Which Student Loan Plan Am I On? Plan 1, 2, 4, 5 and Postgraduate Explained

How do I check which plan I am on?

The definitive answer is in your online account at manage-your-student-loan.service.gov.uk, which shows your plan type, balance and repayment history. If you would rather not log in, your annual statement letter from the Student Loans Company names your plan, and your payslip shows the deduction under “Student Loan” with the plan type your employer has been told to apply.

If none of those are to hand, the rules below give the same answer in almost every case.

Which plan am I on if I studied in England or Wales?

For undergraduate loans, the start date of your course decides everything:

• Before Sep 2012Plan 1. The oldest plan, with the lowest threshold uprating history but capped interest and a 25-year write-off.
• Sep 2012 to Jul 2023Plan 2. The £9,000 tuition fee era. Income-linked interest surcharge and a 30-year write-off.
• From Aug 2023Plan 5. RPI-only interest but a lower £25,000 threshold and a 40-year write-off. Covered in detail in our Plan 5 guide.

Wales follows the same plan boundaries as England for these purposes, even though the grant and fee arrangements differ.

What plan are Scottish and Northern Irish students on?

Scottish undergraduates who started from August 2007 onwards are on Plan 4, which has the highest repayment threshold of any plan (£33,795) and the same capped interest formula as Plan 1. Scottish courses that started before August 2007 are Plan 1.

Northern Irish undergraduates are on Plan 1 regardless of when their course started. This is easy to forget because Plan 1 is often described as the “pre-2012” plan, but in Northern Ireland it never stopped being used.

What about Masters and Doctoral loans?

Postgraduate Loans (for Masters and Doctoral study, available from 2016) work differently from every undergraduate plan. You repay 6% of income above £21,000 rather than 9%, interest is always RPI + 3% with no income link, and the loan is written off 30 years after your repayment start date. If you have both an undergraduate and a postgraduate loan, the two run side by side and you repay both at the same time: 9% above one threshold plus 6% above the other.

All five plans side by side (2025-26)

Thresholds shown are for the 2025-26 tax year and uprate (or freeze) each April. Verify at gov.uk before relying on them.

Why does my plan matter so much?

Because the same salary produces very different repayments on different plans. Take a graduate earning £30,000. On Plan 2 the repayment is 9% of everything above £29,385, which is £55 a year. On Plan 5 it is 9% of everything above £25,000, which is £450 a year. That is more than eight times as much, from an identical salary.

Write-off dates pull in the other direction. A Plan 1 borrower is clear after 25 years while a Plan 5 borrower can be repaying for 40. Interest differs too: a high-earning Plan 2 borrower pays RPI + 3% while a Plan 4 borrower never pays more than Bank Rate + 1%. Our guide to how student loan interest works walks through each formula.

The practical consequence is that generic advice about student loans is usually wrong for at least some plans. Whether to overpay, whether a growing balance matters, and how much you will repay in total all depend on which plan you are on.

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