Did you leave the UK partway through a tax year?
If you did, HMRC is probably holding money that belongs to you. It does not send it back on its own. Put your figures in below and see roughly how much.
Before tax, as it appeared on your contract or payslip.
The UK tax year runs 6 April to 5 April, so April is month one.
Rent from a UK property, a final bonus, that sort of thing. Leave it at zero if there was none.
HMRC may be holding
£1,467
Based on earning £17,500 in the UK that year and leaving in August. This is an estimate, not a promise, but it is the right order of magnitude and it is worth ten minutes of your time.
Why this happens
Everyone gets a personal allowance of £12,570 a year that is not taxed. PAYE hands it to you in twelfths, a bit each month, because payroll assumes you will be there all year.
Leave in August and you will only have been given £5,238 of it. But the allowance is annual, not monthly. You were entitled to the whole £12,570 against the £17,500 you actually earned.
So your payslips deducted around £2,453, when the correct figure for the year was about £986. HMRC does not reconcile that by itself. You have to tell it you have gone, on a form called P85.
There is a time limit. You can go back four tax years. Right now that means anything from 2023/24 onwards is still open, and the oldest year drops off every 5 April.
Want the steps to claim it?
I went through this myself and got £3,679.85 back. Leave your email and I will send you exactly how, including which forms and the £14.50 workaround for the one HMRC will not let you file online.
Living in Spain now and working for yourself? The other half of this is what Spain will want from you. Work out your Spanish position here, free, using your own región's rates.
Forensix is software. We are not registered tax advisers or chartered accountants, and none of this is tax advice. The figure above is an estimate from the details you entered, assuming you keep the full UK personal allowance, which British and EEA nationals normally do. Your P45, P60 and payslips are what settle it.