Stamp duty in England: rates, relief and surcharges

Questo contenuto è in inglese.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is the tax you pay when you buy a residential property in England or Northern Ireland above a certain price. The rules differ depending on whether you are a first-time buyer, already own a home, or live outside the UK. This guide explains how the bands work and walks through worked examples, using the rates shown on GOV.UK when we checked in October 2026.

Di Valtrinity. Aggiornato il 18 ottobre 2026.

What stamp duty is and where it applies

Stamp Duty Land Tax applies to land and property purchases in England and Northern Ireland. Scotland has its own Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, and Wales has Land Transaction Tax, so the figures in this guide do not apply to purchases there. If you are buying across a border or buying a property whose location is unclear, check which tax applies before you rely on any estimate.

SDLT is charged on the purchase price of the property, and it is the buyer who is responsible for it. It is not a flat percentage of the price. Instead, the price is split into slices, and each slice is taxed at its own rate. This is the same marginal approach used for income tax, and it means a small increase in price never causes a jump in the whole bill, with one notable exception that we cover under first-time buyer relief.

The rates below are the ones shown on GOV.UK for residential purchases in England and Northern Ireland, which have applied since 1 April 2025. We checked them again in October 2026. Rates and thresholds can change at a Budget, so always confirm on GOV.UK before you exchange contracts.

Standard residential rates

If you are buying a single home and it will be your only residential property, the standard rates apply. There is no tax on the first slice, and the rate then rises in steps for each higher slice of the price.

• Up to £125,000: 0%
• The portion from £125,001 to £250,000: 2%
• The portion from £250,001 to £925,000: 5%
• The portion from £925,001 to £1.5 million: 10%
• The portion above £1.5 million: 12%

How the calculation works in practice

Take a purchase price of £300,000 under the standard rates. The first £125,000 is taxed at 0%, which is nothing. The next £125,000, from £125,001 to £250,000, is taxed at 2%, which is £2,500. The remaining £50,000 is taxed at 5%, which is another £2,500. The total bill is £5,000.

Now take £400,000. The 0% slice and the 2% slice give £2,500 as before. The remaining £150,000 above £250,000 is taxed at 5%, which is £7,500. The total is £10,000. At £500,000 the 5% slice is £250,000, which is £12,500, so the total is £15,000.

For a higher-value purchase of £1,000,000, the calculation is £2,500 for the first two slices, then 5% on £675,000 (the amount from £250,001 to £925,000), which is £33,750, then 10% on the final £75,000, which is £7,500. The total is £43,750. Working through the slices in this way is the same method a solicitor or conveyancer will use, and it is the best way to check an estimate.

First-time buyer relief

First-time buyers get a more generous set of rates. You pay 0% on the first £300,000 of the price and 5% on the portion from £300,001 to £500,000. For a first-time buyer purchasing at £400,000, the bill is 5% of £100,000, which is £5,000, compared with £10,000 under the standard rates. At £500,000 the bill is 5% of £200,000, which is £10,000, compared with £15,000 under the standard rates.

There is a hard ceiling. If the purchase price is over £500,000, you cannot claim the relief at all, and you pay the standard rates on the whole price. That creates a cliff edge: a first-time buyer at £500,000 pays £10,000, but at £550,000 the standard rates apply and the bill is £17,500. Anyone negotiating close to that figure should model both outcomes before agreeing a price.

To qualify, you need to be a first-time buyer, which means you have not owned or part-owned a residential property anywhere in the world before. If you are buying with someone else, every buyer must meet that test, so a purchase with a partner who has owned a home before will not qualify for the relief. Read the conditions on GOV.UK to confirm your own position, because the definition has detail that is easy to miss.

Buying an additional property

If you already own another residential property and you are buying a further one, higher rates apply on top of the standard bands. These rates apply to purchases of residential property or part of a property worth £40,000 or more. Since 1 April 2025 the surcharge has been 5 percentage points on every band, which gives the following rates for additional dwellings.

Each slice of the price is taxed at the higher rate, so it works like the standard calculation but with the extra 5% included from the first pound.

• Up to £125,000: 5%
• The portion from £125,001 to £250,000: 7%
• The portion from £250,001 to £925,000: 10%
• The portion from £925,001 to £1.5 million: 15%
• The portion above £1.5 million: 17%

Additional property examples and replacing your main home

GOV.UK gives a worked example for a £300,000 additional property: 5% on £125,000 is £6,250, 7% on the next £125,000 is £8,750, and 10% on the final £50,000 is £5,000, which totals £20,000. Compare that with £5,000 under the standard rates. A £200,000 purchase would be £6,250 plus 7% of £75,000, which is £5,250, a total of £11,500, compared with £1,500 under the standard rates. A £500,000 purchase would be £40,000 compared with £15,000.

People who are moving home are sometimes caught by the surcharge because they buy the new place before selling the old one. If you replace your main residence, you do not pay the extra 5% when the property you are selling was your main home. If the sale of your previous main home happens after the purchase of the new property, you pay the higher rates at completion but you can apply for a refund of the extra amount if you sell within 36 months of buying the new one.

A refund is not available if you or your spouse still own any part of the old home, or if the higher rates apply for another reason. For sales on or after 29 October 2018, the claim must be made within 12 months of the later of the sale date of the old home or the filing date of the SDLT return for the new property. Keeping a note of those dates when you move will help you avoid missing the window.

Buyers who are not UK resident

A further 2% surcharge applies to purchases of residential property in England and Northern Ireland by non-UK residents. It is added to all other applicable rates, including the higher rates for additional dwellings. For this purpose you count as not UK resident if you were in the UK for fewer than 183 days in the 12 months before the purchase.

As an illustration, a non-UK resident buying a single £400,000 home as their only property pays the standard £10,000 plus 2% of £400,000, which is £8,000, giving a total of £18,000. If the same purchase was also an additional property, the 5% surcharge would apply as well. Because residency tests have exceptions and detail that vary by case, it is sensible to check the conditions on GOV.UK or to ask your conveyancer.

Filing, paying and planning your budget

A Stamp Duty Land Tax return and the payment are due within 14 days of completion. The date used is usually the completion date, though it can be earlier if the contract is substantially performed before completion. In most purchases your solicitor or conveyancer files the return and pays the tax for you on completion day, taking the money from the funds you have sent them. Late filing can lead to a fixed penalty, and late payment attracts interest.

When you are working out what you can afford, treat SDLT as part of the cost of buying along with legal fees, survey costs and removals. Because it is due almost immediately, it needs to be in cash at completion rather than something you can spread out. Run your numbers early, and re-check them if the Government announces a change to the rates or thresholds.

Mistakes tend to come from three places: using the wrong rate table, forgetting that a purchase counts as an additional property, and overlooking the first-time buyer ceiling. Before you make an offer, decide which category you fall into, work out the bill for the price you are considering and for a price a little higher, and add the result to your cash requirement. If you are buying with someone else, check how each buyer's circumstances affect the rates, since one person's previous ownership can change the outcome for the whole purchase.

The calculator linked below lets you test different prices for standard, first-time buyer and additional property cases. Use it alongside the examples in this guide, and confirm the result with your conveyancer before you commit.

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