HMRC recognised payroll software is a product HMRC has tested and confirmed can report PAYE information online in real time, including Full Payment Submissions and Employer Payment Summaries. HMRC publishes the list on GOV.UK, splitting it into free software for employers with fewer than 10 employees and paid-for software. Recognition confirms compatibility, not quality.
Figures verified against HMRC rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027 on 28 July 2026. The recognised software list was verified against GOV.UK on 28 July 2026. HMRC last updated it on 3 July 2026.
That single sentence about compatibility is the part almost every article on this subject leaves out—and it’s the part that costs buyers money. Recognition is a technical pass mark. It says a product can talk to HMRC’s Real Time Information gateway in the correct format. It says nothing about whether the software can handle your pension schemes, your pay frequencies, your TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings, Protection of Employment) population, or your month end.
This guide explains what recognition tests, what it doesn’t test, how to check whether your current product is still on the list, and what to look at once you have got past the list.
What does "HMRC recognised" actually mean?
When a software supplier wants its product to appear on the GOV.UK list, it submits the product to HMRC’s recognition process. HMRC runs test submissions through it. If the product produces valid Full Payment Submissions (FPS) and Employer Payment Summaries (EPS) that HMRC’s systems accept, HMRC adds the supplier and the product name to the published list.
And that’s the whole of it. Recognition is simply a data format and transmission test—nothing more.
Here’s what recognition is not:
- It’s not a security audit: HMRC doesn’t inspect the supplier’s data centres, penetration testing regime, or breach history.
- It’s not a calculation guarantee: HMRC checks that submissions are well formed. It doesn’t certify that every statutory sick pay calculation or Scottish tax band in the product is correct in every edge case.
- It’s not a service level promise: Support quality, implementation quality, and uptime aren’t a part of the test.
- It’s not an endorsement: HMRC states this in plain terms on the list itself: “HMRC cannot recommend one product or service over another. We’re also not responsible for any problems you have with software you’ve bought.”
That disclaimer is worth reading twice, because it’s the reason a supplier’s presence on the list should be the first filter in your process—never the last. Around 142 suppliers and roughly 171 paid-for products currently sit on the list. They aren’t equivalent to each other in any respect other than being able to file an FPS.
In procurement terms, treat the list as an exclusion filter rather than a shortlist. If a product isn’t on it, stop, because it can’t file your RTI submissions and you’ll be in breach from your first payday. If it is on the list, you have confirmed one binary fact, and none of the dozen or so facts that decide whether the software survives your first year end. Everything past that filter is down to your own due diligence.
Recognised, approved, accredited, endorsed: what the four words mean
Buyers search all four terms, and vendors use them loosely. They aren’t interchangeable, and only one of them comes from HMRC.
| Term | Who grants it | What it actually means | Does HMRC use it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| HMRC recognised | HMRC | The product passed HMRC's technical test for filing PAYE data online in real time. Published on GOV.UK. | Yes. This is the only official term. |
| HMRC approved | Nobody | Common shorthand for recognised. HMRC doesn't approve payroll software and doesn't use the word for this list. | No |
| HMRC recommended | Nobody | Does not exist. HMRC explicitly says it can't recommend one product over another. | No |
| Accredited | A professional body, usually the CIPP | Independent assessment of payroll processes, staff competence or a service, not of file formats. Cintra is CIPP accredited. | No, and it is separate from recognition |
| Endorsed | Nobody | Marketing language. No government body endorses payroll products. | No |
If a vendor tells you it’s “HMRC approved”, it almost certainly means it’s HMRC recognised—which nearly every serious UK payroll product is. It’s the baseline every serious product clears, not something that sets one apart from another. And if a vendor implies HMRC recommends it, that claim simply doesn’t stand up.
Accreditation is a different and more informative signal, because bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals assess how payroll is actually run rather than whether a file validates.
Is your payroll software on the list?
The GOV.UK list is a plain table of around 152 supplier rows with no search, no filter, and no sort. Worse, it’s organised by the supplier’s registered legal name, and most people know the product name instead. If you run Cintra, for example, you won’t find “Cintra People” by scanning supplier names, but you will find “Cintra HR & Payroll Services Limited”.
The checker below searches both. Type a product name or a supplier name, enter your headcount, and it’ll tell you whether the entry is on the free list or the paid-for list, and whether the free tier is legal at your size.
Is your payroll software still HMRC recognised?
Search a product name or a supplier name. Seeded with a subset of the live GOV.UK list.Enter a name above, or browse the seeded entries below.
Is HMRC recognition is permanent?
Almost nothing written about HMRC recognised payroll software mentions that the list changes constantly. Suppliers are added when new products pass. Entries are amended when product names or company names change. And entries are removed—that’s what happens when a supplier stops maintaining a product or leaves the market. In the single update on 3 July 2026, HMRC made 13 amendments and 7 additions. The list also changed on 24 April 2026, 27 March 2026, 13 March 2026, 11 February 2026, and 10 February 2026. The update on 30 October 2025 included a removal. If your renewal conversation is built on “it is HMRC recognised”, check that this is still true this quarter, not just at the point you signed.
Free is a micro business option, not a small business one
Panel A: what is actually on the GOV.UK list
Counted from the GOV.UK recognised software list, verified 28 July 2026.
All 10 free products are capped at employers with fewer than 10 employees.
The list moves, so recognition expires in practice
Panel B: the GOV.UK change log
Updates recorded on 10 Feb, 11 Feb, 13 Mar, 27 Mar, 24 Apr and 3 Jul 2026. The 30 October 2025 update included a removal.
Source for every figure above: the update history on the GOV.UK page "Find payroll software that is recognised by HMRC", read 28 July 2026.
Free versus paid: the fewer than 10 employees cap
HMRC splits the list into two tables, and the split isn’t about features. It’s about size. The free table carries an explicit condition: this software is recognised for businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Ten is a hard number, not a guideline. If you pay 10 people you are outside the free tier and you need a paid-for product. That includes part timers, casuals, and anyone on a zero hours arrangement who receives pay through your PAYE scheme. HMRC does not express the cap in full time equivalents, so the safe reading is heads on the payroll: two part timers count as two employees, and a seasonal population that lifts you to 10 for one month lifts you out of the free tier for that month.
| Free recognised software | Paid-for recognised software | |
|---|---|---|
| Suppliers on the list | 10 | 142 |
| Products on the list | 10 | 171 |
| Headcount limit | Fewer than 10 employees | None stated by HMRC |
| Typical capability | FPS, EPS, basic deductions | Varies enormously, from single scheme filing to full multi-entity payroll |
| Support included | Not part of recognition | Not part of recognition, and worth contracting for separately |
HMRC’s own product, Basic PAYE Tools, sits on the free list. It will file an FPS. It will not produce payslips, it will not handle pension deductions in a way any pension provider expects, and it becomes unworkable well before 10 employees. Treat it as a stopgap, not a payroll system.
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What recognition tests: real time reporting
Everything HMRC checks in the recognition process comes back to Real Time Information. Since RTI, you report pay and deductions to HMRC on or before every payday rather than once a year. Recognised software has to build and transmit two things correctly.
The Full Payment Submission carries the pay, tax, National Insurance, student loan deductions, and statutory payment data for every employee paid in that run. It is due on or before payday. Late FPS submissions attract penalties and, more practically, they cause employees to fall out of step with Universal Credit calculations.
The Employer Payment Summary carries what the FPS cannot: statutory payment recovery, Employment Allowance claims, Apprenticeship Levy, CIS deductions suffered and periods of no payment. It is due by the 19th of the following tax month. Payment to HMRC is due by the 22nd if you pay electronically, or the 19th if you do not.
If your average monthly liability is under £1,500, you can apply to pay quarterly. For the mechanics of what goes in each submission and when, we’ve covered what Real Time Information is, or, check out HMRC’s guidance on what payroll information to report.
The feature checklist recognition does not cover
| Requirement | What to actually check |
|---|---|
| Payslips | Compliant itemised payslips including hours for variably paid staff, delivered digitally with access for leavers. |
| Pension deductions | Multiple schemes running in parallel, relief at source and net pay arrangements, salary sacrifice, employer and employee percentages that differ by group. |
| Pension payments and files | Output files your provider will actually accept without manual reformatting, plus contribution reconciliation. |
| Mixed pay frequencies | Weekly, fortnightly, four weekly and monthly populations under the same PAYE reference, with a combined FPS where required. |
| EPS | Automatic population of statutory recovery, Employment Allowance, and no payment periods. |
| Earlier Year Update and corrections | How the product handles prior year corrections, and whether it produces an amended FPS or an EYU depending on the year in question. |
| Statutory payments | Calculated from average weekly earnings held in the system, not typed in from a spreadsheet. |
| Auto-enrolment | Assessment every pay period, postponement, opt outs, refunds, re-enrolment cycles and declarations. |
| Year end | P60s by 31 May, P11D and P11D(b) by 6 July, Class 1A payable by 22 July. |
| Payrolling benefits | Readiness for mandatory payrolling of benefits in kind from April 2027. |
Statutory pay calculation
Statutory payments are where cheaper payroll software quietly fails, because the calculation depends on average weekly earnings across a relevant period rather than on this month’s salary.
For 2026-27, Statutory Sick Pay is £123.25 a week, or 80% of average weekly earnings if that’s lower. Statutory Maternity Pay is 90% of average weekly earnings for the first 6 weeks, then the lower of £194.32 and 90% of average weekly earnings.
You can recover 92% of statutory payments, or 109% if you qualify as a small employer with Class 1 National Insurance liability under £45,000. Ask any vendor to show you the recovery figure flowing automatically onto the EPS. If someone has to work it out and key it in, that’s a manual control you’ll be maintaining forever. Our breakdown of SSP rates for 2026-27 covers the qualifying rules in more detail.
Auto-enrolment
Auto-enrolment is a legal duty enforced by The Pensions Regulator (TPR), and HMRC recognition has nothing to say about it. The earnings trigger remains £10,000 and qualifying earnings run from £6,240 to £50,270. Minimum contributions are 8% in total with at least 3% from the employer. Assessment has to happen every pay period, not annually, because a variably paid worker can cross the trigger in a single busy month. Software that cannot assess per period will leave you with missed enrolments, which is the most common finding in regulator enforcement. Our guide to why auto-enrolment pensions matter goes through the duties cycle.
What the list cannot tell a mid-market employer
If you pay several hundred people or more, the recognised list is close to useless as a shortlisting tool, because every product on it clears the bar you have already cleared. The questions that decide the outcome are not on GOV.UK at all.
- Multiple PAYE schemes and legal entities: Can you run them in one system, with consolidated reporting and correct separate submissions per reference?
- Mixed pay frequencies in one population: Weekly operatives and monthly office staff under one employer, without two disconnected payrolls.
- Public sector pension schemes: LGPS and the Teachers’ Pension Scheme have their own tiering, banding and monthly data return formats. Most products do not handle them natively.
- Salary sacrifice: Correct ordering against National Minimum Wage floors and correct treatment for pension, cars and cycle schemes.
- Off-payroll working: Deemed employees reported through the payroll and flagged correctly on the FPS.
- TUPE populations: Bringing in a transferred group mid year with continuous service, protected terms and the right year to date position.
- Retro pay and back dated pay awards: Common in the public sector and in unionised environments, and painful in software that cannot recalculate historic periods.
Put them to a vendor as scenarios rather than as a feature list. Show me a weekly and a monthly population under one PAYE reference, filed on the same FPS. Show me an LGPS return coming out of the system without a spreadsheet in the middle. Show me a back-dated pay award applied across 400 people for six months. Vendors tend to say yes to feature questions and answer honestly to scenario questions—a scenario has to be demonstrated.
Whichever vendors you shortlist, ask them the security questions HMRC recognition does not ask: where is the data hosted, what certifications do you hold and can you evidence them, how do you handle a breach, and what happens to my data when the contract ends.
The easy question, answered.
So, where does that leave you? Recognition tells you one thing, and one thing only: a product can talk to HMRC’s systems in the right format. That’s worth checking, and it’s worth checking again at renewal rather than assuming it still holds—the list changes more often than most buyers realise. But it’s a starting point, not a verdict.
The real evaluation happens after that. It’s in whether the software handles your pension schemes properly, copes with your pay frequencies, and produces a payslip you’d actually want to hand someone. None of that shows up on GOV.UK’s list, and no amount of “HMRC recognised” in a vendor’s marketing changes it.
A lot of buyers don’t realise this until they’re a few months into a live product and finding the gaps the hard way. And that’s exactly why you should run the checker above first, then judge the rest on what the software can actually do for your payroll—not on the one box every serious product on the market has already ticked.
And if you choose Cintra, none of this is a question. Cintra People is a HMRC recognised platform, covering payslips, pension deductions, statutory pay, mixed pay frequencies, and more. If you’d like to see how that works in practice, get in touch with our payroll team today.
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Frequently asked questions
Q. What does HMRC recognised actually mean?
A. It means the product has been tested by HMRC and confirmed to submit PAYE data online in the correct format, including Full Payment Submissions and Employer Payment Summaries. It is a technical compatibility test. It is not a security audit, not a guarantee that calculations are correct in every case, and not a comment on support, implementation or service quality.
Q. How do I check my payroll software is still recognised?
A. Search the GOV.UK recognised software list for the supplier's registered legal name rather than the product brand, because HMRC lists suppliers by legal entity. Check the "last updated" date at the top of the page and the update history at the bottom. Check at least once a tax year, and always before a contract renewal.
Q. What happens if my payroll provider is removed from the list?
A. Removal means HMRC no longer recognises that product for filing PAYE data. Your existing submissions are not retrospectively invalid, but you cannot rely on the product for future filings, and you need a replacement in place before your next payday. Because an FPS is due on or before payday, there is no grace period to plan around. Suppliers do get removed: the 30 October 2025 update to the list included one removal alongside 3 amendments.
Q. Can I use free HMRC recognised software if I have 12 employees?
A. No. The free table on GOV.UK is recognised for businesses with fewer than 10 employees. At 12 employees you need a paid-for product. The count includes part time and casual staff paid through your PAYE scheme.
Q. Can HMRC advise on payroll software?
No. HMRC's position on the recognised list is explicit: "HMRC cannot recommend one product or service over another. We're also not responsible for any problems you have with software you've bought." HMRC can tell you whether a product is recognised and can help with PAYE queries, but it will not compare products, advise on suitability or intervene in a dispute with a vendor.
Q. Does HMRC have free payroll software?
A. Yes. HMRC publishes its own free product, Basic PAYE Tools, on the free section of the recognised list, alongside nine free products from commercial suppliers. All of them are recognised only for employers with fewer than 10 employees. Basic PAYE Tools will file an FPS and an EPS but does not produce payslips or handle pension files, so most employers outgrow it quickly.
