Scotland
LBTT rates and bands in Scotland
The residential table Revenue Scotland has applied since 1 April 2021, read slice by slice.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
Land and Buildings Transaction Tax on a home in Scotland is charged in five slices, unchanged since 1 April 2021: nothing on the first £145,000, 2% on the part up to £250,000, 5% up to £325,000, 10% up to £750,000 and 12% on anything above. Each rate applies only to the portion of the price inside its band, so Revenue Scotland’s own examples work out at £1,800 on a £235,000 home and £63,350 on £875,000. Compared with England and Northern Ireland, a Scottish buyer of a single home pays less up to about £333,000 and more from £334,000, because the 10% band starts so early. Second homes add the 8% Additional Dwelling Supplement on the whole price, first-time buyers get a wider nil band, and commercial property follows a separate table. The return and the tax are due within 30 days.
LBTT on your price, slice by slice
LBTT for a buyer of one home
£3,350
| Rate on your last pound | 5% |
| Share of the price | 1.2% |
| Same home in England / Wales | £3,750 / £3,000 |
Standard residential bands of Revenue Scotland, no supplement and no first-time buyer relief.
The five bands since 1 April 2021
| Portion of the price | Rate |
|---|---|
| Up to £145,000 | 0% |
| £145,001 to £250,000 | 2% |
| £250,001 to £325,000 | 5% |
| £325,001 to £750,000 | 10% |
| Above £750,000 | 12% |
Scotland introduced LBTT on 1 April 2015, when it stopped using Stamp Duty Land Tax. The current residential table dates from 1 April 2021. The thresholds have not moved since, which makes Scotland the nation with the longest-standing bands in the United Kingdom: England changed its table on 1 April 2025 and Wales on 10 October 2022.
Reading the table means reading slices. The first £145,000 of every price is untaxed. The next £105,000 is taxed at 2%, which can never cost more than £2,100. The 5% slice is short, only £75,000 wide, and the 10% slice that follows is long, stretching £425,000. That long 10% band is what shapes Scottish bills for family houses.
Revenue Scotland’s worked examples, line by line
The authority illustrates its table with two prices. The first is a modest home at £235,000:
| Band | Amount in band | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| £0 to £145,000 | £145,000 | 0% | £0 |
| £145,001 to £250,000 | £90,000 | 2% | £1,800 |
| Total | £235,000 | 0.8% | £1,800 |
Only two slices are touched, and the bill of £1,800 is under one per cent of the price. The second example sits near the top of the market at £875,000:
| Band | Amount in band | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| £0 to £145,000 | £145,000 | 0% | £0 |
| £145,001 to £250,000 | £105,000 | 2% | £2,100 |
| £250,001 to £325,000 | £75,000 | 5% | £3,750 |
| £325,001 to £750,000 | £425,000 | 10% | £42,500 |
| Above £750,000 | £125,000 | 12% | £15,000 |
| Total | £875,000 | 7.2% | £63,350 |
Here every band is used, and the 10% slice alone produces most of the £63,350. The share of the price taken in tax rises from about 0.8% to about 7.2%, although no rate in the table changed in between. Both figures are reproduced exactly by our LBTT calculator, which is how we test it against the authority’s guidance.
Where Scotland is cheaper than England, and where it is dearer
The two tables cross. Scotland starts later, with its nil band above England’s, and its first taxed rate is the same 2%. But England then charges 5% all the way to £925,000, while Scotland jumps to 10% at £325,000. The result is a turning point a little above £325,000: by our calculation, from £334,000 a buyer of a single home pays more in Scotland than in England, and the gap widens with every pound above it.
| Price | LBTT, Scotland | SDLT, England & NI | LTT, Wales | Scotland against England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £150,000 | £100 | £500 | £0 | £400 cheaper |
| £200,000 | £1,100 | £1,500 | £0 | £400 cheaper |
| £250,000 | £2,100 | £2,500 | £1,500 | £400 cheaper |
| £300,000 | £4,600 | £5,000 | £4,500 | £400 cheaper |
| £340,000 | £7,350 | £7,000 | £6,900 | £350 dearer |
| £400,000 | £13,350 | £10,000 | £10,500 | £3,350 dearer |
| £500,000 | £23,350 | £15,000 | £18,000 | £8,350 dearer |
| £750,000 | £48,350 | £27,500 | £36,750 | £20,850 dearer |
| £1,000,000 | £78,350 | £43,750 | £61,750 | £34,600 dearer |
Below that turning point the Scottish table is the gentler one. The average home sold in the City of Edinburgh cost £303,965 in the latest UK House Price Index, which means £4,798 of LBTT, against £5,198 if the same price were paid in England. In Glasgow the average of £193,675 costs £973. For a detached house in the New Town or a farmhouse in Perthshire above £750,000, the comparison runs the other way, and quickly.
What another £10,000 on the offer costs in tax
Because every slice keeps its own rate, the useful question when bidding is not “what is my rate?” but “what does the next £10,000 cost?”. Where a home is marketed at offers over a stated figure and the closing date approaches, that is the choice a buyer actually faces. The answer depends only on which band the extra money lands in:
- from £140,000 to £150,000: £100 more, because half of the extra stays in the nil band;
- from £220,000 to £230,000: £200 more, all at 2%;
- from £300,000 to £310,000: £500 more, at 5%;
- from £420,000 to £430,000: £1,000 more, at 10%;
- from £800,000 to £810,000: £1,200 more, at 12%.
The figures make one thing plain: the tax never jumps by more than the rate of the band you are in. A bid of a few thousand pounds over a band limit costs a few hundred pounds of extra LBTT at most, and there is no price at which offering more saves tax. That makes the Scottish table easier to plan around than the English first-time buyer rules, where crossing one threshold removes a relief altogether.
The supplement and the relief sit on top of the bands
Two adjustments change the table for particular buyers. A first-time buyer has the nil band widened to £175,000, which saves at most £600; the first-time buyer relief guide sets out who qualifies. A buyer who ends up owning two dwellings pays the bands as normal and then the Additional Dwelling Supplement of 8% on the whole price, so a £250,000 buy-to-let costs £22,100 instead of £2,100. Neither changes the bands themselves. The supplement in particular follows its own logic: it has no slices, starts from the first pound once the price reaches £40,000, and can be repaid if it was only due because a previous main home had not yet sold. On a family house at £450,000, that refundable amount would be £36,000, more than the £18,350 of LBTT on the same house.
Commercial and mixed-use purchases
Shops, offices, farmland and properties that combine a home with business premises use a shorter table. The first taxed slice is lighter than the residential one, at 1%, but the top rate of 5% begins at £250,000.
| Portion of the price | Rate |
|---|---|
| Up to £150,000 | 0% |
| £150,001 to £250,000 | 1% |
| Above £250,000 | 5% |
A £400,000 shop with a flat above costs £8,500 on this table. Non-residential leases have their own rules on rent, which are outside the scope of this site; the Revenue Scotland page on non-residential property sets them out.
Paying within 30 days
The LBTT return and the tax are due together within 30 days of the effective date, more than twice the 14 days allowed for SDLT in England. In practice the solicitor acting for you submits the return online and settles the tax from your funds on or before the date of entry, so the deadline mostly matters when something about the purchase changes afterwards: a price adjustment, a missed relief, or a supplement that becomes repayable. Those corrections go through an amended return, and the ADS repayment guide explains the time limits that apply to them.