PhD Loans for Doctoral Students – A Guide for 2026

UK PhD loans let you borrow £31,122 from Student Finance England or £29,705 from Student Finance Wales. To be eligible, you normally must be a resident of England or Wales aged 59 or under and without Research Council funding. You also must not already have a PhD can’t be receiving other UK public funding or NHS funding. Repayment is 6% of income over £21,000 per year, and the current interest rate is 7.8%. There is no separate maintenance loan.

The Student Loans Company was founded in 1990, and the UK PhD loans started in in 2018. By my calculations, you could complete around 9 PhDs in that time (though you might not be human by the end). Maybe someone had to write a thesis on why the PhD loans were a good idea before they could be introduced.

Regardless, it seems the UK government is looking to invest more in postgraduate education, something I’m a fan of. Will the PhD loan be appropriate for your individual circumstances? That’s the £1,000,000 question (or the £31,122 question, if you prefer).

In this guide, I’ll go over eligibility, how the borrowing works, repayment, and how to apply. Some would say money is no laughing matter, but I’m going to put some jokes in here anyway (the fun police have yet to issue a warrant, thankfully).

Am I eligible for the doctoral loan?

You can apply for the UK PhD loan if you're a UK national and:

• You've lived in the UK for at least three years (not including time abroad for short-term travel or study)
• You are ordinarily resident in England or Wales (you don't just live there to study)
• You will be aged 59 or under on the first day of the first academic year of your PhD
• You don't already have a PhD or other doctorate
• You won't be receiving UKRI funding for your PhD (and haven't previously been funded by a Research Council)
• You won't be receiving other UK public funding for your doctorate, such as a Social Work or Educational Psychology bursary
• Your doctorate isn't eligible for NHS funding (if it is, you should apply for this instead)

What if I’m a Scottish or Northern Irish resident?

The loan is only offered by Student Finance England and Student Finance Wales at the moment, so I’m afraid you’re out of luck. We’ll let you know if anything changes, though.

What if I’m an Irish resident?

If you’re a resident of the Republic of Ireland applying at a UK university, you can apply for the UK PhD loan due to the Common Travel Area. Yes, even though it’s not part of the UK. This is a tad confusing, now that you mention it.

What courses can I take the PhD loan out for?

You can get the PhD loan for:

• All types of research doctorates in any subject (including PhD, DPhil, and professional doctorates such as DBA or EdD)
• Full-time and part-time PhDs, as long as the PhD lasts between 3 and 8 years
• PhDs started on or after August 2018

You can’t get the PhD loan for PhD by publication—in other words, it has to be a programme of research and/or study. You’re less likely to need the loan funding if you’re taking that route, though.

Other residential cases

I’d recommend reading the government guidance on eligibility if your situation doesn’t fit into the boxes I’ve already described. Having said that, here are the broad strokes for other cases:

• You can apply as an EU student if you began you PhD in the 2020-21 academic year or earlier or applied for the EU Settlement Scheme before 30 June 2021.
• Other international students typically aren’t eligible except under specific circumstances (such as having refugee status).

You can borrow up to £31,122 from Student Finance England for 2025-26 study or £29,705 from Student Finance Wales. It goes directly into your bank account, and you can use it for whatever you see fit—tuition fees, research expenses, and maintenance are the usual ones. I wouldn’t recommend using it for, say, a solid gold statuette of yourself (might be hard to explain at house parties).

Also, the loan amount isn’t household income or means tested, so what you see is what you get. It comes in three instalments per academic year, so you won’t get it all at once.

Finally, if you withdraw from your PhD, you’ll stop receiving payments. It’s not called the doctoral loan for nothing, y’know?

How do repayments work?

Much like with the undergraduate and Masters loans, doctoral loan repayments are income contingent. In short, you only repay your PhD loan when you’re earning over £21,000 a year (£1,750 a month or £404 a week), and you only repay 6% of what you earn over that threshold.

Repayments begin in the first April after you leave your course or in the April four years after your PhD starts (whichever is sooner). This means that you can be eligible to start repaying the doctoral loan during your PhD, but only if you're earning enough.

A few other things to keep in mind:

• PhD and Masters loan repayments are combined—you’ll make one repayment of 6% of your income over £21,000 towards a single postgraduate loan debt.
• In contrast, undergraduate loans payments are concurrent—you’ll repay 6% of your income over £21,000 towards your Masters and / or PhD loan and 9% of your income over £26,575 towards your undergraduate loan.
• How you repay depends on your employment status (employed in the UK/self-employed/etc). See the official government page for more information.
• Interest is charged on a PhD loan at the same rate as Masters loans: RPI (the Retail Prices Index) +3%. As of June 2024, that’s 7.8%.
• Any remaining PhD loan debt (including interest) is cancelled after 30 years from the point at which you ‘begin’ repayments. If you aren’t eligible to repay yet (because your income is too low), it’s still from the April date.

Frequently asked questions

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