By price
Stamp duty on a £400,000 property
Midway through the English first-time buyer band, at the top of the Welsh 6% band, and costly for anyone buying from overseas.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
On £400,000, a buyer of an only home in England or Northern Ireland pays £10,000 of Stamp Duty Land Tax, and a first-time buyer pays £5,000: nothing on the first £300,000 and 5% on the next £100,000. The price sits exactly halfway between the start of that 5% slice and the £500,000 limit beyond which the relief disappears. In Wales the bill is £10,500 of Land Transaction Tax, and £400,000 is the last pound of the Welsh 6% band; anything above is taxed at 7.5%. Scotland charges £13,350 of LBTT, the most of the three, since everything from £325,001 pays 10%. A buyer who has spent fewer than 183 days in the UK in the year before completion pays the English non-resident surcharge on top of whichever table applies: £13,000 as a first-time buyer, £18,000 otherwise. Scotland and Wales have no such surcharge.
More options: commercial property, company relief
Stamp Duty Land Tax · England and Northern Ireland
£10,000
2.5% of £400,000 · rule applied: Standard residential rates
| Portion | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| £0 to £125,000 | 0% | £0 |
| £125,000 to £250,000 | 2% | £2,500 |
| £250,000 to £925,000 | 5% | £7,500 |
Return and payment due within 14 days of completion.
Same purchase elsewhere in the UK
Halfway up the English relief band
First-time buyer relief in England is a table of two slices: 0% to £300,000, then 5% to £500,000. A £400,000 purchase uses half of the second slice and pays £5,000. Comparing it with the standard bill shows something useful: between £300,000 and £500,000, the relief is worth the same amount at every price, £5,000, because both tables charge 5% on each extra pound in that range.
| Price | Standard SDLT | First-time buyer | Value of the relief |
|---|---|---|---|
| £250,000 | £2,500 | £0 | £2,500 |
| £300,000 | £5,000 | £0 | £5,000 |
| £400,000 | £10,000 | £5,000 | £5,000 |
| £500,000 | £15,000 | £10,000 | £5,000 |
| £510,000 | £15,500 | £15,500 | £0 |
The last row shows the other side: one pound past £500,000, the relief is gone and the standard table applies to the whole price. At £400,000 a first-time buyer is still £100,000 away from that edge.
The top of the Welsh 6% band
Welsh main rates have no slice at 2% or 5%. After the nil band comes a 6% slice from £225,001 to £400,000, so £400,000 fills it exactly: £175,000 at 6% is £10,500. From the next pound the rate is 7.5%, which is the reason a Welsh buyer pays more than an English one from here upwards. The higher rates for second homes turn at the same point, from 10% to 12.5% (Welsh rates).
Scotland is the dearest of the three at this price. Its 10% band begins at £325,001, so £75,000 of the price is taxed at that rate and the LBTT bill reaches £13,350, £3,350 more than in England. For a first-time buyer the gap widens to £7,750, because the Scottish relief stops growing at £600.
Buying from overseas at £400,000
England and Northern Ireland charge a non-resident surcharge of 2% on every band of whichever table the buyer uses. A buyer is non-resident if they spent fewer than 183 days in the UK in the year before completion, and one non-resident among several buyers is enough, except for a spouse or civil partner living with a UK-resident partner (SDLTM09885). On £400,000 the surcharge is £8,000 whatever the situation:
| Buyer | UK resident | Non-resident | Surcharge |
|---|---|---|---|
| First-time buyer | £5,000 | £13,000 | £8,000 |
| Only home or moving home | £10,000 | £18,000 | £8,000 |
| Additional property | £30,000 | £38,000 | £8,000 |
The surcharge can be recovered by a buyer who reaches 183 days in the UK in a continuous period of one year that starts no earlier than a year before the purchase and ends no later than a year after it (SDLTM09960). Neither LBTT in Scotland nor LTT in Wales has an equivalent.