A P11D is a form your employer sends to HMRC to report the taxable benefits and expenses you received from your job during a tax year, where that value was not already taxed through your pay. Typical examples are a company car, private medical insurance or an interest-free loan. You do not complete it yourself. Your employer files it and must give you the details. This guide explains what the form shows, who gets one, when it is due and what it can mean for your tax code and your records.
TL;DR
- A P11D reports benefits in kind and some expenses from your employer that were not put through payroll. GOV.UK says it covers things like a company car or an interest-free loan.
- Your employer completes it, not you. A separate form is used for each employee or director.
- Employers usually file and give you your copy by 6 July after the tax year ends.
- The values can change your PAYE tax code, so check your coding notice and your payslips.
- If your employer payrolls a benefit, it does not appear on a P11D. Keep your copy and payslips together for at least 2 years.
Table of Contents
- What does P11D mean?
- What does a P11D show?
- A simple example of how a benefit is reported
- Who completes a P11D, and who receives one?
- P11D and P11D(b): what is the difference?
- When is a P11D due?
- Are P11Ds still issued? Payrolling benefits
- How a P11D can affect your tax
- What to do when you receive your P11D details
- How long to keep it
- Perspective
- Keeping your pay records together
- Related terms you may see alongside a P11D
- FAQ
- Sources
What does P11D mean?
P11D is the name of an HMRC form, not an abbreviation with a hidden meaning. It is the end-of-year return on which an employer lists expenses payments, benefits and facilities provided to employees and directors. HMRC uses it to work out whether you have paid the right amount of income tax.
The P in the name belongs to the same family of forms as the P45 and P60. The P45 shows your pay and tax when you leave a job. The P60 summarises your pay and tax for the year. The P11D covers something different: the non-cash extras and certain expenses that sit outside your wages. Which? describes it as showing the cash value of work-related taxable expenses and benefits received over the tax year that were not already included in wages.
So if you searched "what is a P11D" after finding the term in a letter, an email from your employer or a Self Assessment prompt, the short answer is this: it is your employer's report to HMRC about the value of your perks.
What does a P11D show?
The form lists each taxable benefit or expense, its cash value for the tax year, and any amount you paid back to your employer toward it. It also carries your details and your employer's. The headline figures are what matter to you, because HMRC uses them to calculate the tax due on those benefits.
Common benefits and expenses reported
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals says reportable items are generally things a company pays for that the employee benefits from. These can include:
- company cars and fuel for private use
- private medical or dental insurance
- vouchers and non-cash awards
- loans
- assets transferred to you or made available for personal use
- subscriptions and memberships
- business travel or entertainment expenses that are not exempt
BDO adds vans provided for personal use, accommodation, bills of yours that your employer paid, and employer loans over £10,000 where no or low interest is charged.
What a P11D does not show
The form does not show your salary, your income tax deducted through PAYE or your National Insurance contributions. Those appear on your payslips and your P60. Benefits that your employer has already taxed through payroll are also left off. The form is about the extras, so you need payslips and a P11D side by side to see the whole picture of what your job is worth.
A simple example of how a benefit is reported
Imagine you earn a salary through payroll and your employer also pays for your private medical insurance. The premium is not part of your pay, so it does not show on your payslip as earnings. At the end of the tax year, the employer reports the cash value of that insurance on your P11D.
HMRC then knows you received a taxable benefit worth that amount. It can adjust your tax code so that the extra tax is collected from your pay in a later year, or ask you to declare it on a Self Assessment return if you file one. You do not hand over a cheque for the benefit: the tax is collected through the code or the return.
The figures here are only illustrative. The actual cash value depends on the benefit and on HMRC's rules for valuing it, which your employer applies when completing the form.
Who completes a P11D, and who receives one?
The employer does. GOV.UK's guidance says the form should be completed by the employer or the person making the expenses payments or giving the benefits, and that a separate form should be used for each employee.
You may receive one if you are an employee or a company director who got taxable benefits or expenses that were not payrolled. GOV.UK's completion guidance says employers must report these for employees and directors, including benefits given to their families or households.
Some points readers often ask about:
- Directors of small companies. The Federation of Small Businesses says that if you are the only director and have no employees, you still need to submit the P11D and P11D(b) each year, because you are both employer and employee.
- Freelancers and sole traders. Self-employed people do not file a P11D for themselves, because they are not employees of their own business.
- Agency workers and job changers. If you have had several employers in one tax year, each one that provided a non-payrolled benefit reports its own. You may end up with more than one set of details for the same year.
P11D and P11D(b): what is the difference?
The P11D is the individual report about you. The P11D(b) is the employer's own summary. It is used to declare the Class 1A National Insurance the employer owes on the benefits provided. ADP explains that employees do not usually pay National Insurance on benefits reported on a P11D, but employers may owe Class 1A.
For you as an employee, the P11D matters more. The P11D(b) is an employer-side filing that you will rarely see.
When is a P11D due?
The usual deadline is 6 July after the end of the tax year, which runs from 6 April to 5 April. The Federation of Small Businesses states that employers must give each employee or director their copy by that date. So the details for 2025/26 were due by 6 July 2026, and those for 2026/27 will be due by 6 July 2027.
Since 6 April 2023, employers have had to file P11D and P11D(b) returns online unless they are digitally exempt, according to GOV.UK. The same guidance says a late P11D may lead to a penalty of up to £300, with a further penalty of up to £60 a day if the failure continues. That is the employer's liability, not yours, but it explains why you should expect to hear from your employer around early summer if you received benefits.
If you have not received your details by mid-July and you know you had benefits, ask your employer or payroll team first. You are entitled to the information, and the request is routine.
Are P11Ds still issued? Payrolling benefits
Yes, but fewer employers use them than before. Employers can choose to put benefits through payroll instead. HMRC's PAYE manual explains that since 6 April 2016, employers have been able to tax expenses and benefits through their payroll by adding the value to taxable pay. This is called payrolling.
GOV.UK puts the effect plainly: if your employer takes the tax on your benefits out of your pay, they do not need to submit a P11D for those benefits. The manual adds that a P11D(b) is still needed, and that P11Ds are only needed for any non-payrolled benefits.
What is changing from April 2027
Payrolling is set to move from a voluntary choice toward the standard route. GOV.UK's payrolling guidance says that from 6 April 2027, for benefits registered for payrolling, employers add the cash equivalent to pay, deduct income tax and account for Class 1A in real time using payroll software, and do not report those benefits on the P11D and P11D(b). BDO notes that a P11D is expected to be required for 2025/26 and 2026/27, after which benefits will need to be payrolled.
For you, this changes where the information appears. A benefit that is payrolled shows up in your payslips through the year, in the taxable pay and tax lines, rather than in a form after the year ends. Rules and timings can be refined, so check the current GOV.UK guidance if the detail matters to your situation.
How a P11D can affect your tax
The benefit is taxable, but it is not paid to you as cash. Here is how HMRC usually collects the tax:
- Through your tax code. Which? says taxable benefits can be offset against your PAYE tax code, so you may pay more tax out of your pay each month. ADP says the details are often used to adjust a tax code.
- Through Self Assessment. If you file a return, you may need to include the benefits there instead. ADP notes the P11D details can support a Self Assessment return.
- Through payroll. If your employer payrolls the benefit, the tax comes out of your pay at the time, and the benefit does not need a P11D.
BDO's Caroline Harwood explains that the values on the form let HMRC review your tax affairs and update your code for the following year, so regular deductions are closer to the tax you are expected to owe.
In practice, a new or larger benefit can lower your take-home pay slightly, even though your salary has not changed. If a payslip looks lower than expected after a coding notice arrives, the benefit is one of the first things to check. You can see how a code is built with our tax code calculator, and how pay and deductions fit together in our guide to gross pay and net pay.
What to do when you receive your P11D details
A few quick checks catch most problems.
- Check the benefits listed. Did you actually receive each one during that tax year? A benefit you gave up early or a car you swapped may be listed with the wrong dates or values.
- Check the amounts. Compare the cash values with what you know. If you contributed toward a benefit, such as paying part of a medical premium, the form should reflect that.
- Compare with your payslips. Make sure the same benefit is not both payrolled and on the P11D. A benefit should be taxed once. Our guide to how to read your payslip shows where taxable benefits can appear, and the page on payslip errors covers what to do if figures look wrong.
- Check your next coding notice. HMRC may change your code because of the benefits. Which? advises checking the notice whenever you receive one.
- Raise errors with your employer first. They issued the form and can correct it and send HMRC an amended return.
How long to keep it
GOV.UK says your employer gives you details of the company benefits they have told HMRC about at the end of each tax year, and that you must keep these details for 2 years after the tax year they relate to. Keeping them with your payslips and P60 for the same year gives you a complete record if HMRC asks a question or you need to show your income.
This is easy to forget if you change jobs. Your P11D may arrive after you have left, sometimes by post or to an old email address. Before you leave a role where you had benefits, give your employer an address that will still work in July.
Perspective
We built MyPay around a simple observation: the documents that explain your income do not all arrive together. Payslips come monthly or weekly, the P60 arrives after the year ends, and the P11D arrives later still, often in early summer, sometimes from an employer you no longer work for.
When these records sit in different inboxes and drawers, small things go unnoticed. A benefit is taxed twice, a tax code changes without explanation, or a figure needed for a mortgage or loan application takes days to find.
Our approach is to give you a secure personal workspace, separate from your employer, where you upload and organise payslips and related employment records from every job. The side-by-side comparison lets you see how earnings and deductions changed from one period to the next, which is exactly where a new tax code or a payrolled benefit shows up first.
We think a P11D is easiest to understand when you can place it next to the payslips for the same tax year. That is what MyPay is designed to help you do.
Moeed
Keeping your pay records together
If you have had more than one employer or agency, the paperwork multiplies quickly. MyPay is designed to let you upload, organise and retrieve payslips from different employers in one place, compare them side by side to see changes in earnings and tax deductions, and use budgeting tools alongside them. Your workspace is personal and separate from employer access.
You can see how the platform is set up on our How it works page, or start from the MyPay home page.
Related terms you may see alongside a P11D
The P11D sits among several documents and codes. A quick map helps.
| Document or term | What it tells you | Who provides it |
|---|---|---|
| Payslip | Pay, tax and deductions for one pay period | Employer |
| P60 | Pay and tax for the whole tax year | Employer |
| P45 | Pay and tax to date when you leave a job | Employer |
| P11D | Taxable benefits and expenses not put through payroll | Employer, reported to HMRC |
| Coding notice | The tax code HMRC tells your employer to use | HMRC |
If you work two jobs, a benefit in one of them can affect how your code is split between the two, so read our guide to two jobs and PAYE tax. If a new code appears suddenly, the page on emergency tax explains one common cause.
FAQ
What is a P11D in simple terms?
It is a form your employer sends to HMRC listing the taxable benefits and expenses you received that were not taxed through payroll. Examples include a company car, private medical insurance or an interest-free loan. HMRC uses it to make sure you pay the right income tax.
Do I have to fill in a P11D myself?
No. The employer, or the person providing the benefits, completes it, and a separate form is used for each employee. Your part is to check the details you are given and keep them. If you file Self Assessment, you may need the figures for your return.
Are P11Ds still issued?
Yes, where benefits have not been payrolled. If an employer taxes benefits through payroll, those benefits do not go on a P11D. GOV.UK guidance indicates that from 6 April 2027 payrolled benefits will be reported through payroll software instead, so check the current guidance for your employer's position.
Do I pay tax on a P11D benefit?
Yes, income tax is usually due on taxable benefits, collected through your tax code or Self Assessment. Employees do not usually pay National Insurance on these benefits, but employers may owe Class 1A. If you think the value is wrong, ask your employer to review the form.
When will I get my P11D?
Employers usually must give you your copy by 6 July after the tax year ends. If you have left the company, make sure they hold an up-to-date address for you. If nothing arrives by mid-July and you had benefits, ask your payroll or HR team.
Sources
- Your P45, P60 and P11D form: P11D, GOV.UK
- Guidance on how to complete P11D forms (480: Chapter 25), GOV.UK
- How to complete P11D and P11D(b), GOV.UK
- PAYE58701, HMRC PAYE manual
- Paying your employees' expenses and benefits through your payroll, GOV.UK
- Tax on company benefits: keeping records and reporting changes, GOV.UK
- P60, P45 and P11D forms explained, Which?
- A guide to P11D (and P11D(b)) returns, CIPP
- What is a P11D? Complete guide for employers, FSB
- P11D tips and legislation changes, BDO
- What is a P11D?, ADP UK