The additional dwellings surcharge in England and Northern Ireland is 5 percentage points, not 3. It went up on 31 October 2024, and on a £320,000 buy-to-let that change alone is worth £6,400. Wales and Scotland run entirely separate taxes with their own rates, their own surcharges and their own reliefs.
Guide · Updated August 2026
Stamp duty land tax applies in England and Northern Ireland only. The current standard residential rates have applied since 1 April 2025, and they are charged in slices — each band's rate applies only to the part of the price falling within that band.
| Band | Standard rate | With the additional dwellings surcharge |
|---|---|---|
| Up to £125,000 | 0% | 5% |
| £125,001 – £250,000 | 2% | 7% |
| £250,001 – £925,000 | 5% | 10% |
| £925,001 – £1.5m | 10% | 15% |
| Over £1.5m | 12% | 17% |
The surcharge for additional dwellings is 5 percentage points, up from 3, for transactions with an effective date on or after 31 October 2024. Anything published before that date showing 3% is wrong, and a great deal of it is still online. Transitional rules may apply where contracts were exchanged before 31 October 2024 but completed on or after it.
The surcharge applies where the additional property is worth £40,000 or more. Below that, it does not bite at all.
A landlord who already owns a home buys a £320,000 flat to let in England.
Higher rates: 5% on the first £125,000 = £6,250; 7% on the next £125,000 = £8,750; 10% on the remaining £70,000 = £7,000. Total £22,000.
Standard rates on the same purchase would be £0 + 2% of £125,000 (£2,500) + 5% of £70,000 (£3,500) = £6,000. The surcharge therefore costs £16,000, which is exactly 5% of £320,000 — and £6,400 more than it would have been before 31 October 2024. Figures are illustrative.
A separate 2 percentage point surcharge has applied to non-UK resident buyers of residential property in England and Northern Ireland since 1 April 2021. The test is presence: you are non-resident for this purpose if you were not in the UK for at least 183 days in the 12 months before the purchase. It applies on top of all other residential rates, including the additional dwellings rates.
The same £320,000 flat, bought by a non-UK resident landlord who already owns property. The bands become 7%, 9% and 12%: £8,750 + £11,250 + £8,400 = £28,400. That is the £22,000 above, plus 2% of £320,000, or £6,400. Figures are illustrative.
Our non-resident landlord page covers what follows the purchase — the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme, quarterly deductions, and the obligation to report every UK property disposal.
From 1 April 2025, first-time buyer relief gives nil up to £300,000 and 5% from £300,001 to £500,000. Above £500,000 there is no relief at all — not a tapered amount, none. The £425,000 and £625,000 figures many calculators still show were temporary and ended on 31 March 2025.
The cliff edge is real money. At a purchase price of £500,000 the relief is worth £5,000: relieved SDLT is 5% of £200,000, or £10,000, against £15,000 on standard rates. One pound more and the whole £5,000 disappears. It matters to landlords for one specific reason — buying an additional property removes first-time buyer status for the future.
A company buying residential property pays the higher rates on any purchase of £40,000 or more. There is no starting exemption of the kind an individual first-time buyer gets.
On top of that, a 17% flat rate applies from 31 October 2024 to purchases by non-natural persons of a "higher threshold interest" — a single dwelling with chargeable consideration over £500,000, or linked transactions aggregating above £500,000. The older 15% figure has been superseded. Non-natural persons for this purpose are companies, partnerships where one or more partners is a company, and collective investment schemes.
Reliefs take most genuine letting companies back onto the ordinary higher rates: property rental business, property developer or trader, property made available to the public in a trade, a financial institution acquiring in the course of lending, occupation by employees of the purchaser, farmhouses, and qualifying housing co-operatives. All of these are subject to clawback if the qualifying condition stops being met.
A company buys a £700,000 house to let. The 17% flat rate on the whole consideration is £119,000. With property rental business relief the ordinary higher rates apply: £6,250 + £8,750 + 10% of £450,000 (£45,000) = £60,000. The relief is worth £59,000 on this one purchase, and it can be clawed back. Figures are illustrative.
Our property company page and our property company accounts service cover the ongoing position, and the incorporation guide covers what happens when the seller is you.
The surcharge is not meant to catch someone moving house. The rules are in paragraph 3(5) to 3(7) of Schedule 4ZA to the Finance Act 2003.
If you sell the old home before or on the same day as the purchase, the surcharge does not apply provided all of the following hold: you intend to occupy the new property as your only or main residence; you disposed of a major interest in another dwelling within the three years preceding; immediately after that disposal neither you nor your spouse or civil partner held a major interest in the old property; you lived in the old property as your only or main residence at some point in that three-year period; and no other dwelling was acquired in between with the intention of occupying it as a main residence.
If you sell it afterwards, you pay the surcharge and then reclaim it, provided the previous main home is sold within three years. For sales on or after 29 October 2018, the refund claim must be made within 12 months of whichever comes later — the sale, or the filing date of the SDLT return. Both dates need diarising; people miss the second one because they are concentrating on the first.
LTT replaced SDLT in Wales and is a different tax with different bands. The main residential rates have applied since 10 October 2022: nil to £225,000, then 6% to £400,000, 7.5% to £750,000, 10% to £1.5m and 12% above. There is no first-time buyer relief in Wales at all.
The higher residential rates, which are the ones a landlord buying an additional property pays, have applied since 11 December 2024.
| Band | Higher residential rate |
|---|---|
| Up to £180,000 | 5% |
| £180,001 – £250,000 | 8.5% |
| £250,001 – £400,000 | 10% |
| £400,001 – £750,000 | 12.5% |
| £750,001 – £1.5m | 15% |
| Over £1.5m | 17% |
LBTT residential rates have applied since 1 April 2021: nil to £145,000, 2% to £250,000, 5% to £325,000, 10% to £750,000 and 12% above. First-time buyer relief raises the nil rate band to £175,000, worth up to £600.
The Scottish equivalent of the surcharge is the Additional Dwelling Supplement, and it is 8% for transactions on or after 5 December 2024 where the consideration is £40,000 or more. It is charged on the whole price rather than as a set of banded uplifts, which makes Scotland markedly more expensive at the lower end. The replacement window for ADS is 36 months for transactions from 1 April 2024, up from 18.
England or Northern Ireland: £6,250 + £8,750 + £7,000 = £22,000.
Wales: 5% of £180,000 (£9,000) + 8.5% of £70,000 (£5,950) + 10% of £70,000 (£7,000) = £21,950.
Scotland: LBTT of 2% on £105,000 (£2,100) + 5% on £70,000 (£3,500) = £5,600, plus ADS of 8% on the whole £320,000 (£25,600) = £31,200.
Same property, same buyer, and £9,250 between the cheapest regime and the most expensive. Figures are illustrative.
We work out the charge before you commit, across whichever regime applies, and flag the reliefs and the clawback conditions that go with them. Where the purchase is by a company we look at the flat rate question first, because it is the largest single number in the deal. Get a fixed-fee quote, or read the capital gains guide for the other end of the cycle. This is information about the tax, not advice about the purchase.
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In England and Northern Ireland it is 5 percentage points, not 3, for transactions with an effective date on or after 31 October 2024, and it applies where the additional property costs £40,000 or more. That makes the bands 5%, 7%, 10%, 15% and 17% rather than 0%, 2%, 5%, 10% and 12%. On a £320,000 buy-to-let the higher rates give £22,000 against £6,000 on standard rates, so the surcharge costs £16,000. Wales charges higher residential rates from 11 December 2024 starting at 5%, and Scotland charges an Additional Dwelling Supplement of 8% of the whole price for transactions on or after 5 December 2024.
Not if you meet the conditions in paragraph 3(5) to 3(7) of Schedule 4ZA to the Finance Act 2003. Where the old home is sold before or on the same day as the purchase, the surcharge does not apply provided you intend to occupy the new property as your only or main residence, you disposed of a major interest in another dwelling within the preceding three years, neither you nor your spouse or civil partner held a major interest in it immediately after that disposal, you lived in it as your main residence at some point in those three years, and you acquired no other dwelling in between intending to live in it. If the old home is sold afterwards, you pay first and reclaim.
The higher rates apply to any residential purchase by a company of £40,000 or more, with no starting exemption. On top of that, a 17% flat rate has applied since 31 October 2024 to purchases by non-natural persons of a single dwelling costing more than £500,000, or linked transactions aggregating above that — the older 15% figure has been superseded. Non-natural persons include companies, partnerships with a corporate partner, and collective investment schemes. Reliefs bring most genuine letting companies back to the ordinary higher rates, including property rental business relief and property developer or trader relief, but all of them are subject to clawback.
No, they are separate taxes with separate rates. Wales charges Land Transaction Tax, with main residential rates from 10 October 2022 and higher residential rates from 11 December 2024 running 5%, 8.5%, 10%, 12.5%, 15% and 17%, and there is no first-time buyer relief at all. Scotland charges Land and Buildings Transaction Tax at rates from 1 April 2021, with first-time buyer relief raising the nil band to £175,000, plus an Additional Dwelling Supplement of 8% on the whole consideration for transactions on or after 5 December 2024 where the price is £40,000 or more. On a £320,000 flat the totals come to £22,000, £21,950 and £31,200.
Yes, if the previous main residence is sold within three years of the purchase. You pay the higher rates at the time and then claim the surcharge back once the old home has gone. For sales on or after 29 October 2018 the claim must be made within 12 months of whichever comes later: the date of the sale, or the filing date of the SDLT return for the purchase. Both deadlines are worth diarising, because the second one is the one people overlook while they are concentrating on selling. In Scotland the equivalent Additional Dwelling Supplement replacement window is 36 months for transactions from 1 April 2024, up from the previous 18 months.
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