Home-mover stamp duty: the hidden £2,500 since April 2025
When England's stamp duty thresholds reverted on 1 April 2025, most of the attention went to first-time buyers, whose relief ceiling dropped from £425,000 to £300,000. A second change was far less discussed and touches many more people. The standard nil-rate threshold — the slice of the purchase price on which every home mover pays 0% — fell from £250,000 back to £125,000. For anyone buying their next main home above £250,000, the reinstated 2% band adds a flat £2,500 to the Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) bill.
It is not a small group. Of the 720,619 homes that changed hands in England during 2025, 63.4% sold for £250,000 or more (HM Land Registry price-paid records, data fetched 20 July 2026). At the England median sale price of £300,000, the extra is exactly £2,500.
What actually changed
SDLT is charged in slices, like income tax. Only one slice moved on 1 April 2025 — the band between £125,001 and £250,000, which went from 0% to 2%. Everything above £250,000 is unchanged.
Standard SDLT rates (buying a main residence — not a first-time buyer, not an additional property):
| Portion of the price | To 31 March 2025 | From 1 April 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Up to £125,000 | 0% | 0% |
| £125,001 to £250,000 | 0% | 2% |
| £250,001 to £925,000 | 5% | 5% |
| £925,001 to £1.5m | 10% | 10% |
| Above £1.5m | 12% | 12% |
Because the changed slice is a fixed £125,000 wide, the most extra tax it can generate is 2% × £125,000 = £2,500. That maximum is reached the moment the price passes £250,000 and never grows beyond it, however expensive the home. The £250,000 nil-rate band had been a temporary measure introduced in September 2022; the reversion simply restored the threshold structure that applied before then.
The extra, price by price
The table below shows the standard mover's bill under the old temporary regime and under the rates in force since 1 April 2025. Figures are for a main-residence purchase and were produced with the Homecost stamp duty calculator, verified against HMRC's published bands (fetched 20 July 2026).
| Purchase price | SDLT to 31 Mar 2025 | SDLT from 1 Apr 2025 | Extra |
|---|---|---|---|
| £125,000 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| £150,000 | £0 | £500 | £500 |
| £175,000 | £0 | £1,000 | £1,000 |
| £200,000 | £0 | £1,500 | £1,500 |
| £250,000 | £0 | £2,500 | £2,500 |
| £300,000 | £2,500 | £5,000 | £2,500 |
| £400,000 | £7,500 | £10,000 | £2,500 |
| £500,000 | £12,500 | £15,000 | £2,500 |
| £750,000 | £25,000 | £27,500 | £2,500 |
| £1,000,000 | £41,250 | £43,750 | £2,500 |
Two patterns stand out. Below £250,000 the extra tapers — it is 2% of whatever part of the price sits above £125,000, so £500 at £150,000 and £1,500 at £200,000. At and above £250,000 it settles at a flat £2,500 and stays there. A £300,000 mover and a £1,000,000 mover pay exactly the same £2,500 more than they would have a year earlier.
Who pays the full amount
Splitting England's 2025 sales by price band shows how the change lands.
| 2025 England sales | Number | Share | Extra SDLT for a mover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below £125,000 | 47,976 | 6.7% | £0 |
| £125,000 to £250,000 | 216,050 | 30.0% | £0 to £2,500 |
| £250,000 and above | 456,593 | 63.4% | £2,500 |
Based on 720,619 Land Registry transactions of houses and flats in England in 2025. See the Homecost guides index for how these figures are compiled.
Because £2,500 is a fixed cash amount, it weighs most heavily, in proportion, on the cheapest homes that clear the £250,000 line. On a £260,000 house the extra is 0.96% of the price; on a £600,000 house the same £2,500 is 0.42%. The change is felt across the market, but a buyer moving up from a modest home in a higher-priced area carries the largest relative share.
First-time buyers sit under a different rule
The £2,500 uplift is a home-mover effect. First-time buyers are covered by a separate relief that was also cut in April 2025 but works differently: those buying their main residence still pay 0% up to £300,000 and 5% on the slice from £300,000 to £500,000, with no relief on purchases above £500,000. The mechanics of that taper are set out in the guide to first-time buyer relief between £300,000 and £500,000, and the wider set of April 2025 changes is collected in what changed for stamp duty since April 2025. If you have owned a home before, though, the first-time buyer rates do not apply and the standard table above is the one that governs your bill.
What it means for a move
The number is fixed and knowable before you offer: above £250,000 the reversion adds £2,500, no more and no less, to a standard mover's stamp duty. Other factors can change the total in either direction — the 5% additional-property surcharge if you will own two dwellings at completion, the surcharge for non-UK residents, or first-time buyer relief if it applies — so the figure your conveyancer calculates on completion is the one that counts.
To see the stamp duty, mortgage, council tax and energy costs attached to real homes on a given street, enter a postcode — for example Manchester's M1 1AE — into the Homecost true-cost tool. It uses the same HMRC bands shown here.
This is general information, not tax, mortgage or legal advice. Individual stamp duty depends on your circumstances. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.