The UK Stamp Duty Calculator estimates the property transfer tax for purchases in England and Northern Ireland (Stamp Duty Land Tax, SDLT), Scotland (Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, LBTT), and Wales (Land Transaction Tax, LTT): select the region and buyer type, enter the price, and it applies the stored 2025/26 bands progressively, with first-time buyer relief, the additional-property surcharges, and the non-resident surcharge where they apply, and shows the tax band by band with the effective rate.
How It Works
Each rate applies only to the slice of the price inside its band, never to the whole price:
England's standard bands in the calculator are 0% to £125,000, 2% to £250,000, 5% to £925,000, 10% to £1.5 million, and 12% above. First-time buyers in England pay 0% to £300,000 and 5% from £300,000 to £500,000, with relief lost entirely above £500,000. Additional properties add 5 percentage points to every English band (and 2 more for non-resident buyers); Scotland instead adds its Additional Dwelling Supplement as a flat 8% of the whole price; Wales routes additional properties to a separate higher-rate table running from 4% to 16%.
Parameters
| Input | Required | Meaning | |---|---|---| | Property value | Yes | Full purchase price | | Region | Yes | England/NI, Scotland, or Wales | | Buyer type | Yes | First-time, next home, additional, or standard | | Non-resident | England | Adds the 2% surcharge |
Worked examples
£500,000 next home in England: £0 on the first £125,000, 2% on the next £125,000 (£2,500), and 5% on the remaining £250,000 (£12,500): total £15,000, an effective rate of 3.0%. £400,000 first-time purchase in England: 0% to £300,000 plus 5% on £100,000 = £5,000 (at £500,001 the relief vanishes and standard bands apply to the whole price, one of the sharpest cliffs in the system). The same £500,000 as an additional property: every band rises 5 points (5%, 7%, 10%): £6,250 + £8,750 + £25,000 = £40,000, effective 8.0%. £300,000 in Scotland: 0% to £145,000, 2% on £105,000 (£2,100), 5% on £50,000 (£2,500) = £4,600 LBTT, and if it is an additional dwelling the 8% ADS adds a flat £24,000 on top. £300,000 in Wales: 0% to £225,000 plus 6% on £75,000 = £4,500 LTT. The same house price is five different tax bills; region and buyer status are not details, they are the calculation.
The system differences that catch people
England's first-time relief has no counterpart in Wales (the calculator applies standard Welsh rates to first-time buyers and says so), while Scotland's version is a raised nil band to £175,000 rather than a separate schedule. Scotland's ADS is structurally different from England's surcharge: a flat percentage of the entire price, so it does not scale gently with the bands and it dwarfs the underlying LBTT at modest prices, as the £24,000-on-£4,600 example shows. England's additional-property surcharge can be reclaimed if you sell your previous main residence within the statutory window after buying the new one, a refund worth claiming and diarizing. Non-residence for the English surcharge is a specific statutory day-count test, not a feeling about where you live. Northern Ireland follows England's SDLT exactly, which the calculator's England selection covers.
What the estimate leaves out
The calculator models residential purchases by individuals under the stored band tables. It does not handle mixed-use or non-residential rates, the 15% flat rate for certain corporate purchases, multiple-dwellings relief (whose English abolition for transactions from June 2024 the stored model reflects by omission), linked transactions, shared-ownership elections, leases (where rent also enters the tax), or reliefs such as probate, divorce, and group relief. Completion-date rules decide which year's bands apply when rates change mid-transaction, and the figures here are the calculator's stored 2025/26 tables: confirm against HMRC, Revenue Scotland, or the Welsh Revenue Authority for a live purchase, and expect your conveyancer to compute the payable figure to the pound.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the tax not simply the top rate times the price?
Because every UK property tax is banded like income tax: each rate taxes only its slice. A £500,000 English purchase touches the 5% band but its average (effective) rate is 3.0%, and quoting the marginal rate as the bill overstates it by two thirds.
I am buying my first home jointly with someone who has owned before. Do we get first-time relief?
In England, no: all purchasers must be first-time buyers for the relief to apply, and the calculator's relief assumes the buyer type you select is true for the whole purchase. Similar all-buyer conditions apply in Scotland. Mixed-status couples are the classic case where expected relief evaporates at exchange.
When is the tax actually paid?
The return and payment are due within 14 days of completion in England and Northern Ireland (30 days in Scotland and Wales under their regimes), normally handled by your conveyancer from completion funds. The calculator's job is to size the bill early enough that it shapes the budget, not to file anything.