Stamp Duty Calculator

How stamp duty works

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is a tax you pay when you buy property or land over a certain price in England and Northern Ireland. It is charged in bands, so you only pay the higher rate on the part of the price that falls into each band, not on the whole amount.

The three situations

• Buying your next home. Standard rates apply: nothing up to £125,000, then 2% to £250,000, 5% to £925,000, and higher above that.
• First-time buyer. If the price is £500,000 or less you pay nothing up to £300,000 and 5% on the rest. Above £500,000 the standard rates apply.
• Additional property. A second home or buy-to-let carries a 5% surcharge on top of the standard rates.

You normally pay within 14 days of completion, and your solicitor or conveyancer usually handles it for you. Buying in Scotland or Wales? Different taxes apply (LBTT and LTT).

The bit almost everyone gets wrong

People hear “5% band” and assume a £300,000 house means 5% of £300,000. It does not. Stamp duty is charged in slices, like income tax: the first slice is taxed at nothing, the next at 2%, and so on. Only the part of the price sitting inside each band is taxed at that band’s rate.

That is why the effective rate — the bill as a percentage of the whole price — is always lower than the headline band you have reached, and why it climbs gradually rather than jumping. The calculator above shows both, and breaks the bill down band by band.

What you would actually pay

Rounded to the nearest pound, at a few common prices. These figures are generated from the same rates the calculator uses, so they cannot fall out of step with it.

Two things stand out. First-time buyer relief is worth £5,000 at £300,000 — and nothing at all once you pass £500,000, where it disappears entirely rather than tapering. And the additional-property surcharge is not a small premium: at £300,000 it turns a £5,000 bill into £20,000.

Be careful of these

Stamp duty catches people out more than any other cost in a purchase, usually because it is calculated late and lands as a lump sum you cannot add to the mortgage.

• The surcharge applies to far more than second homes. If you end up owning two properties at the end of the day you complete, it is due — even if the first is abroad, inherited, a share of a family home, or one you are actively trying to sell. Owning a share can be enough.
• You can usually reclaim it if you sell your old home. Sell your previous main residence within three years of completing and you can apply to HMRC for the surcharge back. This is not automatic — you have to claim it, within the time limit, and plenty of people never do.
• First-time buyer relief needs everyone to qualify. If you are buying jointly and one of you has owned property anywhere in the world before, the relief is lost for the whole purchase, not halved.
• The cliff edge at £500,000 is brutal. Relief does not phase out — buy at £499,999 and you pay £10,000; buy at £500,001 and you pay £15,000. Worth knowing before you offer.
• Budget for it in cash. Stamp duty cannot normally be borrowed on the mortgage. It is due within 14 days of completion, alongside legal fees and moving costs.
• Treat “stamp duty refund” cold calls as a red flag. Firms take a cut for filing speculative reclaims — often arguing a home was uninhabitable or part-commercial. If HMRC rejects it, or challenges it years later, you repay the tax plus interest and penalties, not the firm. Some of these claims are outright bogus.

None of this is advice about your own purchase. Your conveyancer files the return and is the person to ask if anything above might apply to you — particularly the surcharge, which has more exceptions than any other part of the rules.