Income per £100 is the annual coupon a gilt pays on £100 of face value, and scaling it by the nominal a reader holds turns a rate into the actual cash the coupon delivers.
What income per £100 means
Income per £100 is the annual coupon a gilt pays on £100 of face value, which is the same as £100 of nominal. A gilt with a 4.00 per cent coupon has an income per £100 of £4.00; a gilt with a 0.50 per cent coupon has one of £0.50. The figure is a rate expressed in pounds per £100, and it is fixed by the gilt's own terms for as long as it runs. It is the coupon column said in pounds rather than in percent, and on the conventional gilts list it sits beside the coupon rate so the two can be read together.
From a rate to a cash amount
Income per £100 is a rate per £100 of nominal, so the cash a holding receives is that rate multiplied by the nominal held and divided by 100. On £5,000 nominal of a notional 4.00 per cent gilt, the income per £100 of £4.00 times five thousand, divided by 100, gives £200 a year. Because a conventional gilt pays twice a year, that £200 arrives as two payments of £100. The arithmetic is illustrative and not a quote from any gilt.
The same scaling holds at any size. Ten times the nominal pays ten times the income per £100, and half the nominal pays half. The coupon itself never changes with the size of the holding; only the number of pounds it produces does. That is why the site quotes income per £100 — a single figure that a reader scales to their own holding.
Why the nominal, not the price, sets the coupon
The coupon is paid on the nominal, not on the price paid for the gilt. A gilt bought above par or below par still pays its income per £100 on the £100 of nominal it represents, so the coupon the holder receives is set by the gilt's terms and not by what the market charged for it. What the price does change is the yield: a gilt bought below par returns more than its coupons alone at maturity, and its yield folds that in, while its income per £100 stays exactly where the coupon puts it. Reading income per £100 as a yield is the commonest confusion, and keeping the two apart is the point of the column.
Index-linked gilts give an estimate
For an index-linked gilt the income per £100 is an estimate rather than a contractual amount. The real coupon is fixed, but the pounds it pays are scaled by the index ratio, which tracks how far prices have risen since the gilt was issued. The figure the site shows takes the real coupon and applies the published index ratio, assuming no further inflation before the payment date. It is honest about being an estimate: the index ratio can move between the report and the payment, so the pounds an index-linked gilt actually pays are not fixed in advance the way a conventional gilt's are.
A few illustrative gilts
The table shows how the coupon rate becomes an income per £100 and then an annual amount on a £5,000 nominal holding. The coupon rates are illustrative and not quotes from any gilt in issue; the arithmetic from rate to cash is exact.
| Coupon rate | Income per £100 | Annual on £5,000 nominal | Each half-yearly payment |
| 0.50 per cent | £0.50 | £25.00 | £12.50 |
| 2.50 per cent | £2.50 | £125.00 | £62.50 |
| 4.00 per cent | £4.00 | £200.00 | £100.00 |
The 4.00 per cent gilt's income per £100 of £4.00, scaled to £5,000 nominal, gives £200 a year and £100 a payment. The 0.50 per cent gilt pays a tenth of the coupon, so a tenth of the income: £0.50 per £100, £25 a year on £5,000, and £12.50 each half-year. Each row is the same multiplication done at a different coupon.
Where the figure appears
The conventional gilts list carries the income per £100 for every gilt, with a net income figure beside it that applies a 20 per cent basic rate to the coupon. The income calendar takes the same per-£100 rate and scales it by a nominal holding to show the actual cash landing on each payment date, so a reader can move from the single rate to a schedule of amounts. Read together, they turn the coupon column into the pounds a holding produces and the dates those pounds arrive.
The income per £100 is the smallest unit of that reading: the coupon expressed per £100 of nominal. Everything else — the annual amount, the payment, the after-tax figure — is that unit scaled or adjusted, which is why it is worth reading the column in its own terms before scaling it to a holding.
Background, not advice
This article explains what income per £100 means and how it scales to a holding's cash. It is general background on how the figure is put together, not investment, tax or legal advice for any reader's circumstances. The coupon rates and amounts above are illustrative and state their inputs; the primary source for a real gilt's coupon and its income per £100 is the gilt's own record and the Debt Management Office, and for a tax rate GOV.UK and HMRC.