How much stamp duty do you pay when you buy a property?

SDLT at a glance

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is a tax on property purchases in England and Northern Ireland, paid by the buyer. It is charged in slices: each portion of the price is taxed at the rate for its band, never the whole price at a single rate.

tax-free portion of the price for a home mover

£125,000

tax-free portion for an eligible first-time buyer

£300,000

added to every band for a second home or buy-to-let

5%

How SDLT works: the rates in force now

Stamp Duty Land Tax is charged in slices. The first £125,000 of the price is taxed at nothing, each portion above it is taxed at the rate for its own band, and the rate on the last slice is the only rate anybody quotes. That is why the bill on £400,000 is £10,000 rather than the 5% the top slice suggests: an effective rate of 2.5% across the whole purchase.

These are the rates for completions on or after 1 April 2025. Two further charges can sit on top of them, and each one is charged on the whole price from the first pound rather than only on the portion above £125,000. An additional residential property adds 5 percentage points on purchases of £40,000 or more. A buyer who is not UK resident adds 2 percentage points on purchases of £40,000 or more. A non-resident buying an additional property pays both.

Top rate 12% on the portion above £1,500,000, or 17% for an additional property.

First-time buyer relief: who qualifies and what it saves

An eligible first-time buyer pays nothing on the first £300,000 of the price and 5% on the portion above it. On £400,000 that is £5,000 instead of £10,000, a saving of £5,000.

To qualify, you and anyone buying with you must never have owned a home anywhere in the world. An inherited share counts, a property owned abroad counts, and a property held through a trust counts, whether or not you chose to own it.

The relief is a cliff, not a taper. At £500,000 the bill is £10,000. One pound more, at £500,001, and no relief is available at all: the ordinary rates apply to the whole price and the bill jumps to £15,000.05. That single pound costs £5,000.05, which is worth knowing before you make an offer near the limit.

Second homes and buy-to-let: the higher rates

Buying a residential property when you already own one adds 5 percentage points to every band, including the nil-rate band, so the charge starts on the first pound. It has been 5 percentage points since 31 October 2024. It applies whether you rent the property out, keep it as a holiday home, or leave it empty, and it applies even when the home you already own is abroad.

On £400,000 that is £30,000 against £10,000 for the same property bought as a home to move into, a difference of £20,000. A buyer who is also not UK resident pays £18,000 on a single purchase, and both charges stack on an additional one.

Replacing your main residence. If the property you are buying becomes the home you live in and you have sold your previous main home, the higher rates do not apply at all. If the sale happens afterwards, you pay them and then claim them back: sell or give away the old home within 3 years, or later where exceptional circumstances outside your control delayed it, and the claim has to reach HMRC by the later of 12 months after that sale or 12 months after the filing date of the return on the new home.

The floor. The higher rates do not apply to a freehold purchase below £40,000, and neither does the non-resident charge. A second property bought for £39,999 is taxed at the ordinary rates, which comes to £0, and the calculator above returns the same.

GOV.UK: Apply for a refund of the higher rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax

Where SDLT calculations go wrong

Taxing the whole price at one rate. The bands are slices. A purchase at £400,000 reaches the 5% band but pays 2.5% overall.

Assuming first-time buyer relief tapers above £500,000. It does not. Above that price there is no relief on any part of the purchase.

Forgetting that an inherited property counts. Inheriting a share of a home makes your next purchase an additional property, so the 5 percentage points applies, and it also ends any claim to first-time buyer relief.

Never claiming the higher rates back. Buyers who pay the higher rates because their old home had not sold yet, then sell it inside 3 years, often never make the claim. It is not automatic and it is not made by HMRC.

Treating mixed-use property as residential. A property with a genuine commercial element is non-residential for SDLT and uses a different rate table, which is usually cheaper. This calculator covers residential purchases only and says so rather than guessing.

GOV.UK: Stamp Duty Land Tax: non-residential and mixed-use rates

Filing and paying: 14 days from completion

The return has to reach HMRC and the tax has to be paid within 14 days of completion. Your solicitor or conveyancer normally files and pays on the day of completion and takes the money from the completion funds, so the figure above is one to check before exchange rather than after. Missing the deadline means penalties and interest.

This calculator covers England and Northern Ireland. A purchase in Scotland pays Land and Buildings Transaction Tax to Revenue Scotland and a purchase in Wales pays Land Transaction Tax to the Welsh Revenue Authority, each with its own bands and its own additional-property charge.

• LBTT rates (Revenue Scotland)
• LTT rates (Welsh Government)

In short

• SDLT is charged slice by slice, so the effective rate is always below the top band reached: £400,000 pays £10,000, or 2.5%.
• An eligible first-time buyer pays nothing to £300,000 and no relief at all above £500,000.
• An additional property pays 5 percentage points more on every band, from the first pound on purchases of £40,000 or more.
• Sell your previous main home within 3 years and the higher-rate part is refundable, but only if somebody claims it.
• A buyer who is not UK resident pays 2 percentage points more on every band on purchases of £40,000 or more, on top of any additional-property charge.
• Rates in force from 1 April 2025; the return and the payment are due within 14 days of completion.

After the purchase

SDLT is a one-off charge on the way in. The two taxes that follow a property are the income tax on what it earns and the gain when it is sold:

• Rental income tax
• Capital gains tax