What this calculator does
This tool turns two numbers from your Teachers' Pensions Annual Benefit Statement — your accrued annual pension at the start and end of the tax year — into the figure HMRC actually measures against the Annual Allowance: your Pension Input Amount. It then applies your allowance for the year, checks whether tapering reduces it, absorbs any excess against unused allowance carried forward from the previous three tax years, and estimates the resulting tax charge at your marginal rate. In short, it answers one question: am I anywhere near the line this year, and if I'm over it, by how much?
It does not try to teach you the rules from scratch. If you want to understand why the numbers behave the way they do — where the 16x valuation factor comes from, how tapering works, what Scheme Pays is and when it becomes available — read our Annual Allowance tax charge guide alongside this page. Everything below is about operating the tool and reading its output correctly.
Full results require a one-off £34.99 unlock
What to prepare before you start
Every input matters, but two of them do almost all the work, and both live in the same place: your Annual Benefit Statement in My Pension Online. Gather these before you run the calculator properly.
| Calculator input | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| Accrued annual pension at start of tax year | Last year's Annual Benefit Statement — the career average (CARE) annual pension figure shown as at 31 March |
| Accrued annual pension at end of tax year | This year's Annual Benefit Statement — the same CARE annual pension line, one year on |
| September CPI used for indexation | The ONS September CPI figure for the year in question; Teachers' Pensions also states the revaluation rate applied |
| Total taxable income this year | Your P60, plus any additional taxable income — examiner fees, tuition, rental or investment income, a second employment |
| Pension growth from any other scheme | The annual statement for any non-TPS pension — for a defined-contribution scheme this is simply total contributions paid in |
| Unused allowance carried forward | Pension Savings Statements for the previous three tax years, if you were issued them — enter the three years combined, not one year |
The one input trap worth flagging before you type anything
The opening and closing figures must be your annual pension — the amount payable to you each year in retirement — not a capital value, a transfer value, or anything that looks like a pot balance. On a mid-career teacher's statement this is usually a five-figure annual amount. The calculator applies the 16x valuation factor itself, so entering an already-capitalised figure will inflate your Pension Input Amount by roughly sixteen times and produce an alarming result that means nothing.
A note on dates
Benefit Statements are produced on the scheme year (1 April to 31 March) while the Annual Allowance runs on the tax year (6 April to 5 April). For screening purposes the difference is immaterial and the scheme-year figures are the right ones to use. Teachers' Pensions' own Pension Savings Statement applies the exact tax-year basis, which is one more reason to treat that document, not this tool, as authoritative if you turn out to be close to the line.
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Statements you'll usually need — this year's and last year's — to fill in both ends of the year
How to read each output field
The results panel gives you six figures. They're designed to be read top to bottom, because each one feeds the next.
Pension Input Amount this year
The headline number: how much your pension is treated as having grown for tax purposes, after your opening pension has been indexed for CPI and both figures converted using HMRC's standard defined-benefit valuation factor. This is the figure that gets compared against your allowance — not your salary, and not your contributions.
Your Annual Allowance (after any tapering)
Your allowance for this year before carry-forward is applied. For the overwhelming majority of teachers this will simply read £60,000, because tapering only engages once threshold income exceeds £200,000. If this row shows anything lower, the taper has been triggered by the income you entered — see the tapering section of our guide for the full mechanics of how the reduction is calculated.
Total available (including carry-forward)
Your allowance for the year plus whatever unused allowance you entered from the previous three years. This is the number your Pension Input Amount is really tested against.
Carry-forward used
How much of that carried-forward allowance was actually needed to absorb this year's excess — not how much you have. A £0 here alongside a Pension Input Amount below your allowance means none was required and your carry-forward remains intact for future years. For how carry-forward accumulates and expires, see the carry-forward section of our guide.
Amount above your allowance
The excess that survives after carry-forward has been applied. This is the row that determines whether you have a real problem: it turns red only when there is genuinely nothing left to absorb the growth. A large Pension Input Amount with £0 on this row is a normal, fine outcome and needs no action.
Estimated Annual Allowance tax charge
The excess multiplied by a single marginal rate inferred from the total income you entered (20%, 40% or 45%). Real charges can straddle two rates where the excess pushes you across a band boundary, so treat this as an order-of-magnitude estimate rather than a precise liability.
The AI Annual Allowance Advisor
Worked example 1: reading a comfortable result
An assistant head with responsibility for inclusion has an accrued CARE pension of £21,500 on last year's statement and £23,100 on this year's. September CPI for the relevant year was 3.1%. Their total taxable income, including a small amount of tuition work, is £58,400. They have no other pension and haven't kept track of carry-forward, so they leave both of those inputs at zero.
The calculator indexes the opening £21,500 to £22,166, subtracts that from the £23,100 closing figure to get £934 of real growth, and applies the 16x factor: a Pension Input Amount of about £14,936. Against a £60,000 allowance, "Amount above your allowance" reads £0 and the estimated charge reads £0.
The useful thing to take from this output isn't the £14,936 itself — it's the roughly £45,000 of headroom sitting behind it. This teacher could see their accrued pension jump by nearly four times as much in a single year and still be clear. Having run it once and seen that, they don't need to check again unless something unusual happens to their pay. That's the normal result for the large majority of people who use this tool.
Worked example 2: reading a result where carry-forward does the work
An executive head teacher across a two-school federation has an accrued pension of £31,200 at the start of the year and £36,000 at the end, following a substantial uplift when the second school joined. September CPI was 2.2%, and their total taxable income is £94,000. They were issued Pension Savings Statements for the previous three years and can see £22,000 of unused allowance across them combined.
Run with carry-forward left at zero, the output is uncomfortable reading: a Pension Input Amount of roughly £65,818, an amount above allowance of £5,818, and an estimated charge of about £2,327 at the 40% rate implied by their income.
Now enter the £22,000 of carry-forward. "Total available" rises to £82,000, "Carry-forward used" fills in at £5,818, "Amount above your allowance" drops to £0, and the estimated charge disappears. Nothing about their pension changed — the only difference is that the tool now knows about allowance they already had.
This is why the carry-forward field matters more than any other optional input
Input mistakes that produce a misleading result
- Entering a capital or transfer value instead of annual pension. As above — this inflates the result roughly sixteenfold and is by far the most common error.
- Entering carry-forward for one year rather than three combined. The field asks for the total across the previous three tax years; entering only last year's understates your headroom.
- Using two figures from the same statement. A single Annual Benefit Statement shows one snapshot date. You need consecutive years' statements to get genuine opening and closing values.
- Omitting non-teaching income. The income field drives both the taper test and the marginal rate used for the tax charge estimate, so examiner fees, tuition, rental and investment income all belong in it.
- Double-counting a second pension. If your other scheme's growth is already reflected in the accrued pension figures you entered, don't also enter it in the "other pension" field.
What this calculator deliberately doesn't model
Being explicit about the boundaries matters more on a tool like this than on most, because the gap between a screening estimate and a real tax position can be large.
- Threshold income adjustments. The tool treats the income you enter as your threshold income. Real threshold income has specific deductions and add-backs — chiefly your own pension contributions and any salary-sacrifice arrangements. This only matters at all if you're near £200,000; the guide's tapering section sets out the full definition.
- McCloud remedy-period recalculations. Growth relating to service between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022 may be revalued once your legacy-versus-CARE choice is known, and Teachers' Pensions handles those corrections centrally. See our McCloud remedy guide and the guide's section on how McCloud affects past Annual Allowance positions.
- Marginal rates spanning two tax bands. A single rate is applied to the whole excess.
- Scheme Pays. If you do face a genuine charge, you may be able to have the scheme pay it from your future benefits rather than finding cash — the guide explains mandatory and voluntary Scheme Pays and the conditions attached to each.
What to do with your result
If the "Amount above your allowance" row reads £0, you're done — there's nothing to declare and no action to take. Note roughly how much headroom you had, and re-run the tool in any year where your pensionable pay changes sharply.
If it shows a figure, work through three steps in order. First, check your carry-forward input is complete, since that alone resolves most apparent excesses. Second, request your official Pension Savings Statement from Teachers' Pensions — they must issue one automatically where your Teachers' Pension growth alone exceeds the standard allowance, and will provide one on request otherwise, and its figures supersede anything produced here. Third, if the excess survives both of those, the charge is declared through Self Assessment rather than collected through PAYE, and Scheme Pays may let you settle it from your pension instead of from cash. At that point you're past what a screening tool can usefully tell you, and a conversation with Teachers' Pensions or an accountant is the right next step.
Most teachers never need to worry about this
Frequently asked questions
Do teachers pay the annual allowance tax charge? +
Only if your pension growth in a tax year, measured as the Pension Input Amount, is more than your Annual Allowance: £60,000 as standard, plus any unused allowance carried forward from the previous three years. Most classroom teachers never get close. It mainly affects senior leaders, teachers with a large promotion or pay jump in one year, and very high earners whose allowance is tapered. This calculator works out your Pension Input Amount from two Benefit Statements.
Can a promotion trigger a teachers' pension annual allowance charge? +
Yes, a big one can. A normal pay award or a move up a pay point adds only a few hundred pounds to your Pension Input Amount. A large one-off jump in pensionable pay, such as moving straight into a deputy headship or onto the leadership scale, combined with the revaluation of the pension you already have, is what occasionally pushes a teacher over £60,000.
How do I pay an annual allowance charge on my teachers' pension? +
You declare it on your Self Assessment tax return; it is not taken automatically. You can then pay HMRC yourself, or ask Teachers' Pensions to pay it for you through Scheme Pays, which permanently reduces your pension instead. Scheme Pays is not automatic: you have to elect for it, and the mandatory version applies when your Teachers' Pension Input Amount alone is over £60,000 and the charge is more than £2,000.
Which figures do I actually need before I can use this calculator? +
Six inputs, and only two of them are hard to find: your accrued annual pension at the start of the tax year and at the end. Both come from your Annual Benefit Statement in My Pension Online — you'll usually need this year's statement and last year's, because a single statement shows one snapshot date rather than both ends of the year. The other four inputs (September CPI, your total taxable income, pension growth from any other scheme, and combined unused allowance from the previous three years) you can either look up or reasonably estimate. If you only have one statement to hand, the calculator still works as a rough screening exercise — just treat the result as indicative until you have both figures.
The calculator wants an 'accrued annual pension' figure — is that the same as my pension pot? +
No, and mixing these up is the single most common input error on this tool. The Teachers' Pension Scheme is a defined-benefit scheme, so there is no pot of money with a balance. The figure you need is the annual pension you have built up so far — the amount that would be paid to you each year in retirement — which on a mid-career teacher's statement is typically a five-figure annual amount, not a six-figure capital sum. If you enter a transfer value or a notional capital figure instead, the calculator will return a Pension Input Amount many times too large.
Why does my result change so much when I move the CPI slider? +
Because CPI indexation is applied to your whole opening pension before the two years are compared, and that opening figure is then multiplied by 16. For a member with a large accrued pension, a one-percentage-point change in the CPI assumption can move the Pension Input Amount by several thousand pounds. That sensitivity is real rather than a quirk of the tool, and it's a good reason to run the calculator twice — once with the September CPI figure you believe applies, and once a point either side — to see whether your position is genuinely comfortable or only comfortable on one assumption.
What does the 'Carry-forward used' row actually mean? +
It shows how much of the unused allowance you entered was needed to absorb this year's excess — not how much you have available. If it reads £0 while your Pension Input Amount is under your allowance, nothing was needed and your carry-forward is untouched. If it shows a figure while 'Amount above your allowance' reads £0, carry-forward has fully absorbed the excess and no tax charge arises. If both rows show a figure, your carry-forward ran out partway and only the remainder is taxable.
The calculator says I have an estimated tax charge. Is that a bill I owe? +
Not as it stands. It's an estimate built from the figures you typed in, using a single marginal tax rate inferred from your total income, and it doesn't know about anything the scheme knows about your real record. Before treating a charge as real, request your official Pension Savings Statement from Teachers' Pensions — they must send one automatically if your Teachers' Pension growth alone exceeds the standard allowance, and will provide one on request otherwise. An Annual Allowance charge is declared by you through Self Assessment rather than collected through PAYE, so an accurate figure matters.
Does the calculator handle McCloud remedy-period years? +
No — and this is a deliberate limitation rather than an oversight. It models ongoing CARE accrual under today's rules only. If part of the growth you're checking relates to service between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022, your final benefit for that period depends on a legacy-versus-CARE choice that may not be made until retirement, and Teachers' Pensions recalculates affected historic figures centrally. Use this tool for current-year screening, and see our McCloud remedy guide if a remedy-period recalculation is what you're trying to understand.
Why is there a one-off charge to see the full results? +
The Pension Input Amount and tax charge modelling behind this tool — the 16x defined-benefit valuation factor, CPI indexation of your opening pension, the tapering test, and three years of carry-forward all interacting — took real work to build correctly. Full results unlock with a one-off £34.99 payment rather than a subscription, and access lasts 180 days so you can revisit it when your next statement arrives. For most people that's a fraction of the cost of a short conversation with an accountant.
Related guides
Annual Allowance & Tax Charge Explained
The full rules in plain English — tapering, carry-forward, Scheme Pays and McCloud.
Teachers' Pension Calculator
Project your CARE pension pot forward for free.
McCloud Remedy Calculator
Compare legacy scheme benefits against CARE for your remedy-period service.
Teachers' Pension Scheme 2015 Explained
How CARE accrual and revaluation work.