SIPP Tracker: Annual Allowance & Tapering
The SIPP annual allowance is £60,000, but high earners get tapered. This free calculator handles the taper for adjusted income above £260,000 and shows your remaining tax-relievable contributions for 2025/26.
2025/26 SIPP allowance calculator
Salary + bonuses + benefits + investment income + employer pension contributions.
Net contribution × 1.25 to gross-up basic rate relief; include employer contributions.
Annual allowance (after taper)
£60,000
Contributed
£15,000
Remaining
£45,000
How the SIPP annual allowance works
A Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) is a tax-relieved investment wrapper for UK retirement savings. Contributions get tax relief at your marginal rate (20% basic / 40% higher / 45% additional), capped at the lower of (a) the annual allowance or (b) 100% of your relevant UK earnings. Investments grow free of UK income tax, dividend tax, and CGT.
The standard annual allowance is £60,000 for 2025/26. Once your adjusted income exceeds £260,000, the allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 over the threshold, down to a minimum of £10,000 (reached at £360,000 adjusted income). The taper does not apply if your threshold income (roughly net income excluding pension contributions) is under £200,000 — so a high salary alone doesn't trigger it; the salary plus pension contribution test does.
Carry-forward. Unlike the ISA, unused SIPP allowance from the previous three tax years can be brought forward to the current year, provided you were a member of a registered pension scheme in those years. If you've contributed nothing for three years and your threshold income is low enough to avoid the taper, you could potentially gross up to £200,000+ into your pension this year.
25% tax-free. When you start drawing your SIPP from age 55 (rising to 57 in 2028), you can take up to 25% of the value as a tax-free lump sum, subject to the new Lump Sum Allowance of £268,275. The rest is taxed as income at your marginal rate at the time of withdrawal.
SIPP vs Workplace Pension vs ISA
A SIPP gives you control over the underlying investments — funds, shares, ETFs, sometimes commercial property — whereas most workplace pensions limit you to a curated default fund or a small range. The downside: no employer match. Use both. Most planners recommend contributing enough to a workplace pension to capture the full employer match, then directing additional savings to a SIPP for control + flexibility, with an ISA layered on top for liquidity before retirement.
How WealthWatch handles SIPP tracking
Connect your SIPP via WealthWatch's broker connections — Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, Interactive Investor, Vanguard UK. Contributions are tagged automatically and rolled into the £60,000 (or tapered) allowance tracker on the dashboard. Carry-forward is computed from your three-year contribution history. We don't currently file anything with HMRC for you, but you can export the contribution log as CSV for your accountant or Self Assessment.