Calculate UK stamp duty instantly.
If you've just used the stamp duty calculator above, you already have your number. What follows is everything behind that number — how it's actually worked out, why England, Scotland and Wales don't charge the same thing, and where people usually get caught out.
Buying a home in the UK, there's a decent chance stamp duty is going to be one of the biggest one-off costs you weren't quite expecting. Most first-time buyers budget carefully for the deposit and the mortgage, then get a bit of a shock when the solicitor mentions a tax bill on top. This guide walks through how UK stamp duty actually works in 2026 — properly, band by band, with real numbers — so that whatever the calculator spits out, you'll know exactly why.
On this page
- What is stamp duty, really?
- How stamp duty is actually calculated
- Current rates: England, Scotland & Wales
- First-time buyer relief
- Second homes, buy-to-let & additional property
- The non-UK resident surcharge
- Commercial & mixed-use property
- Worked examples at common prices
- How the tax grows with price
- When and how you actually pay it
- Frequently asked questions
What is stamp duty, really?
"Stamp duty" is the everyday name people use, but it's not one single tax — it's three separate taxes depending on where in the UK you're buying:
- England & Northern Ireland — Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT), collected by HMRC.
- Scotland — Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), collected by Revenue Scotland. Scotland dropped "stamp duty" entirely back in 2015 and built its own system.
- Wales — Land Transaction Tax (LTT), collected by the Welsh Revenue Authority since 2018.
They all do roughly the same job — tax you on buying property or land above a certain price — but the thresholds, the percentages and even some of the rules around first-time buyers are different in each one. That's exactly why a single UK-wide calculator needs to treat the three separately rather than just bolting on a generic formula, and it's also why searching "stamp duty calculator Scotland" gets you a different answer than "stamp duty calculator England" for the same price.
How stamp duty is actually calculated
This is the bit that trips most people up, so it's worth slowing down here. Stamp duty is not a flat percentage applied to the whole purchase price. It works in slices, a bit like income tax bands. You only pay the higher rate on the portion of the price that falls inside that band — not on the whole amount.
Say you're buying a standard main home in England for £350,000. Here's what actually happens to that £350,000, slice by slice:
Worked example — £350,000, England, standard purchase
Notice the top slice of the price — from £250,000 up to £350,000 — is taxed at 5%, but that 5% only applies to the £100,000 sitting in that band, not to the full £350,000. This is the single most common misunderstanding about stamp duty: people see "5% rate" and multiply the whole price by 5%, then panic when the number looks enormous. The real figure is almost always lower than that back-of-envelope guess.
Once you get your head around the slicing, the maths is genuinely simple — it's just repeated for each band up to whatever your purchase price is, and the rates and thresholds change depending on the nation and your buyer status, which is what the rest of this page covers.
Current stamp duty rates 2026: England, Scotland & Wales
Here are the live bands each nation is using for standard residential purchases right now. These are the numbers the calculator above is built on.
England & Northern Ireland — SDLT rates
| Portion of price | Rate |
|---|---|
| Up to £125,000 | 0% |
| £125,001 – £250,000 | 2% |
| £250,001 – £925,000 | 5% |
| £925,001 – £1,500,000 | 10% |
| Above £1,500,000 | 12% |
Scotland — LBTT rates
| Portion of price | Rate |
|---|---|
| Up to £145,000 | 0% |
| £145,001 – £250,000 | 2% |
| £250,001 – £325,000 | 5% |
| £325,001 – £750,000 | 10% |
| Above £750,000 | 12% |
Wales — LTT rates
| Portion of price | Rate |
|---|---|
| Up to £225,000 | 0% |
| £225,001 – £400,000 | 6% |
| £400,001 – £750,000 | 7.5% |
| £750,001 – £1,500,000 | 10% |
| Above £1,500,000 | 12% |
Worth noticing: Wales has the highest nil-rate threshold of the three (£225,000), while England's is the lowest (£125,000) once first-time buyer relief doesn't apply. That £100,000 gap catches a lot of people out when they're comparing prices across the border.
First-time buyer relief
If this is genuinely your first-ever residential property purchase — not just in the UK, anywhere in the world — you may be able to claim relief that lowers or wipes out your bill entirely. It works differently in each nation, though:
- England & Northern Ireland — pay 0% up to £300,000, then 5% on the portion between £300,000 and £500,000. If the property costs more than £500,000, the relief disappears completely and you're back on the standard rates for the whole amount.
- Scotland — the nil-rate band is stretched from £145,000 up to £175,000, saving first-time buyers up to £600 compared with a home-mover paying LBTT.
- Wales — there is no first-time buyer relief at all. This one genuinely surprises people, since it's the norm everywhere else in the UK. First-time buyers in Wales pay exactly the same LTT as anyone else moving home.
One condition that applies everywhere it's offered: if you're buying with someone else, everyone on the mortgage or title has to be a first-time buyer too. Bring in one person who's owned a property before, even years ago, and the whole purchase loses the relief.
Second homes, buy-to-let & additional property
If you'll own more than one residential property once the purchase completes — a second home, a holiday let, or a straightforward buy-to-let — every nation adds a surcharge on top of the standard bands.
- England & NI — add a flat 5% to every single band, including the bottom one (so even the portion that would normally be tax-free gets charged 5%).
- Scotland — the Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) adds 8% on top, but here it's calculated on the entire purchase price, not sliced into bands like the rest of LBTT.
- Wales — additional properties use a completely separate rate table rather than a simple surcharge on top of the standard one, starting at 5% and rising to 17% on the highest band.
This is where the numbers can jump a surprising amount. Buying a £300,000 second home in Scotland, for instance, costs £28,600 in LBTT once ADS is added — nearly £24,000 more than the £4,600 a home-mover would pay for the identical property.
The non-UK resident surcharge
If you're buying residential property in England or Northern Ireland and you don't count as a UK resident for SDLT purposes, there's an extra 2% surcharge on top of whatever rate would otherwise apply — including on top of the additional-property surcharge if both apply. Broadly, you're treated as non-resident if you haven't spent at least 183 days in the UK during the 12 months before the purchase. Scotland and Wales don't currently charge an equivalent surcharge for overseas buyers.
Commercial & mixed-use property
Shops, offices, warehouses, agricultural land, and mixed-use buildings (say, a flat above a shop, bought as one transaction) all fall outside the residential rates entirely and use their own non-residential bands, which are considerably gentler than residential ones:
- England & NI: 0% to £150,000, 2% to £250,000, 5% above that.
- Scotland: 0% to £150,000, 1% to £250,000, 5% above that.
- Wales: 0% to £225,000, 1% to £250,000, 5% to £1,000,000, 6% above that.
None of the first-time buyer relief, additional-property surcharge, or non-resident surcharge apply here — commercial property runs on its own set of rules from the ground up. Our calculator's "Commercial" option uses exactly these bands.
How much is stamp duty on a £300,000, £400,000, £500,000... house?
These are the numbers people search for constantly, so here's a proper reference table rather than a single example. All figures below are for England & Northern Ireland SDLT — for the Scotland and Wales equivalents, use the calculator above with your own price and it'll break down every band the same way.
| Property price | Standard | First-time buyer | Additional property |
|---|---|---|---|
| £150,000 | £500 | £0 | £8,000 |
| £200,000 | £1,500 | £0 | £11,500 |
| £250,000 | £2,500 | £0 | £15,000 |
| £300,000 | £5,000 | £0 | £20,000 |
| £350,000 | £7,500 | £2,500 | £25,000 |
| £400,000 | £10,000 | £5,000 | £30,000 |
| £450,000 | £12,500 | £7,500 | £35,000 |
| £500,000 | £15,000 | £10,000 | £40,000 |
| £600,000 | £20,000 | £20,000 | £50,000 |
| £700,000 | £25,000 | £25,000 | £60,000 |
| £750,000 | £27,500 | £27,500 | £65,000 |
| £800,000 | £30,000 | £30,000 | £70,000 |
| £900,000 | £35,000 | £35,000 | £80,000 |
| £1,000,000 | £43,750 | £43,750 | £93,750 |
| £1,100,000 | £53,750 | £53,750 | £108,750 |
| £1,500,000 | £93,750 | £93,750 | £168,750 |
| £2,000,000 | £153,750 | £153,750 | £253,750 |
Notice how the "First-time buyer" column matches "Standard" once you're past £500,000 — that's the relief cut-off point we mentioned earlier kicking in.
The same prices in Scotland (LBTT)
| Property price | Standard | First-time buyer | + ADS (additional home) |
|---|---|---|---|
| £150,000 | £100 | £0 | £12,100 |
| £200,000 | £1,100 | £500 | £17,100 |
| £250,000 | £2,100 | £1,500 | £22,100 |
| £300,000 | £4,600 | £4,000 | £28,600 |
| £350,000 | £8,350 | £7,750 | £36,350 |
| £400,000 | £13,350 | £12,750 | £45,350 |
| £500,000 | £23,350 | £22,750 | £63,350 |
| £750,000 | £48,350 | £47,750 | £108,350 |
| £1,000,000 | £78,350 | £77,750 | £158,350 |
The same prices in Wales (LTT)
| Property price | Standard | Higher rate (additional) |
|---|---|---|
| £150,000 | £0 | £7,500 |
| £200,000 | £0 | £10,700 |
| £250,000 | £1,500 | £14,950 |
| £300,000 | £4,500 | £19,950 |
| £350,000 | £7,500 | £24,950 |
| £400,000 | £10,500 | £29,950 |
| £500,000 | £18,000 | £42,450 |
| £750,000 | £36,750 | £73,700 |
| £1,000,000 | £61,750 | £111,200 |
These are estimates based on the published 2026/27 bands and don't account for reliefs specific to your situation (shared ownership, multiple dwellings relief, and so on) — for anything unusual, it's worth a quick word with your solicitor before you rely on a number for budgeting.
How the tax grows with property price
Numbers in a table are useful, but seeing the curve helps it click. Below is standard England SDLT at increasing prices — notice how flat it stays at the lower end, then how sharply it climbs once you're through the £750,000 mark.
Standard SDLT (England & NI), main home purchase — illustrative, based on 2026/27 bands
When and how you actually pay it
Stamp duty (whichever version applies to you) is due within 14 days of completion — the day you legally get the keys, not the day you exchange contracts. In practice, you'll almost never have to deal with this yourself: your solicitor or conveyancer files the return and arranges payment as part of the completion process, usually taking the amount from the funds already held for your purchase. Miss the 14-day window and HMRC (or the Scottish/Welsh equivalent) can charge penalties and interest, so it's worth confirming with your solicitor that it's been filed rather than assuming.
One more thing worth knowing: if you're charged the higher additional-property rate because your previous home hasn't sold yet, you can usually claim a refund once it does sell, provided that happens within three years of the new purchase.
Frequently asked questions
Scroll back up and run your price through the calculator — it covers England, Scotland and Wales, first-time buyers, additional property and commercial, all in one place.
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