larger withdrawal lands with the correct code in place and is taxed at your real marginal rate from the start.
Caveats: not all providers allow withdrawals as small as £100 (some have £500–£1,000 minimums); and any taxable withdrawal — even £1 — triggers the Money Purchase Annual Allowance, capping future pension contributions at £10,000 a year. Don't burn a code if you're still actively building pension savings.
Multiple pots, second pots, and other gotchas
The Month-1 mechanic resets per pension scheme, not per person. A few practical consequences that catch people out:
If you have three different pension pots and take your first taxable withdrawal from each of them at different times, each provider will apply the Month-1 emergency code on their first payment to you — even if HMRC has long since reconciled your code on the other pensions. The fix is the same each time: either burn a £100 first withdrawal, or file P55 after the larger one. If you have multiple pots, plan the order of withdrawals and don't assume that 'sorted out by HMRC' on one pot means the next pot is safe.
What happens after the refund — when your tax code returns to normal
Once HMRC has processed your P55, P50Z or P53Z, two things happen in roughly this order. First, HMRC issues the refund — usually by bank transfer if you provided account details on the form, otherwise by cheque. Second, HMRC updates your pension provider's coding notice with a cumulative tax code that reflects your real income for the year. From that point on, any further withdrawals from that pension are taxed correctly at source: no more over-deduction, no more reclaim.
For most people on a single pension and no other income, the new code is the standard 1257L for 2026/27 — meaning the full £12,570 personal allowance is allocated to
the pension. If you have other PAYE income that already uses the personal allowance — a salary
or the State Pension — HMRC will normally allocate the allowance to the larger or earlier
source and give the pension a BR (basic-rate, 20%) or D0 (higher-rate, 40%) code. That's not a mistake: it's HMRC making sure you only get the personal
allowance once across all sources.
If your code still looks wrong after the refund — for example the pension is on M1 months later, or it's on BR when the pension is your only income — log into your Personal Tax Account at gov.uk/personal-tax-account and use the 'Check your Income Tax for the current year' service. You can flag the wrong code from there and HMRC will usually fix it within two to three weeks. Calling 0300 200 3300 is the alternative if you can't get online.
HMRC's own wording
"Use form P55 to reclaim an overpayment of tax when you have flexibly accessed your pension. You can claim back any tax we owe you on a pension lump sum using P55 if you've taken only part of your pension pot and will not be taking regular or flexible payments before the end of the tax year, and the pension body is unable to make any tax refund. Do not fill in this form if you've taken all of your pension pot and used Form P50Z or P53Z, or you've taken a serious ill health lump sum payment — use form P53."
Source: GOV.UK — Claim back tax on a flexibly accessed pension overpayment (P55), updated for 2026/27.
The numbers behind this page come straight from HMRC's quarterly pension flexibility statistics. In the most recent quarter published (January–March 2026), HMRC repaid £44,100,000 across 13,942 claims — an average refund of £3,164, up almost 10% on the same quarter a year earlier. Total tax refunded to over-taxed pensioners since the freedoms began in 2015 is now within touching distance of £1,600,000,000.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is my first pension withdrawal taxed so much?
- HMRC's PAYE software almost always applies an emergency 'Month 1' tax code to your first taxable pension withdrawal. It treats the single payment as if you'll receive the same amount every month for 12 months. On a £20,000 withdrawal it pretends you're earning £240,000 a year and taxes much of it at 40% or 45%. You then reclaim the over-payment from HMRC using form P55 (pot still has money), P50Z (pot empty, no other income) or P53Z (pot empty, other income). The average refund in the latest HMRC quarter (Q1 2026) was £3,164.
- What is emergency tax on a pension?
- Emergency tax on a pension is income tax over-deducted at source by your pension provider, because HMRC has told them to use a Month-1 (M1) emergency tax code rather than your real cumulative code. It happens because the provider does not have a current tax code from HMRC for your pension at the point of the first payment. M1 treats the payment as one twelfth of an annual income, applies 1/12 of the personal allowance and 1/12 of each tax band, and ignores anything you've already earned or paid tax on in the year. The result is almost always a large over-deduction on lump-sum and ad-hoc withdrawals.
- How do I reclaim emergency tax on my pension?
- Pick the right form, fill it in online via the GOV.UK service, and HMRC pays the refund — usually within four to eight weeks, often faster. Use P55 if you took a taxable lump sum but the pension still has money in it. Use P50Z if you emptied the pot and have no other taxable income this tax year. Use P53Z if you emptied the pot and have other taxable income (a job, the State Pension, another pension, taxable benefits). You will need your P45 from the pension provider, an estimate of your other income for the rest of the tax year, and your National Insurance number. If you do not reclaim, HMRC will reconcile it automatically after the tax year ends — but that can take six to twelve months longer than filing the form.
- What's the difference between P55, P50Z and P53Z?
- All three reclaim emergency tax on a pension withdrawal, but they cover different end-of-pot situations. P55 is for when the pension still has money left and you do not plan to take more this tax year. P50Z is for when you have emptied the pot and have no other taxable income — typically someone who has retired and is not yet drawing the State Pension or any other pension. P53Z is for when you have emptied the pot but do still have other taxable income — for example, you are still working, or you are already drawing the State Pension. Pick the wrong one and HMRC will usually still process the claim, but it can add weeks to the refund.
- How long does HMRC take to refund pension tax?
- Once HMRC has a correctly completed P55, P50Z or P53Z, the published service target is 30 days. In practice, refunds typically arrive within four to eight weeks; many people report two to three weeks for clean online submissions. If you do nothing, HMRC will reconcile your tax position automatically through PAYE end-of-year reconciliation and send a P800 or Simple Assessment letter — usually between June and November after the tax year ends. Filing the form yourself is faster than waiting for the automatic process.
- Can I avoid emergency tax on my pension?
- Not entirely, but you can usually shrink it to almost nothing with a 'burner' first withdrawal. Take a small token amount — £100 is common, £1 works with some providers — as your first taxable withdrawal. It triggers the emergency code on a tiny payment (so the over-deduction is small), and prompts HMRC to issue a proper cumulative tax code to your provider, usually within two to four weeks. Your next, larger withdrawal then gets taxed at your normal marginal rate from the start. Providing your provider with a recent P45 also helps, but the burner withdrawal is more reliable.
- Will I get the emergency tax back automatically?
- Yes, eventually — but slowly. HMRC's annual PAYE reconciliation will spot the overpayment after the tax year ends (5 April), compare it with your real income for the year, and issue a P800 tax calculation usually between June and November. From 31 May 2024, HMRC no longer sends most refund cheques automatically: you have to log in to your Personal Tax Account and claim. Filing P55/P50Z/P53Z gets the money back within weeks rather than waiting six to twelve months.
- Do I need to claim emergency tax back if I do Self Assessment?
- If you already file Self Assessment, the pension withdrawal and any over-deducted tax are picked up and reconciled when you file your return — the refund (or a reduced tax bill) flows through that. You do not strictly need to file P55/P50Z/P53Z first. However, if the over-tax is large and the next SA filing deadline is months away, you can still file the relevant pension form to get the money back sooner. Just remember to include the withdrawal and the tax already paid on your SA return at year-end, so you don't claim the same refund twice.
- Why does HMRC tax my pension withdrawal as if it were 12 times bigger?
- HMRC's PAYE payroll system runs on monthly pay cycles. When your pension provider asks the system 'how much tax should I deduct from this £20,000 payment?' and there's no current cumulative tax code on file, the system answers as if the payment were one month's pay. So it allocates 1/12 of your personal allowance (about £1,048) and 1/12 of each tax band — meaning only ~£3,142 fits in the basic-rate band, the next ~£6,225 hits 40%, and anything above goes to 45%. That's why a £20,000 withdrawal can attract £7,000–£8,000 of tax instead of the £1,500–£4,000 you'd actually owe. It's a system limitation, not a policy choice.
- What tax code should my pension provider use?
- Once HMRC has reconciled your pension withdrawal with your other income, it issues your provider a cumulative tax code based on your full personal allowance and any other income — typically 1257L for the 2026/27 tax year if the pension is your only source of taxable income, or a lower code (sometimes BR or D0) if the pension is a secondary source on top of, for example, the State Pension. Pension providers must apply whatever code HMRC tells them to use — they cannot override it. If you think the code is wrong, complain to HMRC, not the provider, via your Personal Tax Account or by phone.
Sources
Every figure on this page traces back to a primary or near-primary UK source:
- GOV.UK — Claim back tax on a flexibly accessed pension overpayment (P55). Primary source for the P55 form, its scope (pot still has money, no further payments this tax year) and the online/postal filing routes. Updated for 2026/27.
- GOV.UK — Claim a tax refund if you've stopped work and flexibly accessed all of your pension (P50Z). Primary source for P50Z: when the pension pot is empty and you have no other taxable income for the rest of the tax year.
- GOV.UK — Claim a tax refund when you've taken a small pension lump sum (P53/P53Z). Primary source for P53Z (pot emptied, other income alongside) and P53 (small pots/serious ill-health lump sums).
- Professional Pensions — HMRC repays £44.1m in overpaid pensions tax in Q1 2026. Source for the Q1 2026 quarterly figure of £44.1m repaid across 13,942 claims (Jan–Mar 2026), and the year-on-year ~10% rise in the average claim to over £3,160. Cumulative repayments since 2015 close to £1.6bn.
- Pensions Age — HMRC repays £44m in pension tax (Q1 2026). Cross-check on the same HMRC quarterly figures.
- Royal London for advisers — Emergency rate income tax: UFPLS & drawdown. Worked examples of HMRC's Month-1 emergency tax code being applied to first taxable pension withdrawals, with the same arithmetic used on this page.
- Low Incomes Tax Reform Group — How tax is collected on flexible pension payments. Plain-English explanation of the Month-1 mechanic, automatic PAYE reconciliation timelines, and when to use P55 versus waiting.
- abrdn Adviser TechZone — Pensions and emergency tax. Adviser-grade reference on the M1 code, how to challenge wrong codes, and Self Assessment reconciliation rules.
- Low Incomes Tax Reform Group — PAYE tax refunds. Source for the P800 / Simple Assessment reconciliation timetable (June–November following the tax year end) and the post-31 May 2024 change to refund issuing.
- MoneySavingExpert — Pension tax refunds: how they work. Consumer-facing walkthrough of P55/P50Z/P53Z, used as a sanity check on filing experience and typical refund timelines.
- GOV.UK — Benefit and pension rates 2026 to 2027. Source for 2026/27 personal allowance (£12,570) and State Pension rates referenced in the worked examples.
- HMRC PAYE Manual. Technical reference for the Month-1 (W1/M1) tax-code mechanic that underpins the over-deduction on first pension withdrawals.