England's 5% stamp duty surcharge on second homes and buy-to-lets behaves in two directions at once, depending on how it is measured. Across the 295 English council areas with enough 2025 sales to produce a reliable median price, the surcharge shrinks from more than 30 times the ordinary stamp duty bill in the cheapest areas to under 2 times it in the most expensive — while the actual cash amount it adds does the exact opposite, climbing from under £7,000 to close to £60,000 across the same span. Both patterns are real. Both come from the same fixed 5% rule applied to very different base prices.
Based on 754,631 Land Registry sale transactions across those 295 council areas in 2025, and today's stamp duty calculation engine (fetched 2026-09-17) — see the full data note on the blog.
Why the multiple and the cash gap point in different directions
England's standard stamp duty (SDLT) is charged on a rising set of slabs — 0% on the first £125,000, 2% up to £250,000, 5% up to £925,000, and higher still above that. The additional-property surcharge, by contrast, is a flat 5% of the whole purchase price, added on top regardless of the slab structure.
Because the surcharge is a constant percentage of price while the standard bill rises progressively, the ratio between them narrows as price increases — a cheap home's tiny standard bill gets swamped by the flat 5% add-on, while an expensive home's already-large standard bill is proportionally less affected by the same flat add-on. The cash difference, meanwhile, is 5% of price by definition, so it simply grows in a straight line with price. Neither figure is more "correct" than the other — they answer different questions: one about proportion, one about pounds actually due at completion.
The pattern across 295 council areas
The table below tracks both measures using each area's 2025 median sale price (category-A residential sales only), with standard mover stamp duty and additional-property stamp duty calculated on that median price:
| Council area | 2025 median price | Standard SDLT | Additional-property SDLT | Cash gap | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burnley | £135,000 | £200 | £6,950 | £6,750 | 34.75x |
| Blackpool | £137,000 | £240 | £7,090 | £6,850 | 29.54x |
| Hyndburn | £140,000 | £300 | £7,300 | £7,000 | 24.33x |
| Wigan | £200,000 | £1,500 | £11,500 | £10,000 | 7.67x |
| South Ribble | £223,125 | £1,962 | £13,119 | £11,156 | 6.68x |
| Norwich | £235,000 | £2,200 | £13,950 | £11,750 | 6.34x |
| Portsmouth | £258,000 | £2,900 | £15,800 | £12,900 | 5.45x |
| Broadland | £307,500 | £5,375 | £20,750 | £15,375 | 3.86x |
| Dorset | £345,000 | £7,250 | £24,500 | £17,250 | 3.38x |
| Cherwell | £360,000 | £8,000 | £26,000 | £18,000 | 3.25x |
| Brighton and Hove | £412,500 | £10,625 | £31,250 | £20,625 | 2.94x |
| Spelthorne | £465,000 | £13,250 | £36,500 | £23,250 | 2.75x |
| City of London | £820,000 | £31,000 | £72,000 | £41,000 | 2.32x |
| Westminster | £880,000 | £34,000 | £78,000 | £44,000 | 2.29x |
| Kensington and Chelsea | £1,180,000 | £61,750 | £120,750 | £59,000 | 1.96x |
Read down the multiple column and the surcharge looks dramatic at the cheap end and almost incidental at the expensive end. Read down the cash-gap column instead and the story flips: the pound amount barely bites at the cheap end and becomes a serious sum at the top.
The quartile view
Splitting all 295 areas into four equal-sized price bands (roughly 73–74 areas each) makes the crossover pattern explicit:
| Price quartile | Median price range | Average multiple | Average cash gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest quarter | £135,000 – £235,000 | 9.35x | £9,867 |
| Second quarter | £235,000 – £305,000 | 5.08x | £13,427 |
| Third quarter | £307,500 – £410,000 | 3.37x | £17,534 |
| Priciest quarter | £412,500 – £1,180,000 | 2.67x | £26,202 |
The average multiple falls by roughly two-thirds from the cheapest quarter to the priciest. The average cash gap, over the same four bands, more than doubles.
Two worked examples
In Burnley, 2025's median sale price of £135,000 means a mover pays £200 in standard stamp duty but £6,950 as a second-home or buy-to-let buyer — nearly 35 times more, even though the extra cash involved, £6,750, is modest next to a typical deposit.
In Kensington and Chelsea, the £1,180,000 median means a mover already owes £61,750 in standard stamp duty. The additional-property version, £120,750, is "only" 1.96 times that figure — but the extra £59,000 is a larger sum than most UK workers earn in two years.
Neither area's buyers are being treated differently under the rules; the same national schedule and the same flat 5% surcharge apply everywhere. What differs is the base price the flat percentage is applied to.
What this means in practice
Anyone weighing a second home or buy-to-let purchase can reasonably look at either number: the multiple shows how much the tax regime singles out additional-property buyers relative to movers at that specific price point, while the cash gap shows the actual sum that needs to be found on top of the deposit and standard costs. For a full breakdown at a specific price, the stamp duty calculator applies the current slabs and the surcharge together, first-time-buyer status and non-resident surcharges included where relevant.
This is general information about how the current stamp duty schedule works, not advice on whether or when to buy. Speak to a qualified conveyancer or tax adviser before acting on any of these figures, since individual circumstances — joint ownership, replacement of a main residence, non-UK residency — can all change what is actually due.
For the underlying area-by-area multiple ranking on its own, see the second-home stamp duty multiple by area; for why the standard SDLT curve itself bends the way it does, see the effective-rate curve for first-time buyers, movers and additional-property buyers. Buyers comparing this to Scotland or Wales can see how the three nations' additional-property surcharges compare. More cost breakdowns like this sit in the Cost Intelligence section of the blog.