Salary Sacrifice & Pensions
Sacrifice or exchange salary for a pension, car or other benefit.
Salary sacrifice swaps part of your gross pay for a benefit such as a pension or an electric car, which lowers the Income Tax and National Insurance charged on that slice of salary. These calculators show what a scheme saves you and what it costs your monthly take-home pay. Start with the general salary sacrifice calculator, then switch to the pension or car version once you know which benefit you are being offered.
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UK Salary Sacrifice CalculatorSee how sacrificing salary for a pension or similar benefit affects your take-home pay, Income Tax and National Insurance.
All 4 Salary Sacrifice & Pensions calculators
Salary sacrifice
See how sacrificing salary for a pension or similar benefit affects your take-home pay, Income Tax and National Insurance.
Open calculatorSalary sacrifice pension
A pension-only version of the salary sacrifice calculator: see the tax and National Insurance saving from sacrificing salary into your workplace pension.
Open calculatorSalary exchange
Salary exchange is another name for salary sacrifice: see the tax and National Insurance saving from exchanging salary for a pension contribution.
Open calculatorSalary sacrifice car
See the real Income Tax, National Insurance and Benefit-in-Kind cost of an electric or low-emission car salary sacrifice scheme.
Open calculatorSalary sacrifice, salary exchange, or a car scheme?
The names cause most of the confusion here, so it is worth being clear about them.
Salary sacrifice and salary exchange are the same arrangement. Some employers simply prefer the phrase "salary exchange", and some call it SMART pension. If your scheme uses that wording, the salary exchange calculator is the one that matches your paperwork; otherwise use the salary sacrifice calculator, which covers sacrificing salary for a pension or another benefit.
The salary sacrifice pension calculator is the pension-only version, for when you want the tax and National Insurance saving from sacrificing into a workplace pension and nothing else.
The salary sacrifice car calculator works differently and is worth treating separately. With a pension sacrifice the money simply stops being taxable income. With a car you are treated as having a company car, so a Benefit-in-Kind charge based on the car's P11D value and CO2 emissions replaces part of the saving. That is why low-emission and electric cars are usually the ones worth sacrificing for.
One change is already law and worth knowing before you plan: from April 2029, only the first £2,000 a year sacrificed into a pension keeps its National Insurance exemption. Income Tax relief is unaffected. Our guide to the 2029 salary sacrifice cap works through what the excess costs.