First-Time Buyer Stamp Duty Taper: £300k to £500k in 2026
For a first-time buyer in England, stamp duty does not switch on all at once. Between the £300,000 nil-rate band and the £500,000 relief ceiling, the bill rises along a taper — and the value of the relief stays fixed at exactly £5,000 the whole way up, before disappearing entirely at £500,001.
That £300,000–£500,000 window is where much of the market sits. Of the 699,846 single-residential sales recorded in England during 2025, 30.7% fell inside the taper band — more than the 18.7% above £500,000, and part of the 81.3% priced at or below the ceiling (HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, fetched 8 July 2026). How the taper behaves is therefore relevant to almost a third of buyers.
The two thresholds that define the band
Since 1 April 2025, first-time buyer relief in England has applied on these terms (HMRC):
- £300,000 — a first-time buyer pays 0% on the first £300,000 of the price.
- £300,000 to £500,000 — the slice above £300,000 is taxed at 5%.
- Above £500,000 — relief is withdrawn completely; the purchase is taxed under the ordinary residential rates, as if the buyer were a home mover.
Relief is available only where every purchaser is a first-time buyer — someone who has never owned a freehold or leasehold interest in a dwelling anywhere in the world — and the property is bought as their only or main home. Where a co-purchaser has owned before, relief is lost for the whole transaction. The first-time buyer relief explainer sets out the eligibility rules, and the married-versus-unmarried couples guide covers the joint-purchase traps.
The taper in numbers
The table below compares the first-time buyer bill with the standard (home-mover) bill at each point in the band. All figures are for England, on the rates in force since April 2025 (calculated with the Homecost stamp duty calculator, 8 July 2026).
| Purchase price | FTB stamp duty | FTB effective rate | Standard stamp duty | Standard effective rate | Relief saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £300,000 | £0 | 0.00% | £5,000 | 1.67% | £5,000 |
| £325,000 | £1,250 | 0.38% | £6,250 | 1.92% | £5,000 |
| £350,000 | £2,500 | 0.71% | £7,500 | 2.14% | £5,000 |
| £400,000 | £5,000 | 1.25% | £10,000 | 2.50% | £5,000 |
| £450,000 | £7,500 | 1.67% | £12,500 | 2.78% | £5,000 |
| £500,000 | £10,000 | 2.00% | £15,000 | 3.00% | £5,000 |
| £500,001 | £15,000 | 3.00% | £15,000 | 3.00% | £0 |
Two things stand out. The effective rate for a first-time buyer climbs steadily from 0% to 2% across the band, while the cash saving from relief stays pinned at £5,000 — right up to the point where it drops to nothing.
Why the saving is a flat £5,000
The reason the saving never changes across the band is arithmetic, not extra generosity.
A home mover buying at any price in this band pays stamp duty on the first £300,000 like this: nothing on the first £125,000, 2% on the £125,000–£250,000 slice (£2,500), and 5% on the £250,000–£300,000 slice (£2,500). That is £5,000 of tax on the first £300,000.
A first-time buyer pays nothing on that same first £300,000. Above £300,000, both buyers are charged 5% on exactly the same slice of price. So whatever the price within the band, the first-time buyer is ahead by precisely the £5,000 the mover paid on the bottom £300,000 — no more, no less. The relief is worth the value of the nil-rate band, and that value is constant.
This is why the saving column stays flat while the effective-rate column rises. As the price grows, the fixed £5,000 becomes a smaller fraction of the total, so the first-time buyer's effective rate creeps upward even though the relief itself has not shrunk.
The £500,001 cliff
The taper ends abruptly. First-time buyer relief is available only when the purchase price is £500,000 or less. One pound over, and the relief is withdrawn in full — not tapered away, but switched off.
At exactly £500,000 a first-time buyer's bill is £10,000. At £500,001 the same buyer's bill is £15,000 — the ordinary home-mover figure — because relief no longer applies. That is a £5,000 jump in tax for £1 of extra price, the sharpest single step in the residential stamp duty system.
The jump is marginal and notional: the extra £5,000 reflects relief being switched off across the whole price, not a tax on the single pound that crosses the line. But for a first-time buyer at the ceiling it is the difference between a £10,000 and a £15,000 bill. The cliff is well known to the market, and it shows up in the transaction data as a cluster of sales at exactly £500,000 and a near-empty band just above it — a pattern examined in detail in the £500,000 stamp duty cliff-edge analysis.
How many buyers the band covers
The taper band is not a niche. Using HM Land Registry Price Paid records for single-residential sales in England during 2025:
| Price band | Share of 2025 sales |
|---|---|
| £300,000 or less (FTB nil-rate) | 50.6% |
| £300,001–£500,000 (taper band) | 30.7% |
| Above £500,000 (relief lost) | 18.7% |
Just over half of English sales landed at or below the £300,000 nil-rate band, where an eligible first-time buyer pays no stamp duty at all. Almost a third sat inside the taper, where the £5,000 relief still applies but a bill starts to build. Fewer than one in five crossed the £500,000 ceiling, where relief disappears. Based on 699,846 single-residential Land Registry transactions in England in 2025 (fetched 8 July 2026); browse all guides.
Try the figures for a real purchase price
You can see the taper for any price on the Homecost stamp duty calculator, which applies the current England rates and the first-time buyer flag. To see the wider cost picture for a mid-market area where prices typically sit inside the taper band, look up a postcode such as Bristol's BS8 on the true-cost tool, or browse the other Cost Intelligence guides.
Stamp duty is only ever one line in the cost of buying, and the rules on first-time buyer relief — particularly who counts as a first-time buyer on a joint purchase — can be finely balanced. This is general information, not advice. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.