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UK Payroll Glossary

P45

A P45 is the form a UK employer gives an employee when they leave a job. It has three parts and shows the employee's total pay and tax in the current tax year up to the leaving date, the tax code in use, and the employer's PAYE reference. The new employer uses the P45 to pick up PAYE correctly from the first payday so the right amount of tax is deducted without delay. If there is no P45, the new employer must use a Starter Checklist instead.

Last updated May 2026

What's on a P45

A P45 has three parts, each serving a different purpose:

  • Part 1 — sent directly to HMRC by the leaving employer, usually included in the next FPS submission. This tells HMRC the employment has ended.
  • Parts 1A, 2, and 3 — given to the employee. Parts 2 and 3 are handed to the new employer together; Part 1A is kept by the employee as their personal copy.

The P45 includes:

  • Total pay year-to-date — everything earned with that employer from 6 April to the leaving date.
  • Total Income Tax deducted year-to-date — so the new employer can pick up the cumulative calculation correctly.
  • Tax code at the point of leaving — so the next payroll can apply the right code from day one rather than falling back to an emergency code.
  • Leaving date — confirms which tax year and period the figures cover.
  • Employer's PAYE reference — HMRC's identifier for the employer making the report.

All of these figures are generated by the leaving employer's payroll software, not by HMRC. The employer owns the data and is responsible for issuing the P45 on or very shortly after the last day of employment.

How a P45 is used

When you hand Parts 2 and 3 of your P45 to a new employer, the payroll team enters the year-to-date pay and tax figures into their software. From that point forward, PAYE runs cumulatively — each payday the employer knows exactly how much you've earned across all employers in the tax year and how much tax has already been collected, so it can calculate the incremental amount due.

Without a P45, the new employer has no way to know those prior totals. They ask you to complete a Starter Checklist (which replaced the old P46 form), tick the appropriate statement about your employment history, and apply a starter tax code. This is almost always an emergency tax code — non-cumulative by default — which means you may pay more or less tax than you should until HMRC catches up and issues a corrected code.

HMRC itself is informed about the leaving via the next FPS the leaving employer files. There is no separate "P45 submission" to HMRC — the departure is bundled into the regular real-time reporting cycle under RTI.

What if you lose your P45?

Employers cannot issue a duplicate P45 — once the original is issued, that is the formal record. However, losing yours is not a disaster:

  1. Give your new employer a Starter Checklist. They can set up your PAYE correctly using the checklist; it isn't as precise as a P45 (no year-to-date figures) but it gets you started.
  2. Check your Personal Tax Account on gov.uk. Your employment history, year-to-date pay and tax, and tax codes are all visible there. You can copy the figures your new employer's payroll team needs.
  3. Call HMRC on 0300 200 3300 if the numbers don't look right. HMRC can see what was reported in the final FPS from the leaving employer and confirm the figures.

Any under- or over-payment caused by starting without a P45 usually corrects itself once HMRC updates the tax code mid-year — PAYE's cumulative calculation will catch up across the remaining pay periods.

In Ghugi terms: P45s are produced by your payroll software as PDFs, the same way payslips are. Ghugi delivers them to the leaving employee using the same matching and email flow — drag the P45 PDFs in, Ghugi routes each one to the right person.

Related terms

P60A P60 is the end-of-tax-year summary an employer must give every employee who was still employed on 5 April.PAYEPAYE is HMRC's system for collecting Income Tax and National Insurance directly from employees' wages before the money reaches…Tax codeA tax code tells your employer (through PAYE) how much tax-free income you're entitled to in the tax year.PayslipA payslip is the document showing what an employee was paid for a specific period — usually a week or a month.Payroll year endThe UK tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April. "Payroll year end" is the work an employer does to close one tax year and open the…

Authoritative source

HMRC: P45 →

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Disclaimer: This glossary is for general guidance. Specific UK tax thresholds and statutory rates are checked at publication and re-reviewed every April; always verify against the official gov.uk pages for the current tax year. Ghugi is not a payroll provider and does not give tax or legal advice. For your situation, ask your accountant or HMRC directly.