Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is calculated in slices: you pay a different rate on each portion of the price that falls within each band, not one rate on the whole price. In England and Northern Ireland in 2026, a home buyer pays 0% on the first £125,000, 2% on the next £125,000, 5% up to £925,000, 10% up to £1.5 million and 12% above that. First-time buyers pay nothing up to £300,000 and 5% on the part from £300,001 to £500,000. If you’re buying an additional home, add 5% to every band.
So a £295,000 house costs £4,750 in stamp duty for a home mover and £0 for a first-time buyer. Below I explain each rule using GOV.UK’s own wording, then work through examples from £200,000 to £2 million. I checked every number with a small script, which matched GOV.UK’s published examples exactly. For your own figures, use my free stamp duty calculator, which also covers Scotland and Wales.
According to GOV.UK’s SDLT overview, you must pay Stamp Duty Land Tax if you buy a property or land over a certain price in England and Northern Ireland. The buyer pays it, not the seller. You pay it when you:
Scotland and Wales have their own taxes: Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) in Scotland and Land Transaction Tax (LTT) in Wales. The bands and rates are different, so the examples in this post apply to England and Northern Ireland only.
GOV.UK says SDLT starts to apply when you buy property that costs:
Below the threshold, there’s no SDLT to pay.
These are the residential rates from GOV.UK when, after buying, the property is the only residential property you own:
These rates have applied since 1 April 2025, when the temporary higher thresholds ended.
Think of the price as being cut into slices that match the bands. Each slice is taxed at its own rate, and you add the results.
GOV.UK’s own example is a house bought for £295,000:
Notice the 5% only applies to the £45,000 above £250,000, not the whole price. Charging 5% on £295,000 would give £14,750, three times too much. This “slice” system is the same idea as UK income tax bands.
I ran each price through the band rules. These are for a buyer replacing their main home (not a first-time buyer, not an additional property):
0% on £125,000, 2% on £125,000 (£2,500) and 5% on £50,000 (£2,500) = £5,000. A first-time buyer pays £0.
£2,500 for the 2% band plus 5% on £150,000 (£7,500) = £10,000. A first-time buyer pays 5% on £100,000 = £5,000.
£2,500 plus 5% on £250,000 (£12,500) = £15,000. A first-time buyer pays 5% on £200,000 = £10,000, which matches GOV.UK’s first-time buyer example.
GOV.UK says you can claim relief if “you and anyone else you’re buying with are first-time buyers.” You’ll pay:
Not on homes up to £300,000. Between £300,000 and £500,000 they pay 5% on the part above £300,000. Examples:
“If the price is over £500,000, you cannot claim the relief.” This creates a sharp jump. At exactly £500,000 a first-time buyer pays £10,000. At £500,001 they lose the relief entirely and pay standard rates: £15,000. One extra pound costs £5,000 in tax. If you’re negotiating around this price, it’s worth knowing.
Relief only applies if everyone buying is a first-time buyer. If your partner has owned a home before (anywhere in the world), you pay standard rates on a joint purchase.
GOV.UK says you’ll “usually have to pay 5% on top of SDLT rates if buying a new residential property means you’ll own more than one.” This applies to second homes, holiday homes and buy-to-let properties. The 5% is added to every band, including the 0% one:
Worked examples for an additional property:
That’s £15,000 to £25,000 more than a home mover on the same prices.
HMRC’s guidance on additional properties says the higher rates apply when you buy a residential property “for £40,000 or more”. A property costing less than £40,000 doesn’t attract the surcharge, and properties under £40,000 you already own don’t count towards “more than one”. Below £125,000 the standard rate is 0%, so such a purchase typically has no SDLT at all.
You won’t pay the extra 5% if the property you’re buying replaces your main residence and your previous main residence was sold within 36 months of completing your new purchase. But if you haven’t sold your old home on the day you complete, you’ll pay the higher rates at first, because you own two properties. You can then claim a refund once the old home is sold within the time limit.
If you’re not present in the UK for at least 183 days (6 months) during the 12 months before your purchase, you’re treated as “not a UK resident” for SDLT. You’ll usually pay a 2% surcharge on residential property in England or Northern Ireland, on top of any other rates. A non-resident buying a £300,000 home they’ll live in as their only property would pay £11,000 instead of £5,000.
The surcharges stack. A non-resident buying an additional property pays both the 5% and the 2%.
GOV.UK says you must “send an SDLT return to HMRC and pay the tax within 14 days of completion.” If you have a solicitor or conveyancer, they’ll usually file the return and pay the tax for you on completion day, then add it to their fees. You may be charged penalties and interest if the return and payment are late.
You usually need to budget for stamp duty as cash. It can’t normally be added to the price, although some buyers borrow more on their mortgage to cover it. My UK mortgage calculator helps you see how a bigger loan changes your monthly payments.
SDLT is charged on the consideration, usually the price you pay. GOV.UK notes it can also include things like goods, works or services, release from a debt, or taking on an outstanding mortgage. Furniture and fittings bought separately may be excluded if their value is genuine, but you can’t inflate them to reduce the tax.
For a new residential lease, you pay SDLT on the lease premium using the normal rates. If the total rent over the life of the lease (its “net present value”) is more than £125,000, you also pay 1% on the portion above that. Shared ownership has its own rules, letting you either pay SDLT in stages or on the full market value up front.
Non-residential property (shops, offices, farmland) and mixed-use property (such as a flat above a shop) have their own, lower rates. GOV.UK’s non-residential rates for freehold purchases are:
GOV.UK’s example is a freehold commercial property bought for £275,000: 0% on £150,000, 2% on £100,000 (£2,000) and 5% on £25,000 (£1,250), giving £3,250. A residential home at the same price would cost £3,750 for a home mover. The 5% additional-property surcharge doesn’t apply to non-residential purchases.
Because first-time buyer relief is where most questions come from, here are more prices, all calculated with the relief rules (no SDLT up to £300,000, 5% from £300,001 to £500,000):
If you’re saving for a first home, these figures matter as much as the deposit. My stamp duty calculator project page explains how the calculator handles these bands.
If you’re buying in Scotland, you pay LBTT to Revenue Scotland; in Wales, LTT to the Welsh Revenue Authority. Both use bands in the same “slice” way, but with different thresholds, rates and surcharges, so don’t use the England figures above. My stamp duty calculator has separate options for SDLT, LBTT and LTT.
If you read older articles, you’ll see higher thresholds. From 23 September 2022 to 31 March 2025, the nil-rate band for home movers was £250,000 (instead of £125,000), and first-time buyers paid nothing up to £425,000 on homes costing up to £625,000. Those temporary thresholds ended on 31 March 2025, so from 1 April 2025 the rates in this post apply. GOV.UK keeps a page of previous SDLT thresholds and rates if you need to check an older purchase.
The change roughly doubled the stamp duty on many typical purchases. A home mover buying at £300,000, for example, would have paid £2,500 under the temporary rules and pays £5,000 now.
Stamp duty is only one of the costs on top of your deposit. For a rough budget on a £300,000 home move, you might add:
Only the stamp duty figure is set by law; the rest depend on your choices and providers, so get quotes. Remember that buyers in Scotland and Wales pay LBTT or LTT instead.
For anyone who likes to see the maths, here’s the simplified function I used to check the examples. It handles standard rates, first-time buyer relief, the 5% surcharge (from £40,000) and the 2% non-resident surcharge, but not leases, shared ownership or special cases:
BANDS = [(125000, 0), (250000, 2), (925000, 5), (1500000, 10), (None, 12)]
def sdlt(price, first_time=False, additional=False, non_resident=False):
if first_time and price <= 500000 and not additional:
bands = [(300000, 0), (500000, 5)]
else:
bands = BANDS
extra = (5 if additional and price >= 40000 else 0) + (2 if non_resident else 0)
tax, lower = 0, 0
for upper, rate in bands:
top = price if upper is None else min(price, upper)
if top > lower:
tax += (top - lower) * (rate + extra) / 100
if upper is None or price <= upper:
break
lower = upper
return round(tax)
print(sdlt(295000), sdlt(500000, first_time=True), sdlt(500001, first_time=True))
4750 10000 15000
The results match GOV.UK’s two worked examples (£4,750 and £10,000) and show the £500,000 cliff edge. If you’re learning to code, a band calculator like this is a great beginner project; I built my redundancy pay calculator the same way, explained in how redundancy pay is calculated in the UK. Always confirm a real purchase with HMRC’s official calculator or your conveyancer.
In slices. Each portion of the price is taxed at the rate for its band: 0% up to £125,000, 2% to £250,000, 5% to £925,000, 10% to £1.5 million and 12% above, in England and Northern Ireland. You add the amounts together.
£5,000 for a home mover (2% of £125,000 plus 5% of £50,000). A first-time buyer pays £0. An additional property costs £20,000.
Not on homes up to £300,000. They pay 5% on the portion between £300,001 and £500,000. Above £500,000, first-time buyer relief can’t be claimed and standard rates apply.
You usually pay an extra 5% on top of every band if the purchase means you’ll own more than one residential property worth £40,000 or more. On a £300,000 second home that’s £20,000.
Within 14 days of completion. Your solicitor or conveyancer usually files the SDLT return and pays it on completion day, then adds it to their bill.
Usually yes. If you weren’t in the UK for at least 183 days in the 12 months before buying, a 2% surcharge applies on residential property in England and Northern Ireland, on top of other rates.
No. Scotland charges Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and Wales charges Land Transaction Tax, each with its own bands and surcharges.
£125,000 for residential property, £300,000 for first-time buyers buying a home worth £500,000 or less, and £150,000 for non-residential property.
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