By price
Stamp duty on a £200,000 property
A starter home price in much of the north, Scotland and Wales, and a good test of how each nation treats first-time buyers.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
A first-time buyer paying £200,000 owes £0 of Stamp Duty Land Tax in England and Northern Ireland, £500 of Land and Buildings Transaction Tax in Scotland and £0 of Land Transaction Tax in Wales. The three results come from three different designs. England’s first-time buyer relief has a nil band to £300,000, so the whole price is covered. Scotland’s relief only lifts its nil band to £175,000, leaving £25,000 taxed at 2%. Wales has no relief at all, but its nil band for every buyer runs to £225,000. The order changes as soon as one buyer has owned a home before, even a share of one: the relief is lost for the whole purchase, and the bill becomes £1,500 in England and £1,100 in Scotland, while Wales stays at £0. Buying it as a second home costs £11,500, £17,100 and £10,700 respectively.
More options: commercial property, company relief
Stamp Duty Land Tax · England and Northern Ireland
£1,500
0.8% of £200,000 · rule applied: Standard residential rates
| Portion | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| £0 to £125,000 | 0% | £0 |
| £125,000 to £250,000 | 2% | £1,500 |
Return and payment due within 14 days of completion.
Same purchase elsewhere in the UK
One first home, three tax designs
At £200,000 the three systems give three different answers to the same buyer. England and Northern Ireland apply a separate first-time buyer table whose nil band reaches £300,000, so nothing is due. Scotland keeps its normal table and only widens the zero slice to £175,000; the next £25,000 pays 2%, which is £500. Wales has no first-time buyer relief but needs none at this level, because nobody pays Land Transaction Tax on the first £225,000.
| Situation | England & NI | Scotland | Wales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every buyer a first-time buyer | £0 | £500 | £0 |
| Two buyers, one has owned before | £1,500 | £1,100 | £0 |
| Moving home, old one sold the same day | £1,500 | £1,100 | £0 |
| One buyer keeps another home | £11,500 | £17,100 | £10,700 |
The second row is the one that surprises buyers. Losing the relief costs £1,500 in England but only £600 in Scotland, because the Scottish relief was small to begin with.
When one of two buyers has owned before
Relief in England and in Scotland is all or nothing across the buyers. A couple where one partner once held a flat, even a share of one, or inherited a house, buys at the ordinary rates: £1,500 in England, £1,100 in Scotland. Only Wales is indifferent, since its answer was £0 either way. Some short leases held in the past do not count as owning in England (SDLTM29845).
There is one English nuance for married couples and civil partners. When only one spouse is named as buyer, HMRC examines that buyer’s history alone for the relief, not the partner’s. The higher rates work differently and treat spouses as one unit, so this does not help if the partner still owns a home. The joint purchase calculator applies these rules buyer by buyer.
Towns where £200,000 is close to a first-time buyer’s price
The UK House Price Index for July 2026 puts the average price paid by first-time buyers near this figure in several cities. The table shows what each average costs a first-time buyer under its own nation’s rules. In the English cities the result is nil. In Glasgow the average sits just under the £175,000 line of the Scottish relief, and Swansea is far below the Welsh nil band.
| City | First-time buyer average | Tax for a first-time buyer |
|---|---|---|
| Newcastle upon Tyne | £181,679 | £0 |
| Sheffield | £194,060 | £0 |
| Glasgow | £174,386 | £0 |
| Swansea | £177,161 | £0 |
For a buyer who has owned before, the averages for all homes are higher: £207,547 in Newcastle and £215,037 for Wales as a whole, still under the Welsh nil band.