First-Time Buyer Stamp Duty Relief Explained

What first-time buyer stamp duty relief is

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is a tax you pay when you buy a property in England or Northern Ireland. The standard rates are tiered: you pay nothing on the first £125,000, 2% on the next £125,000, then 5% on everything above £250,000 up to £925,000.

First-time buyer relief rewrites the lower bands entirely. Instead of 0% on the first £125,000 and 2% on £125,001 to £250,000, you get 0% on the whole first £300,000. The 5% rate then applies on any amount between £300,000 and £500,000. If the property costs more than £500,000, there is no relief — you pay standard SDLT on the entire purchase price.

Wales has its own Land Transaction Tax (LTT) with separate thresholds. Northern Ireland uses SDLT. Scotland has LBTT — covered below.

Standard SDLT vs first-time buyer SDLT

The table below shows exactly what you pay at different purchase prices under standard rates and first-time buyer rates for 2026/27. The maximum saving is £5,000, achieved at any price from £300,000 to £500,000.

England and Northern Ireland 2026/27. SDLT does not apply in Scotland or Wales.

The £500,000 cliff — why it matters

The cliff at £500,000 is the most important thing to understand about FTB relief. It is not a gradual taper — it is an on/off switch. Buy at £500,000 and you pay £10,000 in SDLT. Buy at £501,000 and you pay standard rates on the full price: (£125k × 2%) + (£251k × 5%) = £2,500 + £12,550 = £15,050.

That is a £5,050 jump in tax for a £1,000 increase in purchase price. In practice, if you are buying close to £500,000 it is worth being precise. A property listed at £510,000 with room to negotiate is worth pushing toward or below £500,000 — the SDLT saving alone covers the cost of a few rounds of negotiation.

The cliff also applies to joint purchases. If you and a partner are buying together and one of you has owned before, the first-time buyer relief is unavailable entirely — you pay standard SDLT at all price points.

Scotland: LBTT for first-time buyers

Scotland replaced SDLT with its own property tax, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), in 2015. The mechanics are the same — you pay a percentage on each slice of the purchase price — but the bands and rates differ.

Standard LBTT is 0% on the first £145,000, 2% up to £250,000, 5% up to £325,000, 10% up to £750,000, then 12% above that. First-time buyer relief raises the nil-rate band from £145,000 to £175,000. Everything above £175,000 is taxed at the same rates as standard LBTT — there is no upper price limit on the relief.

Because the relief only widens the nil-rate band by £30,000, the saving is a flat £600 on any property priced above £175,000 (£30,000 × 2% = £600). Smaller than the maximum English saving of £5,000, but it still applies at every price point above the threshold.

Scotland 2026/27. LBTT applies in Scotland only — not to properties in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland.

Who counts as a first-time buyer

HMRC defines a first-time buyer as someone who has never owned a residential property, either in the UK or abroad. Inherited property counts — if you inherited a share of a house, even if you never lived in it, you are not a first-time buyer for SDLT purposes.

Joint purchases require every buyer to qualify. If you are buying with a partner who has previously owned, the relief is unavailable and you pay standard SDLT on the whole price. There is no partial relief for mixed-status buyers.

The property you are buying must also be for use as your main residence. Buying a buy-to-let as your first property does not attract first-time buyer relief — and you would pay the additional dwelling supplement on top of standard SDLT.

How you claim the relief

You do not apply separately for first-time buyer SDLT relief. Your solicitor or conveyancer handles it. When they submit the SDLT return to HMRC after completion, they select the first-time buyer option and the reduced rates apply automatically.

The key thing is to tell your solicitor you are a first-time buyer at the start of the process. If they submit without the relief and you qualified, you can amend the return and claim a refund — but it is cleaner to get it right first time.