Just 31.4% of the 799,137 residential sales HM Land Registry recorded across England and Wales in 2025 fell inside the one price band where first-time buyer stamp duty relief pays its full value: a flat £5,000. Below that band, the relief is worth progressively less the cheaper the home. Above it, the relief disappears completely. Homecost queried its Land Registry and stamp duty data on 15 September 2026 to work out exactly how narrow that full-value window is, and who ends up either side of it.
The three brackets
First-time buyer relief removes stamp duty entirely on the first £300,000 of a main residence, and charges 5% on the slice between £300,000 and £500,000. Above £500,000, the relief stops applying altogether and a first-time buyer pays exactly what a home-mover would. That structure splits 2025's sales into three very different-sized groups.
| Price band | 2025 sales | Share of market | What the relief is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under £300,000 | 402,440 | 50.4% | Rises with price, from a few hundred pounds up to £5,000 right at £300,000 |
| £300,000–£500,000 | 250,801 | 31.4% | A flat £5,000, at every price in the band |
| Above £500,000 | 145,896 | 18.3% | £0 — relief withdrawn entirely |
Half the market bought under £300,000 in 2025, where a first-time buyer pays no stamp duty at all — but the relief itself isn't worth much down there, because there's very little standard-rate tax to be relieved of. It's only once the price clears £300,000 that the relief reaches its maximum £5,000 value, and it takes until £500,000 for that value to vanish again.
Why the saving is flat for £200,000, then falls off a cliff
The shape is easiest to see in a straight comparison of what a home-mover and a first-time buyer each pay at the same price, using Homecost's stamp duty calculator (figures checked 15 September 2026):
| Price | Home-mover SDLT | First-time buyer SDLT | Relief value |
|---|---|---|---|
| £150,000 | £500 | £0 | £500 |
| £200,000 | £1,500 | £0 | £1,500 |
| £250,000 | £2,500 | £0 | £2,500 |
| £300,000 | £5,000 | £0 | £5,000 |
| £350,000 | £7,500 | £2,500 | £5,000 |
| £450,000 | £12,500 | £7,500 | £5,000 |
| £500,000 | £15,000 | £10,000 | £5,000 |
| £600,000 | £20,000 | £20,000 | £0 |
Below £300,000, a first-time buyer pays nothing, so the relief is simply worth whatever a mover's bill would have been at that price — which climbs the more expensive the home is. Once price passes £300,000, both a mover and a first-time buyer pay tax at the same 5% marginal rate on every extra pound up to £500,000, so the £5,000 gap that had built up by £300,000 just carries forward unchanged — neither buyer's relief grows nor shrinks across that £200,000 stretch. At £500,000, first-time buyer status stops qualifying for relief entirely under HMRC's rules, so a buyer on the wrong side of that line pays the identical bill a mover would pay, with no cushion at all. The full mechanics of that £5,000 cap sit alongside the uncapped 5% additional-property surcharge in First-Time Buyer Relief Caps at £5,000. The Surcharge Doesn't, and the shape of the £300,000–£500,000 stretch itself is unpacked further in First-Time Buyer Stamp Duty Taper: £300k to £500k in 2026.
London buyers lose the relief far more often
The 18.3% of 2025 buyers who bought above £500,000 aren't spread evenly across the country. Splitting the same 2025 Land Registry sales between London's 33 boroughs and the rest of England and Wales shows how concentrated that group is:
| Area | 2025 sales | Sales above £500,000 | Share losing relief entirely |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 85,076 | 45,993 | 54.1% |
| Rest of England & Wales | 714,061 | 99,903 | 14.0% |
More than half of London's 2025 home sales crossed the £500,000 line where first-time buyer relief disappears, against 14.0% everywhere else combined. London made up only 10.6% of the year's sales nationally, but accounted for 31.5% of every sale in the country that lost the relief entirely. In a borough like Westminster — try SW1A 1AA on Homecost's postcode tool to see current sale prices in the area — the £500,000 relief ceiling sits well below the typical asking price, which is a very different starting point for a first-time buyer than in most of the rest of the country.
What this means if you're buying
Where a purchase falls in these three bands depends entirely on price, not on anything about the buyer beyond first-time buyer status itself. Anyone buying their first home can check the exact figure for a specific price and region using Homecost's stamp duty calculator, and see the full cost picture for a postcode — mortgage, council tax and stamp duty together — through the postcode search tool. This is general information about how the relief is structured and who it currently benefits, not advice on when or whether to buy. A conveyancer or mortgage adviser can confirm how the relief applies to a specific purchase. Speak to a qualified adviser before acting.
Figures are based on 799,137 HM Land Registry transactions recorded for England and Wales in 2025 (category A, standard price-paid entries) and Homecost's live stamp duty calculation engine, queried 15 September 2026. More data-led guides like this one are collected in Homecost's Cost Intelligence coverage.