Stamp duty on second homes
The 5% surcharge on every band, who has to pay it, the £40,000 rule, and how you claim it back when you sell your old home.
Buy a second home, holiday home or buy-to-let in England or Northern Ireland and you pay the standard stamp duty rates plus a 5% surcharge on every price band. It applies once the property costs £40,000 or more, and to anyone who will own more than one property after the purchase. On a £300,000 second home the surcharge adds £15,000, taking the bill to £20,000.
The short version
- You pay the standard rates with an extra 5% added to every band, so the first £125,000 is taxed at 5% instead of 0%.
- It starts once the price reaches £40,000, and applies if you will own two or more properties after buying.
- Across the whole price the surcharge comes to about 5% of what you pay for the property.
- Replacing your main home is exempt. If you have not sold the old one in time, you pay the surcharge and can reclaim it if you sell within 36 months.
- These are the rates for England and Northern Ireland. Every figure here is an estimate to plan with, not tax advice.
Rates on a second home
The surcharge does not replace the normal stamp duty bands, it sits on top of them. Each standard rate gains 5 percentage points, and the price is still split into slices, with each rate charged only on the part of the price in its band. Here is how the two compare for the 2026/27 tax year.
| Portion of the price | Standard rate | With the surcharge |
|---|---|---|
| Up to £125,000 | 0% | 5% |
| £125,001 to £250,000 | 2% | 7% |
| £250,001 to £925,000 | 5% | 10% |
| £925,001 to £1,500,000 | 10% | 15% |
| Over £1,500,000 | 12% | 17% |
Because every band rises by the same 5 points, the surcharge always works out at 5% of the full purchase price. That makes a quick estimate easy: take 5% of the price, then add the standard bill on top. To see the exact slices for your own purchase, you can work out your stamp duty with the second-home option switched on.
Who pays the surcharge
The test is simple in principle: once you complete, will you own more than one residential property? If you will, and the price is £40,000 or more, the surcharge applies. It does not matter whether the new place is a holiday home, a buy-to-let or somewhere a relative will live. What counts is the number of properties in your name, not the reason for buying.
The £40,000 figure is the price of the property you are buying, not a running total of what you own. Almost every purchase clears it, so in practice the surcharge bites on any additional property worth buying.
What counts as a second property
HMRC looks at property you own anywhere in the world, including homes outside the UK. A few cases catch people out:
- Property abroad. A holiday flat or inherited home overseas still counts towards the properties you own.
- Inherited shares. Owning a share of an inherited property can count, depending on the size of the share and how long ago you inherited it.
- Married couples and civil partners. You are treated as one unit. If either of you owns another property, a purchase by either of you can attract the surcharge, even if only one name is on the new deeds.
These edges are where the rules get fiddly, so they are worth checking with a solicitor rather than assuming. When you later sell an additional property at a profit, a different tax can apply: our guide to capital gains tax covers what you might owe then.
Replacing your main home
Moving from one main home to another is not caught by the surcharge, even though you briefly buy before the chain fully unwinds. As long as you sell your old main residence and buy a new one to live in, you pay the standard rates, because the number of homes you own has not gone up.
The problem comes when the sale of the old home has not completed by the time you buy the new one. In that moment you do own two homes, so HMRC charges the surcharge up front. You can then reclaim it once you sell the former main residence, provided that sale happens within 36 months of the new purchase. You apply to HMRC for the refund after the old home sells.
First-time buyers
First-time buyer relief and the surcharge sit at opposite ends. The relief lifts the tax-free threshold for people buying their only home; the surcharge adds tax for people buying an extra one. A first-time buyer does not own a property yet, so a single purchase cannot trigger the surcharge, and you can never claim the relief and pay the surcharge on the same deal. If you want the detail on the relief itself, see first-time buyer stamp duty.
Scotland and Wales
The 5% surcharge is part of Stamp Duty Land Tax, which only covers England and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Wales run their own property taxes, each with its own version of the extra charge on additional property:
- Scotland adds an Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) on top of Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), set by the Scottish Government.
- Wales charges higher residential rates of Land Transaction Tax (LTT) on additional property, set by the Welsh Government.
The thresholds and percentages differ from the SDLT surcharge, so if you are buying in Scotland or Wales the figures here will not match. Our calculator covers SDLT in England and Northern Ireland.
Worked examples
Two examples show how the surcharged slices add up, both using the 2026/27 rates above.
A £250,000 buy-to-let. The first £125,000 is taxed at 5%, which is £6,250. The next £125,000 (the slice from £125,001 to £250,000) is taxed at 7%, which is £8,750. Total stamp duty: £15,000. A standard buyer at this price would pay £2,500, so the surcharge accounts for £12,500, exactly 5% of the price.
A £300,000 second home. The first £125,000 at 5% is £6,250, the slice to £250,000 at 7% is £8,750, and the final £50,000 (from £250,001 to £300,000) at 10% is £5,000. Total stamp duty: £20,000. Without the surcharge the bill would be £5,000, so the extra is £15,000, again 5% of the price.
These are the same sums our calculator runs with the second-home option on. Once you know the bill, you can plan the rest, from the deposit to your monthly mortgage repayments.
Common questions
- How much stamp duty do you pay on a second home?
- You pay the standard rates plus a 5% surcharge on every band. As a rule of thumb the surcharge works out at 5% of the whole price, so a £300,000 second home pays £20,000 against £5,000 on a standard purchase. The exact figure depends on the price, because the standard part is still worked out in slices. The stamp duty calculator gives you the precise number.
- Do I still pay the surcharge if I am replacing my main home?
- No, not if the sale and purchase line up. If you sell your old main residence on the same day you buy the new one, the surcharge does not apply, because you are not adding to the number of properties you own. If there is a gap and you have not sold the old home by completion, you pay the surcharge up front and claim it back later.
- Can I claim the second-home surcharge back?
- Yes, in one specific case: you paid the surcharge because you bought your new main home before selling the old one, and you then sell the old one within 36 months. You apply to HMRC for the refund after the sale. Outside that situation, on a genuine second home or buy-to-let, the surcharge is not refundable.
- Does the surcharge apply to buy-to-let?
- Yes. A buy-to-let is an additional property, so it carries the 5% surcharge on every band once the price is £40,000 or more. The same goes for holiday homes and any property you buy while keeping another. The surcharge is about how many properties you will own, not what you plan to do with them.
- Is there a surcharge on properties under £40,000?
- No. The surcharge only applies once the price is £40,000 or more. Below that, an additional property pays the standard rates, which on such a low price is nothing. The £40,000 test looks at the price of the property you are buying, not your total property wealth.
- Do first-time buyers pay the surcharge?
- By definition a first-time buyer does not already own a property, so a single purchase will not trigger the surcharge. First-time buyer relief and the additional-property surcharge are opposite situations: the relief is for people buying their only home, the surcharge is for people adding another. You cannot have both on the same purchase.
- Are these figures exact?
- Treat them as an estimate to plan with, not financial or tax advice. The additional-property rules have details we cannot cover in full here, such as how jointly owned and inherited property is treated and the timing of a sale. Check your own figure with HMRC or your conveyancer before you commit to a purchase.
About this article
Written by the calcd team. We build UK money calculators and explain the numbers behind them in plain English. We checked the surcharge rate, the £40,000 threshold and the refund rules against gov.uk (HMRC), the primary source for Stamp Duty Land Tax, and corroborated the plain-English detail against MoneyHelper. The rates shown are the standard residential bands plus the 5% additional-property surcharge in force for the 2026/27 tax year. The figures here are an estimate to help you plan, not financial or tax advice. The rules on jointly owned, inherited and overseas property have details beyond this article, so get your own figure confirmed by HMRC or your solicitor ahead of completing. Last updated June 2026.