What is the marriage allowance worth?

Up to 252 pounds a year: the lower earner transfers 1,260 pounds of personal allowance and the recipient's tax falls by 20% of it. The claim can be backdated up to four tax years, so a first claim can be worth over 1,000 pounds in one go.

Who qualifies for the marriage allowance?

Married couples and civil partners (cohabiting doesn't count) where one partner has unused personal allowance - income under 12,570 pounds - and the other pays no higher-rate tax (income at or below 50,270 pounds; the limit differs for Scottish taxpayers).

Can claiming the marriage allowance cost us money?

Yes, at the margins. If the lower earner's income is between 11,310 and 12,570 pounds, part of the transferred slice was covering their own income, so they start paying tax on it - the household still gains, but less than 252 pounds. Above 12,570 the transfer costs as much as it saves.

Marriage allowance calculator: both sides of the transfer, priced

One spouse transfers £1,260 of personal allowance; the other gets a £252 tax credit. Simple: except the transfer can cost the lower earner tax if their income is close to the allowance, and the claim closes entirely if the recipient pays higher-rate tax. This calculator prices both sides, with the same function the Hundred Summers app uses. Your figures never leave your browser.

Loading the calculator… (requires JavaScript; your figures never leave your browser)

Worked example

Computed when this page was built by the same engine that runs the calculator above, so the figures below and the live tool can never disagree. Change any input above to see your own.

Inputs
Lower earner's income	£9,000
Higher earner's income	£35,000

Results
Eligible	Yes
Recipient's tax credit	£252
Cost to the transferor	£0
Net gain for the couple a year	£252

The next question

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Or answer it with everything else: the full Hundred Summers plan connects your pay, pensions, savings, property, tax and spending year by year, and stress-tests them across 500 simulated market histories.

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The claim, and the traps around it

Claim free at gov.uk, never through the fee-charging intermediaries that advertise against this exact search and keep up to half the backdated refund. The claim renews automatically every year until cancelled, which cuts both ways: set-and-forget when circumstances are stable, a quiet leak if the lower earner's income rises past the allowance and nobody cancels.

Career breaks, part-time years and early retirement are the classic openings: a retired couple where one partner's pension sits under £12,570 usually qualifies. The full Hundred Summers couples plan checks this automatically from both partners' projections, year by year, alongside the bigger cross-partner moves: pension contributions routed to the higher earner's relief, and retirement drawdown split to fill both personal allowances; see the guides for how those work.

Education, not advice. rUK figures; Scottish taxpayers' recipient limit differs slightly. The married couple's allowance (for those born before 6 April 1935) is a different, larger relief. For a personal recommendation speak to an FCA-regulated financial adviser; free impartial guidance is available from MoneyHelper.