Self Assessment 2nd Payment on Account
The second payment on account for the 2025/26 tax year — typically 50% of the prior year's total liability.
Filing deadline
July 31, 2026
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Tax year
- 2025
- Official
- Tax authority
What is this deadline?
The second of two payments on account for the current tax year (2025/26). HMRC estimates your tax bill based on your prior-year Self Assessment and splits it into two payments: one in January and one in July.
Who needs to file?
Anyone who paid a balancing payment greater than £1,000 last year, unless 80%+ of their tax was collected via PAYE.
Key dates
- Due: July 31, 2026
What people miss
- You can reduce payments on account if you know this year's income is lower — file form SA303 online via HMRC
- Over-reducing means you'll owe more in the balancing payment + potential interest
- Interest-free if paid on time, but interest accrues from August 1 if late
Prepare this return with open-source skills
These skills are in the OpenAccountants repo. Clone them into Claude, Cursor, or any AI agent and they handle the computation.
Use this skill whenever asked about UK income tax for individuals filing SA100 Self Assessment. Trigger on phrases like "income tax UK", "SA100", "personal allowance", "tax bands", "tax computation", "marriage allowance", "savings allowance", "dividend allowance", "Scottish tax rates", "payments on account", "tax reducers", "tax relief", or any question about computing a UK individual's income tax liability. Covers personal allowance (including taper), income tax bands for rUK and Scotland, marriage allowance, savings and dividend allowances, tax reducers, the final tax computation, and payments on account. ALWAYS read this skill before touching any UK income tax return work.
Use this skill whenever asked about UK self-employment income for sole traders filing SA103S (short) or SA103F (full) as part of Self Assessment. Trigger on phrases like "self-employment income", "SA103", "trading income", "sole trader tax", "allowable expenses UK", "capital allowances UK", "trading allowance", "basis period", "simplified expenses", "Class 4 NIC", "loss relief self-employed", or any question about computing self-employment profits for a UK sole trader. Covers trading income computation, allowable expenses, capital allowances (AIA, WDA, FYA), simplified expenses, the trading allowance, basis period reform, loss relief, and Class 4 NIC interaction. ALWAYS read this skill before touching any UK self-employment work.
Use this skill whenever asked about UK Student Loan repayment for self-employed individuals. Trigger on phrases like "student loan repayment", "Plan 1", "Plan 2", "Plan 4", "Plan 5", "postgraduate loan", "student loan self-employed", "student loan Self Assessment", "SLC repayment", "student loan deduction", or any question about student loan obligations for a self-employed client. Also trigger when classifying bank statement transactions showing SLC repayments via SA, PAYE student loan deductions, or direct SLC payments. This skill covers Plan 1-5 and Postgraduate Loan thresholds, self-employed SA calculation, multiple plan interaction, bank statement classification patterns, overseas earnings, write-off periods, and edge cases. ALWAYS read this skill before touching any UK student loan repayment work.
ALWAYS USE THIS SKILL when a user asks for help preparing their UK tax returns AND mentions freelancing, self-employment, sole trading, contracting, or side hustle income. Trigger on phrases like "help me do my UK taxes", "prepare my self-assessment", "I'm self-employed in the UK", "I'm a sole trader", "do my SA100", "prepare my tax return", or any similar phrasing where the user is a UK-resident self-employed individual needing tax return preparation. This is the REQUIRED entry point for the UK self-employed tax workflow -- every other skill in the stack (uk-vat-return, uk-self-employment-sa103, uk-income-tax-sa100, uk-national-insurance, uk-student-loan-repayment, uk-payments-on-account, uk-return-assembly) depends on this skill running first to produce a structured intake package. Uses upload-first workflow -- the user dumps all their documents and the skill infers as much as possible before asking questions. Uses ask_user_input_v0 for structured questions instead of one-at-a-time prose. Built for speed. UK full-year residents only; sole traders.
Use this skill whenever asked about UK National Insurance Contributions (NIC) for self-employed individuals. Trigger on phrases like "how much NIC do I pay", "Class 2 contributions", "Class 4 NIC", "national insurance self-employed", "NIC calculation", "state pension qualifying years", "NIC deferment", "voluntary Class 2", "HMRC NIC payment", or any question about UK NIC obligations for a self-employed client. Also trigger when classifying bank statement transactions showing HMRC NIC debits, Self Assessment NIC payments, or Class 2 direct debits. This skill covers Class 2 voluntary contributions, Class 4 profit-based rates, thresholds, payment schedule, bank statement pattern classification, interaction with employment Class 1, deferment, state pension entitlement, and edge cases. ALWAYS read this skill before touching any UK NIC-related work.
Final orchestrator skill that assembles the complete UK filing package for UK-resident sole traders. Consumes outputs from all UK content skills (uk-vat-return for VAT100, uk-self-employment-sa103 for trading income, uk-income-tax-sa100 for personal tax, uk-national-insurance for Class 2+4 NIC, uk-student-loan-repayment for student loan, uk-payments-on-account for payments on account) to produce a single unified reviewer package containing every worksheet, every form, every brief section, all cross-skill reconciliations, and the final action list with payment instructions, filing instructions, and next-year planning. This is the capstone skill that runs last and produces the final deliverable. MUST be loaded alongside all UK content skills listed above. UK full-year residents only. Sole traders only.
This page is informational only and not tax advice. Verify dates and requirements against the official tax authority before filing.