Buying a home in the UK comes with a tax bill most people don’t think about until their solicitor mentions it — Stamp Duty Land Tax, usually just called stamp duty. It’s one of the biggest upfront costs of buying a property, and it catches a lot of buyers out because it’s not baked into the mortgage. You need the cash for it separately, on top of your deposit.
The rules changed in April 2025, when temporary thresholds introduced a few years earlier came to an end and the tax-free band shrank. That means more buyers are now paying stamp duty, and some are paying more than they would have the year before. If you’re budgeting for a purchase in 2026, it’s worth knowing exactly where you stand.
This article walks through what stamp duty actually is, how the current bands work, what first-time buyers get, and the extra charges that catch out landlords and second-home buyers.
What stamp duty actually is
Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is a tax you pay to HMRC when you buy a property or land in England or Northern Ireland over a certain price. It’s a one-off payment, due within 14 days of completion, and it’s almost always handled by your solicitor or conveyancer as part of the purchase process — but it’s your money, not theirs, and it comes out of your funds alongside your deposit.
Scotland and Wales have their own versions with different names and thresholds — Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) in Scotland, and Land Transaction Tax (LTT) in Wales. The rates below apply to England and Northern Ireland. If you’re buying elsewhere in the UK, the principle is the same but the numbers differ — more on that below.
Stamp duty is calculated like income tax: it’s not a flat percentage of the whole price, it’s applied in bands. You only pay the higher rate on the portion of the price that falls into that band, not the whole purchase price. This trips a lot of people up — paying 5% doesn’t mean 5% of the full purchase price.
The current stamp duty bands (from April 2025)
From 1 April 2025, the nil-rate threshold dropped back down after a few years at a higher level. Here’s what you pay on a standard residential purchase of a main home, as it stands in 2026:
| Portion of property price | SDLT rate |
|---|---|
| £0 – £125,000 | 0% |
| £125,001 – £250,000 | 2% |
| £250,001 – £925,000 | 5% |
| £925,001 – £1,500,000 | 10% |
| Above £1,500,000 | 12% |
So if you buy a home for £350,000, you don’t pay 5% on the whole lot. You pay:
- 0% on the first £125,000 = £0
- 2% on the next £125,000 (£125,001–£250,000) = £2,500
- 5% on the remaining £100,000 (£250,001–£350,000) = £5,000
Total: £7,500.
That’s a meaningful chunk of money, and it’s one of the reasons it’s worth using the official SDLT calculator on gov.uk before you make an offer — it does the banding maths for you and gives you an exact figure.
What changed in April 2025, and why it matters
Between September 2022 and March 2025, the nil-rate band was temporarily raised to £250,000 (and first-time buyers got a higher threshold too), as a short-term measure to support the housing market. That expired on 31 March 2025, and the thresholds reverted to their earlier, lower levels from 1 April 2025.
| Before 1 April 2025 | From 1 April 2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Standard nil-rate threshold | £250,000 | £125,000 |
| First-time buyer nil-rate threshold | £425,000 | £300,000 |
| First-time buyer relief cap (max purchase price for any relief) | £625,000 | £500,000 |
In practice, this means a buyer purchasing a £300,000 home now pays stamp duty where they wouldn’t have under the old thresholds. If you were house-hunting before 2025 and are coming back to the market now, it’s worth recalculating — the numbers have genuinely moved, not just crept up with house prices.
First-time buyer relief
If you’ve never owned a property anywhere in the world before, and you’re buying as your main home, you get a better deal:
- No stamp duty on the first £300,000
- 5% on the portion between £300,001 and £500,000
- No relief at all if the property costs more than £500,000 — in that case, you pay standard rates on the whole price, as if you weren’t a first-time buyer
So a first-time buyer purchasing a £400,000 flat pays 5% on £100,000 (the amount over £300,000), which is £5,000 — far less than the £10,500 a non-first-time buyer would pay on the same property under standard rates.
This is one of the more common misconceptions: people assume first-time buyer relief scales g
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