If you are married or in a civil partnership, you can share your personal tax allowances if one of you earns below the personal allowance threshold of £12,570, and the other is a basic rate taxpayer.

If eligible you can transfer 10% of your tax-free allowance to your partner, which is £1,260 in 2022/23. It means you can reduce the tax you pay by up to £252 a year. You can apply any time and, if eligible, could backdate your claims for up to four tax years to receive a payment of up to £1,242.

Even if you do not qualify for marriage allowance when you first get married, a change in circumstances years later could mean you become newly eligible.

If your spouse or civil partner has died since 5 April 2018, you can still claim by contacting the income tax helpline.

Marriage allowance claims are automatically renewed every year. However, you should notify HMRC if your circumstances change.

To find out if you are eligible and how to apply search ‘marriage allowance’ on gov.uk.