Bumper checklist to get ahead of any changes which might affect you in 2026.
Autumn Budget: Rachel Reeves scraps the two-child benefit cap
Key dates matter every year, from the dawning of Awful April, to the release of data determining the annual uprating of State Pensions and benefits under the Triple Lock guarantee. There are some changes to look out for, including hiking inheritance tax and the tax on dividends, the introduction of a vaping tax and the regulation of Buy Now Pay Later.
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance, Hargreaves Lansdown, explains: “Nothing ever stands still in the world of personal finance – except income tax thresholds of course. And as we move on from the Budget and into 2026, we’ll have a whole host of changes to get used to.
“Next year we’ll need to get to grips with everything from significant inheritance tax changes, to a new tax and new forms of regulation for a booming type of borrowing. It’s worth being aware of all of these, and across key dates that matter every year, so we can stay on top of our finances.”
27 key dates for your diary in 2026
January 1- energy price cap changes (also 1 April, 1 July and 1 October)
- Annual bills for an average user will rise 0.2 per cent in January, and are expected to rise even more in April. It’s worth bearing in mind that this isn’t a fixed cap on the most you can pay: it’s a cap on prices for the average user. If you burn through more energy, or live in a large or draughty house, you could see prices rise even further.
January 1 – Crypto users will have to provide personal information when they buy currency
- For the first time, people buying cryptocurrency will need to share their personal details, or face penalties. The move is designed to ensure they pay all relevant tax on buying and selling crypto – including capital gains tax.
January 5 – Divorce day
There’s usually a surge of enquiries with divorce lawyers on the first Monday back after Christmas, dubbed divorce day. It’s one of two annual peaks, with the second on the first working day after the school summer holidays.
January 13 – Scottish Budget
January 31 – Self-Assessment deadline
- Some 732,498 people filed their tax return on January 31, 2025 – the last possible day. Leaving it to the last minute means you risk running out of time to check the details, so it’s key to start the process as early as possible to protect yourself.
February 1
- Alcohol duty will be uprated with the RPI measure of inflation.
March 1 – Regulated rail fares in England will remain frozen
- Normally, the government uses July’s Retail Prices Index (RPI) to set the rise in regulated fares the following year. This year, the Budget announced a freeze – the first in 30 years.
March 31 Household support fund in England ends
- This was scheduled to end in 2025, but an extension put funding in place to support the most vulnerable families until the end of March 2026. Unless the government announces an extension, it will end at this point.
March 31 – Winter Fuel Payments claim deadline
- You will have been paid automatically if you received it last year and are still eligible. However, if you didn’t get the Winter Fuel Payment last year, you might need to claim.
March 31 – Pension Age Winter Heating Payment claim deadline
- The devolved equivalent to Winter Fuel Payments follows the same eligibility criteria. If you have not received the payment by the start of March, contact MYGOV.SCOT.
April 1 – Two child benefit cap is axed
April 1 – Business Rates revaluation taxes effect
- The Valuation Office Agency uprates the values of more than 2 million businesses and non-domestic properties every three years. These values are used to calculate bills for businesses, which will be revealed on December 31.
April 1 – NHS prescription charges in England are frozen
- This follows a similar freeze last year – so they will remain at £9.90 per item – Prescriptions are free in Scotland.
April 1 – Council Tax rises
April 1 – Car tax rises, this will rise in line with RPI.
April 1 – TV licence fee rises
- This is set to rise with inflation. The exact figure has not been confirmed but it’s expected to rise from £174.50 to around £180.
April 1 – Minimum wage rise comes into effect
- The National Living Wage will increase by 4.1 per cent to £12.71 per hour. The National Minimum Wage for 18–20-year-olds will increase by 8.5 per cent to £10.85 per hour and for 16-17-year-olds and apprentices by 6.0% to £8.00 per hour.
April 1 -Water bills rise
- The average bill is set to rise. Details will be released in December 2025.
April 1 – New energy price cap comes into effect
- This is currently forecast to rise, partly because new infrastructure charges are set to be imposed.
April 1 -Air passenger duty changes come in
- These typically rise with RPI, but will see bigger rises this year because in the past the forecast level of RPI has been lower than the actual level, so a slightly larger rise will make up the gap. The higher rates on larger private jets will rise by an extra 50 per cent.
April 5 – End of the tax year
- This is the deadline to use your ISA and pension allowances for 2025/26, and to take advantage of annual tax allowances, including your capital gains tax allowance.
April 6 – Start of the new tax year
- Early birds will take as much advantage as possible of their annual tax allowances and put money into ISAs and SIPPs.
April 6 – Inheritance tax hike
- Agricultural property relief and business property relief cuts come into effect. From this point, when someone dies, after the first £1 million of business and agricultural assets, inheritance tax will apply. There will be 50 per cent relief, at an effective rate of 20%. This will also apply to qualifying AIM shares, which previously fell out of your estate once you had held them for at least two years.
April 6 – Shop pricing rules change
- New rules covering how prices must be displayed in shops will come into effect, designed to make it easier to compare prices by including the selling price and the unit price in a way that’s easily assessed by shoppers.
April 6 – Tax thresholds in England remain frozen
- This stealth tax will continue to syphon off more of your money with every pay rise, thanks to the impact of fiscal drag on income tax thresholds that remain frozen until 2031 – after the Budget extended the freeze. It’s clever, because it takes more of your pay rise, rather than leaving you worse off, so it’s harder to spot than a tax hike. However, the impact is significant. Millions more people will be dragged into paying income tax, and millions will pay a higher rate. It also affects inheritance tax (which is frozen until 2031 and was also extended in the Budget).
April 6 – The dividend tax rate will be hiked
- It will rise from 8.75 per cent to 10.75 per cent for basic rate taxpayers and 33.75 per cent to 35.75 per cent for higher rate taxpayers after changes were announced in the Budget.
April 6 – Tax relief on VCTs is cut
- The tax relief on VCTs will be cut from 30 per cent to 20 per cent.
April 6 – Homeworking relief cut
- If your employer gives you money to cover the costs of working from home, they can still do so without deducting income tax and National Insurance. However, employees can no longer claim the tax benefits if they don’t get a payment from their employer.
April 6 – New State Pension and benefits rates come into effect
- New State Pension rates for the tax year 2026/27 come into effect. They will rise 4.8 per cent in line with wage data – thanks to the Triple Lock. This means someone on a full New State Pension will see their weekly payment rise to £241.30 per week. Someone on the full Basic State Pension will see their weekly payment boosted to £184.90 per week.
- Jobseekers’ Allowance, Housing Benefit and Universal Credit and other benefits also rise today. For Universal Credit, the basic standard allowance will rise, while additional health payments will fall.
May 31 – Deadline for issuing P60s
- This is the first day that many employees can easily submit their tax returns for the previous tax year.
June 29 – 60th anniversary of UK’s first credit card
- Barclaycard was first, spending £500,000 on advertising to overcome opposition from those who felt it was an undesirable US invention. At the time, questions were asked in Parliament as to whether it would mean more inflation.
July 15 – FCA assumes responsibility for Buy Now Pay Later regulation
- Buy Now Pay Later has grown dramatically, and without regulation posed some real risks. People could borrow without understanding what they were getting into, without a full assessment of their credit worthiness and with inconsistent credit reporting. If people ran into trouble, they didn’t have the same protection as regulated borrowing. Regulation aims to address these issues.
July 31 – Payment on account deadline
- Self-employed people need to make advance payments towards their tax bill.
August 1 – University tuition fees increase takes effect
- Maximum annual university tuition fees in England rise in line with inflation from £9,250 to £9,535.
August 31 – Temporary cut to fuel duty ends
- This was introduced in 2022, when runaway petrol prices were putting drivers under huge pressure. The Budget extended it to the end of August next year. From then onwards, the cut will be gradually unwound, until it disappears altogether by March 2027.
September 1 – Free school meals eligibility expanded
- Eligibility for free school meals is made available from this month to all children in England whose parents receive Universal Credit.
September 14 – First day to claim Winter Fuel Payment
- Pensioners in England will be paid automatically if they received it in 2025 and are still eligible. New claimants can start from today. Those who want to claim by phone will have to wait until October.
September 15 – Pension Awareness Day
September 17 – Wage figures
- These are used as part of the Triple Lock for next April’s State Pension.
October 1 – a new tax on vaping and a rise in the rates on tobacco
- A new duty will be charged on vaping products at £2.20 per 10ml of vaping liquid. At the same time there will be a one-off rise in tobacco duty, so people still have an incentive to switch. This was announced in the 2024 spring Budget by Jeremy Hunt.
October 5 – Deadline to register for Self-Assessment
October 21 – Inflation figures
- These are used as part of the Triple Lock for next April’s State Pension, and for uprating working age and disability benefits.
October 31 – Deadline to file paper Self-Assessment tax return
- People are overwhelmingly filing Self-Assessment tax returns online but those who prefer to do it on paper will need their returns to arrive with HMRC by this date.
November 1 – 70th anniversary of Premium Bonds
- They first went on sale in November, and £5m worth of Premium Bonds were sold by the end of the first day. The first prize draw was on 1 June 1957, when there were 23,000 prizes and a jackpot of £1,000.
November 26 – tobacco duty rises
- Duty rates on all tobacco products will increase by RPI inflation plus two percentage points – this is in addition to the one-off rise in October.