HMRC Notifications in FreePayroll

FreePayroll lets you receive and manage HMRC notices online, so you can review important PAYE updates in one place instead of waiting for paper post.

These notifications can include tax code changes, student loan start and stop notices, postgraduate loan notices, and other RTI messages from HMRC. In some cases, HMRC may also send an email alert to let you know a new notice is available, but the notice itself is delivered online and can be reviewed inside FreePayroll.

Before you start

To use HMRC Notifications, make sure:

• your HMRC credentials are saved in FreePayroll
• electronic notices are enabled in your HMRC account
• you have set a notifications start date in FreePayroll

How to enable HMRC notifications

1. Sign in to your HMRC online services account.
2. Go to your PAYE notice preferences.
3. Choose to receive relevant notices electronically.
4. Save your changes.

Once this is set up, HMRC can make those notices available electronically for compatible payroll software like FreePayroll.

Where to find notifications in FreePayroll

Go to HMRC > Notifications.

From there, you can:

• choose the date from which FreePayroll should start syncing notices
• sync notifications from HMRC
• filter by type and status
• review matched and unmatched notices
• apply or ignore notices where needed

What notice types are supported

FreePayroll can currently show these HMRC notification types:

• P6 and P9 for tax code updates
• SL1 and SL2 for student loan start and stop notices
• PGL1 and PGL2 for postgraduate loan start and stop notices
• RTI notifications, including NINO verification and generic HMRC messages

How notifications work

1. Sync notices from HMRC into FreePayroll.
2. Review the notice details, including the issue date, effective date, and employee match.
3. Apply the notice if it changes an employee record, or ignore it if no action is needed.

Some notices are informational only. For example, certain RTI messages may ask you to review employee or NINO details rather than make a direct payroll change.

Before you apply a notice

We recommend checking:

• the notice is matched to the correct employee
• the effective date has been reached
• any previous pay and tax values included in a tax code notice
• whether a loan notice starts or stops deductions

If a notice is not matched automatically, you can manually link it to the correct employee before applying it.

If you are not seeing notifications

Check that:

• your HMRC Gateway credentials are correct
• electronic notices are enabled with HMRC
• your notifications start date has been saved
• you have run a sync in FreePayroll

If everything looks correct and notices still do not appear, try re-saving your HMRC credentials and syncing again.

Updated on: 10/04/2026