Stamp duty calculator

Stamp duty is charged on the purchase of property and land above a threshold. It is a slice tax: the price is split into bands, and each band's rate applies only to the portion of the price inside it. That is why a purchase can reach a high band while the tax as a share of the whole price stays much lower.

The tax has a different name in each nation and each one sets its own bands. England and Northern Ireland charge Stamp Duty Land Tax, Scotland charges Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, and Wales charges Land Transaction Tax. They are separate taxes set by separate governments on separate timetables, and all three changed their treatment of additional properties within six weeks of each other at the end of 2024.

Buying a dwelling when you already own one costs materially more, and the three nations do it three different ways. In England and Northern Ireland a flat surcharge is added to the rate of every band, so the extra scales with the price. In Scotland the Additional Dwelling Supplement is charged on the whole purchase price rather than in slices, which makes it a large fixed-percentage hit even on a cheap flat. In Wales the higher rates are a wholly separate table whose bottom band is not zero, so tax starts from the first pound.

All three have a price floor, and below it the extra charge does not engage at all. Get that wrong in Wales in particular and a cheap purchase looks taxable when it is not, because the higher-rate table has no zero band to fall into: below the floor the transaction reverts to the main rates instead.

The charge is for an additional dwelling, not for a second purchase. If you are replacing your main residence you pay the ordinary rates. If the two do not complete in the right order you pay the higher amount up front and reclaim it when the old home sells, within the time limit your nation sets, so it is worth knowing that the money comes back rather than assuming it is lost.

Stamp duty is the largest single line for most second-property buyers, and it is not the only one. Budget for these as well:

• Conveyancing. The HomeOwners Alliance puts the average cost of conveyancing on a purchase at about £1,509 including disbursements and VAT, with the legal fee itself a smaller part of that and leasehold adding a few hundred more.
• A survey. The same source puts a RICS Level 2 HomeBuyer report at roughly £400 to £1,000 and a Level 3 building survey at roughly £630 to £1,500, both rising with the value of the property and typically higher in London and the South East. On an older property or one you plan to let, the Level 3 is the one that finds the thing that changes your numbers.
• The Land Registry fee. A published scale, running from £20 to £500 for a normal purchase registered online by your conveyancer, based on the price paid. Registering by post costs several times more, which is why it is worth knowing the two columns exist.
• Mortgage costs. A product or arrangement fee if the deal carries one, a valuation fee, and a broker fee if you use one. These vary too widely by lender and by broker to put a number on honestly.
• A bigger deposit, on a second property. Buy-to-let and second-home lending is normally capped at a lower loan-to-value than a residential mortgage, and the rate is usually higher. Both change what the purchase costs you every month, not just on completion day, which is the part a stamp duty figure cannot show you.

Conveyancing and survey figures are the HomeOwners Alliance's published ranges, and the Land Registry scale is HM Land Registry's own fee order. Checked 03/09/2026. They are estimates for budgeting, not quotes.

A stamp duty band table is the one thing here that must never be guessed, so it is not written into this website at all. It is held in CrestCast's admin config and read by this page from the same single source the CrestCast app uses, so there is deliberately no second copy to drift out of date.

The published tables were checked line by line against each tax authority's own rates and worked examples on 03/09/2026, and the calculator is pinned to those worked examples: a £295,000 purchase in England returns £4,750, which is the figure in HMRC's own example, and a £235,000 purchase in Scotland returns £1,800, which is Revenue Scotland's. If the verified table for a tax year is not published, this page shows nothing rather than a plausible-looking wrong figure.

The source of truth in each nation is its own tax authority:

• HMRC: Stamp Duty Land Tax for England and Northern Ireland, and its guidance on buying an additional property.
• Revenue Scotland: LBTT and the Additional Dwelling Supplement.
• Welsh Government: Land Transaction Tax rates and bands.