Independent briefing · 6 minute read

Plan 1 student loans explained

Understand Plan 1 repayments, interest and write-off rules for earlier England/Wales and Northern Ireland loans.

Editorial record

Last reviewed: 30 July 2026
Purpose: General information, independently produced

Who is on Plan 1?

You are on Plan 1 if Student Finance England or Student Finance Wales funded your undergraduate course and it started before 1 September 2012.

Student Finance Northern Ireland undergraduate borrowers also use Plan 1, and Northern Ireland postgraduate borrowing normally uses Plan 1 as well. Unlike England and Wales, Northern Ireland does not apply that 1 September 2012 undergraduate cutoff.

Your funding authority and course timing decide the repayment plan, not where you live or work now. Moving elsewhere after graduating does not switch you onto Plan 2, Plan 4 or Plan 5.

Northern Ireland postgraduate borrowing on Plan 1 is not automatically the separate England and Wales Postgraduate Loan product. See Repaying your student loan: Which repayment plan you’re on for official plan identity.

If you started later in England or Wales, see our Plan 2 guide. If SAAS funded you in Scotland, see our Plan 4 guide. Not sure Plan 1 is yours? Work through which plan am I on.

Plan 1 repayment threshold for 2026/27

For the 2026/27 tax year the Plan 1 repayment threshold is £26,900 a year (£2,241.66 a month on the official monthly payroll figure). You only repay when your income is above that threshold.

You repay 9% of income above the threshold, not 9% of your whole salary. A £35,000 salary does not mean you hand over £3,150 a year.

Worked example: on a salary of £35,000 you repay 9% of £8,100 (the amount above £26,900). That is about £729.00 a year, or roughly £60.75 a month.

These figures come from the calculator's verified repayment rules for tax year 2026/27, checked as of 27 August 2026. Interest rules use academic-year periods, which is a separate timetable from the tax-year threshold.

Plan 1 interest rate

Plan 1 interest is the lower of RPI or Bank Rate plus 1%. RPI for student loans is normally taken from the previous March and applied for the academic year. Bank Rate can change during the year, so the charged rate is not locked as a fixed academic-year figure in the same way a pure RPI rate would be.

The live calculator's verified snapshot for 27 August 2026 uses 3.2% for Plan 1. That is the rate in force for the current academic year. It is not a claim that the academic-year rate from 1 September 2026 is already in force.

From 1 September 2026 the RPI component in the registry moves to 4.1%. What you are actually charged then still depends on Bank Rate plus 1% at the time. Do not treat that later academic-year rate as current while the calculator is still using the verified snapshot as of 27 August 2026.

Calculator projections hold the verified snapshot (as of 27 August 2026) constant unless you change the advanced assumptions yourself. They do not automatically follow later Bank Rate decisions.

Write-off rules

By default this write-off estimate assumes your first loan payment was on or after 1 September 2006. For that newer cohort, the balance is written off 25 years after the April you were first due to repay. Loans whose first payment was before 1 September 2006 are written off at age 65.

The graduation year you enter is used for the newer-cohort 25-year write-off estimate, and still sets the April repayment start used by the older-cohort model when relevant.

If your first loan payment was before that cutoff, tick the older-cohort option below and enter your date of birth. The live calculator exposes that option under Plan 1 so age-65 write-off can be modelled when those facts are known.

Official detail: Official GOV.UK write-off rules.

Plan 1 and postgraduate borrowing

If Student Finance Northern Ireland funded your postgraduate study, that borrowing normally stays on Plan 1. See our Postgraduate Loan guide for the separate England/Wales product.

The calculator's separate England and Wales Postgraduate Loan toggle represents a different product. A Plan 1 borrower should only enable that toggle if they genuinely also have that separate England/Wales postgraduate loan.

Calculator limitations

The current write-off calculation is cohort-limited: it uses only the newer-cohort estimate described above. Forecast thresholds and interest rates stay fixed at the verified snapshot unless you change the advanced assumptions.

Outcomes are illustrative estimates, not personalised financial advice.

Official sources

Figures on this page follow the calculator's verified rules, last checked 27 August 2026. Useful official pages:

Ready to see figures for your salary and balance? Open the student loan calculator with Plan 1 selected, then replace the example values with your own.

Related briefings

This is general information, not financial advice. Check GOV.UK for the official rules that apply to your circumstances.