Student loan repayment thresholds for 2027-28 have been confirmed. The Department for Education and the Welsh Government announced on 12 November 2026 that the Plan 2 threshold will stay at £29,385, the Plan 5 threshold will rise to £26,025, and the postgraduate loan threshold will stay at £21,000. The figures apply from 6 April 2027 to 5 April 2028.

The announcement covers Plan 2, Plan 3 and Plan 5 loans in England and Plan 2 and Plan 3 loans in Wales. The threshold is the annual income level above which repayments begin: earn below it and you repay nothing, however much you owe.

The thresholds in full

For Plan 2 undergraduate loans, the repayment threshold and the lower interest rate threshold remain at £29,385 from 6 April 2027 to 5 April 2028. The higher interest rate threshold for Plan 2 loans remains at £52,885.

For Plan 5 undergraduate loans in England, for students who started courses from the 2023 academic year, the repayment threshold will rise to £26,025 from 6 April 2027 to 5 April 2028. Plan 5 has been frozen at £25,000 until April 2027 and is due to be uprated annually after that, so the rise to £26,025 is the first annual uprating.

For Plan 3 postgraduate loans, the repayment threshold remains at £21,000 from 6 April 2027 to 5 April 2028. It has been held at £21,000 since postgraduate repayments began in April 2019.

How repayments work

Repayments are a percentage of income above the threshold, not of total pay. Undergraduate borrowers on Plans 1, 2, 4 and 5 repay 9% of what they earn above their threshold, while postgraduate borrowers repay 6% above theirs. If you are employed, repayments are taken automatically through PAYE alongside tax and National Insurance, and they appear on your payslip as "Student Loan".

For example, a Plan 2 borrower earning £35,000 a year is £5,615 above the £29,385 threshold. At 9%, that works out at £505.35 a year, or about £42 a month. Crossing the threshold by a pound costs nine pence a year on an undergraduate plan, so the threshold is not a cliff edge.

Plan 2 stays frozen for three years

The Plan 2 threshold rose to £29,385 in April 2026 and is then frozen at that level from April 2027 to April 2030, as announced at the Autumn Budget 2025. That means that as pay rises over those three years, Plan 2 graduates will repay more each year, because more of their income sits above the frozen threshold.

The new figures do not change anything immediately: they apply from April 2027, not from the announcement date. Borrowers should check the latest figures on GOV.UK before planning around a future year, as thresholds are reviewed annually and policy can override the usual uprating rule. For the official announcement, see GOV.UK, and for how thresholds work in practice see Student Loan Calculator UK.