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This guide applies to Postgraduate Loan customers. Youre a Postgraduate Loan customer if you got funding for a postgraduate Masters or Doctoral course from Student Finance England or Student Finance Wales.
You can also find out the overseas repayment thresholds for Plan 1,Plan 2 andPlan 4 repayments. Check out which repayment plan youre on.
How the overseas repayment thresholds are set each year
Overseas thresholds are based on living costs in each individual country. This is why the repayment threshold is not always the same as it is for those in the UK.
The Price Level Index (PLI) is used to measure the differences in the general price levels for each country, for example, the costs of food, housing, and transport, to allow a comparable threshold to be set.
The repayment thresholds for each country are set once a year on 6 April. Changes to this can affect how much you need to repay even if your income has remained the same.
The PLI information is taken from the most recent year published by the World Bank.
How we work out the exchange rate used each year
The exchange rate we use to convert your salary to GBP is based on the average currency exchange rates for the most recent calendar year published by HMRC.
These are reviewed every year on 6 April. They wont show any month-to-month rate changes.
How we calculate your gross annual salary using your payslips
If youre paid monthly, well use your income from your last three months payslips to calculate your average monthly salary. Then we multiply this by 12 months to total your gross annual salary.
Example:
| Month 1 income | 2,500 |
| Month 2 income | 3,000 |
| Month 3 income | 2,750 |
2,500 + 3,000 + 2,750 = 8,250
8,250 / 3 = 2,750 average monthly salary
2,750 x 12 months = 33,000 gross annual salary
If youre paid weekly, well use the average income from your last 12 weeks payslips and multiply this by 52 weeks to work out your gross annual salary.
If youre paid bi-weekly or fortnightly, well use the average income from your last 6 weeks payslips and multiply this by 24 weeks (for bi-weekly pay) or 26 weeks (for fortnightly pay) to work out your gross annual salary.
Bonuses and overtime
Any bonuses, overtime, commission and allowances that are:
- one off payments will be added to your annual income after its been calculated
- regularly received will be included in the calculation of your annual income.
Superannuation
Superannuation payments wont be included when we work out your monthly repayment amount.
If youre paid more than 12 times a year
In some countries employees are paid more than 12 times a year.
Where this happens, well use the income from your last three months payslips to work out your average monthly salary. This will then be multiplied by the number of pay periods in a full year to calculate your gross annual salary.
How we calculate your repayment schedule
We use the overseas repayment threshold for Postgraduate Loans table to calculate your repayment amount, by using the following steps:
- Well convert your gross annual salary to GBP by using the exchange rate for the country youre living in.
- Then well take away the repayment threshold (GBP) for that country from your annual salary.
- Youll repay 6% of the amount left over. This is split over 12 months to give you your monthly repayment amount.
For example:
Youre on the Postgraduate Loan plan, living in Spain and have an income of 33,000 a year.
Your salary is converted to GBP using the exchange rate for Spain which is 0.869943:
33,000 x 0.869943 = 28,708.11.
The repayment threshold for Spain is 16,800.
This is taken away from your annual earnings:
28,708.11 - 16,800 = 11,908.11
You repay 6% of this figure (11,908.11 x 0.06) which is 714.48.
This is divided into 12 monthly payments of 59.54 (rounded down to 59).
Keep your employment details up to date if youre going overseas
If youre overseas for more than three months, you need to give us information on how youre supporting yourself financially. You can update your employment details online, even to let us know that youre unemployed. The online service will tell you exactly what information we need from you.
This allows us to determine if youre due to start making repayments. If you are due to start repaying, well give you an accurate repayment plan based on your earnings or defer your repayments for 12 months if youre earning under the threshold.
If you dont update us, then the fixed monthly repayment shown for the country youre living in will be expected every month.
If repayments arent made then an overdue balance will build up on your account