GuideBuying a home

Stamp duty

The tax you pay when you buy a home in England. The price is cut into slices, and each slice is taxed at its own rate.

Use it

£500,000 at standard rates: £0 + £2,500 + £12,500 = £15,000.

Example

A £500,000 home costs £15,000 in stamp duty at standard rates. A first-time buyer pays nothing on the first £300,000 of a £450,000 home and 5% on the rest: £7,500. At £520,000 the first-time buyer relief is lost entirely and the bill is £16,000. Someone who will own another home pays £40,000 on £500,000. Try your own numbers in the stamp duty calculator.

How we calculate it

Standard rates (from 1 April 2025): 0% £0 to £125,000; 2% £125,000 to £250,000; 5% £250,000 to £925,000; 10% £925,000 to £1,500,000; 12% above £1,500,000.
First-time buyers (from 1 April 2025): 0% £0 to £300,000; 5% £300,000 to £500,000. Above £500,000 standard rates apply to the whole price.
Buying when you will own more than one home (from 31 October 2024) adds 5 percentage points to every slice, unless the price is under £40,000.
Buyers who are not UK resident for stamp duty (from 1 April 2021) add 2 points to every slice.
The total is rounded down to the whole pound, as HMRC does.

The fine print

Rates were checked as in force on 5 October 2026. They change with budgets; check gov.uk before you rely on them.
England only, for people buying homes. Not covered: companies, six or more homes in one purchase, shared ownership, rent on new leases, and reliefs other than first-time buyer.
First-time buyer relief does not apply if you will own another home after the purchase.
Not financial advice. These are rough sums with your own numbers; check them with a solicitor, mortgage broker or tax adviser before you rely on them.
Rates from gov.uk: Residential property rates (gov.uk); Higher rates for additional properties (gov.uk); Previous rates and thresholds (gov.uk).