Tax-free lump sum calculator — up front, or slice by slice?

Your maximum tax-free cash is 25% of the pot, capped by the £268,275 Lump Sum Allowance. The real question is whether to take it all at once (PCLS) or leave it inside and get 25% of every withdrawal tax-free instead (UFPLS) — this calculator compares both routes with the Hundred Summers app's own function. Your figures never leave your browser.

The decision most people rush

The tax-free lump sum is the single biggest cheque most people ever handle, and the default — take the lot at 55 and move it to a savings account — is often the worst-priced option: money that was compounding tax-free starts earning taxed interest, and from April 2027 it counts toward inheritance tax while pension money doesn't until then. The calculator's comparison prices exactly this: lump sum reinvested outside versus quarters released as you draw.

Neither route is “right” — a mortgage to clear or a bridge to the State Pension are real reasons to take cash up front, and certainty has value a spreadsheet can't price. What matters is deciding on the arithmetic, not habit. The full Hundred Summers plan models your actual tax-free entitlement year by year — PCLS, UFPLS, phased drawdown, the LSA cap — inside your whole plan, alongside the drawdown calculator and the UFPLS vs drawdown guide.