You earned below the threshold
You can ask for a refund if you made repayments but your income over the whole tax year (6 April to 5 April the following year) was less than the repayment threshold for your repayment plan.
How this can happen
This can happen if you earned more than usual. For example, if you were paid a bonus that meant you earned over the monthly threshold for your plan, a student loan repayment would have been deducted from your salary for that month.
You can’t get a refund for any repayments until after we’ve confirmed your annual income with HMRC. This won’t happen until after the end of the tax year. You can only ask for a refund for tax years that have ended.
How to ask for your refund
If we’ve emailed you to tell you that you’re due a refund
There’s no need to call us, you can ask for your refund by signing in to your online account.
If we haven’t emailed you to tell you that you’re due a refund, but you think you might be
You can check which repayment plan you’re on and check previous thresholds to work out if you’re due a refund because you made repayments while you were earning under the threshold.
Before we can process your refund, we need HMRC to confirm your income information for the tax year that you made a repayment.
If you still think you’re due a refund, you can do this in your online account, there’s no need to call us.