The ordinary bands, so the relief has something to replace
Residential Stamp Duty Land Tax, on the rates GOV.UK has published from 1 April 2025 and which were still the table on 19 October 2026, is charged in slices. Nothing is due on the first £125,000. The next £125,000, up to £250,000, is charged at 2 percent. The next £675,000, up to £925,000, is charged at 5 percent. The next £575,000, up to £1.5 million, is charged at 10 percent. Anything above £1.5 million is charged at 12 percent. The tax is the sum of the slices, rounded once to the penny. It is not a single percentage of the whole price.
A home bought for £295,000, with no first-time buyer claim and no additional-property surcharge, is the worked example on the calculator. The first £125,000 is nil. The next £125,000 at 2 percent is £2,500. The remaining £45,000 at 5 percent is £2,250. The total is £4,750. People who multiply £295,000 by 2 percent and get £5,900 are applying one rate to the whole price. The bands do not work that way, which is why the calculator lists each slice.
What first-time buyer relief actually changes
If you are buying your first home and the price is £500,000 or less, GOV.UK replaces those bands. Nothing is due on the first £300,000. The rest of the price, up to £500,000, is charged at 5 percent. A purchase of exactly £500,000 is therefore £10,000: nil on £300,000, and 5 percent of the remaining £200,000. A purchase of £295,000 by a qualifying first-time buyer is nil, because the whole price sits inside the £300,000 nil-rate slice. The ordinary £4,750 does not apply once the relief is allowed.
The relief is refused when the price is over £500,000. There is no taper and no partial relief. A price of £500,001 uses the ordinary residential bands, and the calculator's result for that price is £15,000.05. The extra penny is the slice arithmetic rounded once, not a special first-time buyer rate. If you are a penny over the limit, tick the ordinary home rather than expecting a reduced bill. The form on this site does that switch itself when the price is above £500,000 and the first-home option is selected, and it says the relief was refused.
GOV.UK's conditions for the relief are about the buyer and the property, not only the price. The property has to be a dwelling you intend to live in as your only home. The calculator does not investigate whether you have ever owned a property anywhere in the world, or whether anyone else on the title has. Those tests stay with the buyer. The form only applies the bands that follow from the option you pick and the price you type.
Additional property and the non-resident surcharge
Higher rates for an additional residential property add 5 percentage points, and GOV.UK publishes the resulting table as 5, 7, 10, 15 and 17 percent. They apply when the price is £40,000 or more. Below £40,000 the higher rates do not apply, so an additional-property tick on a cheaper price falls back to the ordinary nil slice. A £300,000 additional property is £20,000. The same price with the non-resident surcharge as well is £26,000, because the non-resident surcharge is a further 2 percentage points on top of whatever otherwise applies.
The non-resident 2 points also apply under £40,000. A price of £39,000 marked as an additional property and non-resident is £780, which is 2 percent, because the additional-property rates have not started and the non-resident surcharge has. Replacing a main home can mean the higher rates are not due, or that a later refund is available. The calculator does not decide that. Tick additional property only when the higher rates apply to this purchase. Leasehold net present value of rent, mixed-use property, companies and trusts are not in the sum.
How to use the calculator with this relief
Type the price, choose first home if you are claiming the relief, and leave the non-resident box unticked unless that surcharge applies. Read the slice list, not only the total. If the note says the relief was refused, the price is over £500,000 and the ordinary bands have been used. If you are buying an additional property, do not leave the first-home option selected in the hope that both reliefs stack. They do not. The first-home bands and the additional-property rates are alternative paths.
Scotland's Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and Wales's Land Transaction Tax are different statutes with different thresholds. A flat in Glasgow or a house in Cardiff will not match this page, even when the price is the same. The linked calculator is the England and Northern Ireland residential table only. Take-home pay and student-loan repayment sit beside it because a mortgage decision often starts from those figures, not because they change the stamp duty slices.
One more boundary is worth stating because search pages often skip it. The residential table on this page is for a freehold price, or for the premium on a lease, in the ordinary way the GOV.UK rate table is read. It does not add the separate one percent charge on the net present value of rent above £125,000, which is a leasehold calculation of its own. It does not split a mixed-use building between residential and non-residential rates. It does not apply the company and trust rules that can pull a purchase into the higher rates even when a person thinks of it as a first home. If any of those apply, the slice list is only the residential price table, and the return still has the rest of the form to finish. The calculator rounds the summed slices once to the penny, which is why £500,001 on the ordinary bands is £15,000.05 rather than a neat £15,000.