Stamp Duty Land Tax for England and Northern Ireland, broken down band by band, with the first-time buyer relief and the additional-property surcharge applied where they are due. Scotland and Wales use different taxes and are not covered here.
Stamp Duty (SDLT) Payable
£5,000.00
Effective Tax Rate: 1.7%
Cost Breakdown
Property Value:£300,000.00
Stamp Duty:+ £5,000.00
Total Cost:£305,000.00
Property Value
Stamp Duty
View Calculation Breakdown by Tax Band
Tax Band Rate
Amount in Band
Tax Amount
0%
£125,000.00
£0.00
2%
£125,000.00
£2,500.00
5%
£50,000.00
£2,500.00
Total Stamp Duty:
£5,000.00
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About the UK Stamp Duty Calculator
Stamp Duty Land Tax is the tax you pay when you buy a home in England or Northern Ireland, and it is charged in slices rather than as a single percentage of the price. That one detail is where most estimates go wrong. People assume that a £300,000 purchase attracts a flat rate on the whole amount, when in fact the first £125,000 is taxed at nothing, the next £125,000 at 2%, and only the final £50,000 at 5%. The tax is £5,000, not the £15,000 a flat 5% would suggest. This calculator applies the current bands slice by slice and shows you exactly which portion of your price is taxed at which rate, so you can see how the total is built rather than being handed a number to trust. The rates used here are the ones in force since 1 April 2025, when the temporary raised threshold introduced during the pandemic expired and the nil-rate band returned to £125,000. That change matters enormously if you are working from an older calculator or an article written before then: the same £300,000 purchase would have cost £2,500 under the old thresholds and costs £5,000 today. Scotland and Wales do not use SDLT at all, and are not covered here. Scotland charges Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, and Wales charges Land Transaction Tax, both with their own bands and their own reliefs.
Mathematical Formula & Logic
SDLT is a progressive slice tax, calculated the same way income tax is. You do not find the band your price falls into and apply that rate to everything. Instead each portion of the price is taxed at the rate attached to that portion, and the results are added together. For a standard purchase — a home that will be the only residential property you own — the bands are: nothing on the portion up to £125,000; 2% on the portion from £125,001 to £250,000; 5% on the portion from £250,001 to £925,000; 10% on the portion from £925,001 to £1.5 million; and 12% on everything above £1.5 million. First-time buyers use a different and more generous table. They pay nothing up to £300,000, and 5% on the portion between £300,001 and £500,000. The critical feature of this relief is that it is withdrawn rather than tapered: if the price is even a single pound above £500,000, the relief disappears entirely and the purchase is taxed at the standard rates from the first pound. That produces a genuine cliff edge at £500,000, and it is the single most expensive thing a first-time buyer can walk into unaware. If the purchase means you will own more than one residential property — a second home, a buy-to-let, or a home bought before selling your existing one — a surcharge of five percentage points is added to every band, including the nil-rate band. That is why an additional property costs 5% from the very first pound while a standard purchase at the same price might cost nothing at all. The surcharge rose from 3% to 5% on 31 October 2024. A separate 2% surcharge applies to buyers who are not UK resident, which stacks on top of whichever rates otherwise apply.
Step-by-Step Example
Three worked examples, each calculated slice by slice.
Example 1: a standard purchase at £295,000. This is HMRC's own published example, and it is worth following closely because it shows the slicing clearly. The first £125,000 is taxed at 0%, contributing nothing. The next £125,000 — the portion from £125,001 to £250,000 — is taxed at 2%, contributing £2,500. The final £45,000 — the portion from £250,001 to £295,000 — is taxed at 5%, contributing £2,250. The total is £4,750. Notice that the effective rate on the whole purchase is about 1.6%, far below the 5% headline rate of the top band the price reaches.
Example 2: a first-time buyer at £500,000. Again this follows HMRC's published figures. The first £300,000 is free of tax under first-time buyer relief. The remaining £200,000 is taxed at 5%, giving £10,000. The total is £10,000. Now consider what happens one pound higher. At £500,001 the relief is gone completely, and the purchase is taxed at standard rates: £2,500 on the second slice plus 5% of £250,001, giving roughly £15,000. A single extra pound on the price adds about £5,000 to the tax. If you are a first-time buyer negotiating close to £500,000, that cliff is worth more than any other point in this article.
Example 3: an additional property at £300,000. The five-point surcharge applies to every slice. The first £125,000 is taxed at 5% instead of 0%, giving £6,250. The next £125,000 is taxed at 7% instead of 2%, giving £8,750. The final £50,000 is taxed at 10% instead of 5%, giving £5,000. The total is £20,000, against £5,000 for the same property bought as a main home. The surcharge quadruples the bill, and it is charged on the whole price, not just the excess.
Reference Data & Values
label
value
Up to £125,000
0% (standard) · 5% (additional property)
£125,001 to £250,000
2% (standard) · 7% (additional property)
£250,001 to £925,000
5% (standard) · 10% (additional property)
£925,001 to £1.5 million
10% (standard) · 15% (additional property)
Above £1.5 million
12% (standard) · 17% (additional property)
First-time buyer, up to £300,000
0%
First-time buyer, £300,001 to £500,000
5%
First-time buyer, above £500,000
No relief — standard rates apply from £0
Non-UK resident
+2% on top of the rates above
Frequently Asked Questions
If it is the only residential property you will own, £5,000. The first £125,000 is taxed at nothing, the next £125,000 at 2% giving £2,500, and the final £50,000 at 5% giving another £2,500. If you are a first-time buyer, you pay nothing at all, because the price is within the £300,000 relief threshold. If it is an additional property, you pay £20,000, because the five-point surcharge applies to every slice including the first.
Almost certainly because the older calculator still uses the temporary thresholds that expired on 1 April 2025. Between September 2022 and March 2025 the nil-rate band was £250,000 and first-time buyer relief ran to £425,000. Both reverted on 1 April 2025 to £125,000 and £300,000 respectively. A £300,000 purchase cost £2,500 under the old bands and costs £5,000 now. If a calculator gives you the lower figure, it has not been updated.
You must never have owned a residential property anywhere in the world, and the same must be true of anyone you are buying with. That last condition catches people out constantly: if you buy jointly with someone who has owned before, nobody gets the relief, even if you personally qualify. Inheriting a share of a property counts as having owned one. The property must also be the one you intend to live in as your main home.
No, and this is the most costly misunderstanding in the whole tax. The relief is withdrawn entirely, not reduced gradually. At £500,000 a first-time buyer pays £10,000. At £500,001 the relief vanishes and the standard rates apply from the first pound, taking the bill to roughly £15,000. There is no partial relief, no sliding scale, and no rounding in your favour. If you are negotiating anywhere near £500,000, staying at or below it is worth about £5,000.
Yes, on the day you complete, because at that moment you own two properties. However, you can claim the surcharge back if you sell your previous main residence within 36 months of completing the new purchase. You have to pay it first and reclaim it afterwards, so it is a cash-flow problem rather than a permanent cost — but it is a large one, and worth budgeting for rather than being surprised by.
No. SDLT applies only to England and Northern Ireland. Scotland charges Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and Wales charges Land Transaction Tax, and both have different band boundaries, different rates and different first-time buyer rules. Using an SDLT figure for a Scottish or Welsh purchase will give you the wrong number, sometimes by thousands of pounds. Use a calculator built for the relevant country instead.
Within 14 days of completion. In practice your conveyancer normally files the SDLT return and pays HMRC on your behalf out of the funds you send them before completion, so you rarely handle it yourself. What matters is that the money has to be available on completion day, in cash, on top of your deposit and fees. It cannot be added to the mortgage, which is why estimating it accurately before you offer is worth doing.
On the price you pay for the property, regardless of how much of it is borrowed. A £400,000 house bought with a £350,000 mortgage and a £50,000 deposit attracts exactly the same SDLT as the same house bought outright in cash. The tax follows the transaction value, not the financing. If the sale includes fixtures and fittings sold separately, only the property element is chargeable, though HMRC scrutinises inflated chattel valuations closely.