Buy-to-Let Stamp Duty: Complete Guide 2026/27

If you're buying a buy-to-let property, a second home, or any additional residential property in England or Northern Ireland, you'll pay Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT), and you'll pay it at a higher rate than someone buying their only home. This guide explains what SDLT is, why buy-to-let purchases attract a surcharge, exactly how the bands work, and walks through a worked example so you can see how the figures add up in practice.

What SDLT is and when it applies

Stamp Duty Land Tax is a one-off tax you pay when you buy property or land over a certain value in England and Northern Ireland. It applies on completion of the purchase, and it's calculated as a percentage of the purchase price, banded so that different portions of the price are taxed at different rates (similar in concept to how income tax bands work). It's separate from any tax you pay on rental income or any gain you make when you eventually sell.

Scotland has its own equivalent, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), and Wales has Land Transaction Tax (LTT), each with its own rates and bands. This guide focuses on England and Northern Ireland, where SDLT applies.

The 5% surcharge on additional properties

Since the changes introduced in October 2024, anyone buying an additional residential property, which includes buy-to-let purchases, second homes, and holiday homes, pays a surcharge of 5 percentage points on top of the standard residential SDLT rates. This surcharge exists because the government wants to moderate demand from investors and second-home buyers relative to people buying a home to live in, and it applies across the whole purchase price, not just the portion above a threshold.

In practice, rather than working out the standard rate and then adding 5% on top in a separate step, it's easier to think of buy-to-let and additional-property purchases as having their own complete set of band rates, which already have the surcharge built in. Those are the rates set out below.

SDLT bands for additional properties (England & NI)

Here is the rate that applies to each portion of the purchase price for a buy-to-let or additional-property purchase. Each band only taxes the slice of the price that falls within it, so a £300,000 purchase isn't taxed at one single rate, it moves through the bands as the price rises:

• £0 to £125,000: 5%
• £125,001 to £250,000: 10%
• £250,001 to £925,000: 15%
• £925,001 to £1,500,000: 20%
• Over £1,500,000: 17%

Notice that the bottom band alone is 5%, where a buyer purchasing their only home would pay 0% on the same slice of the price. That gap is the surcharge in action: every band for an additional property sits 5 percentage points above the equivalent standard residential band, which is why these figures look considerably higher than the headline rates you might see quoted for a typical home purchase.

A worked example: a £300,000 buy-to-let purchase

Let's say you're buying a buy-to-let property for £300,000. The price moves through three of the bands above, and each slice is taxed at its own rate:

So on a £300,000 buy-to-let purchase, you'd pay £26,250 in stamp duty, an effective rate of 8.75% of the purchase price. That's a substantial cost to budget for on top of your deposit, and it's a figure many first-time landlords underestimate when working out how much cash they'll actually need to complete a purchase. For any purchase price, you can get the exact figure, with the full band-by-band breakdown, using our Stamp Duty Calculator.

Who actually pays the surcharge

The 5% surcharge isn't limited to professional landlords building a portfolio. It applies broadly to:

• Buy-to-let investors purchasing a property to let out, whether it's their first rental property or an addition to an existing portfolio.
• Second-home buyers, including holiday homes, even if the property won't be let out at all.
• Anyone who already owns a residential property anywhere in the world and is buying another one, even if the new purchase will become their main home (there are rules allowing a refund in some replacement-of-main-residence situations, so it's worth checking your specific circumstances).
• Companies purchasing residential property, including limited companies set up to hold buy-to-let property. Companies pay the same additional-property rates as individual investors, and crucially they don't get first-time buyer relief, regardless of whether the company itself has bought property before.

By contrast, a genuine first-time buyer purchasing their only property, or someone selling their existing main home and buying a new one to replace it (with no other properties owned), would normally pay the standard residential rates rather than the additional-property rates shown above.

When SDLT is due, and who handles it

SDLT must be paid to HMRC within 14 days of completion of the purchase. Missing this deadline can result in penalties and interest, so it's not something to leave until you're settled into the property. In practice, this is almost always handled for you: your solicitor or conveyancer will calculate the amount due, submit the SDLT return to HMRC, and arrange payment as part of the completion process, usually drawing the funds from the money you've already provided for the purchase. It's still worth understanding the figure yourself, both so you can budget accurately and so you can sense-check what your conveyancer tells you is due.