Am I entitled to Marriage Allowance?

Yes, providing your spouse or civil partner is a basic rate tax payer and you have unused Personal Allowance to transfer. The Marriage Allowance for 2025/26 is £1,260.

The Marriage Allowance can be claimed by a married couple or civil partnership of any age, where one partner pays basic rate tax and the other is a non-taxpayer. The lower earner can transfer a fixed amount of £1,260 to the other, which will reduce the spouse's tax by up to £252 per tax year. 

The claim can be backdated to include any tax year since 5 April 2021. 

For example, Melinda earns £6,000 a year working part-time, so has £6,570 of unused Personal Allowance. She can therefore transfer £1,260 of her allowance to her husband Idris, so long as his income does not exceed £50,270 (for Scottish taxpayers this is £43,662). As you can only transfer the fixed amount  of £1,260, doing so when you have less than this amount of unused allowance will make you a taxpayer. However, you may be better off as a couple.

To apply for this allowance go to www.gov.uk/marriage allowance and follow the prompts. If you are unable to do this digitally contact HMRC on 0300 200 3300  and say 'marriage allowance' when prompted.  You will know when it has been transferred because new tax coding notices will be issued.