Buy a home for £350,000 in Cardiff and the Land Transaction Tax bill is £7,500.00. Buy the identical £350,000 home over the border in Bristol and the Stamp Duty Land Tax bill is also £7,500.00 — to the penny. Move the price by £1 in either direction and the ranking flips: at £350,001 Wales becomes the more expensive of the two regimes; at £349,999 it's the cheaper one.
That isn't a coincidence built into the rate cards on purpose — it's the point where two slab structures, set independently by HMRC and the Welsh Revenue Authority, happen to intersect. The same thing happens between Scotland and England at £333,000, and between Wales and Scotland at £310,000. All figures below come from Homecost's stamp duty engine, run live against the rate tables in force in 2026, fetched 2026-09-02.
The three crossover prices
| Regime pair | Crossover price | Tax in both regimes | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| England (SDLT) vs Wales (LTT) | £350,000 | £7,500.00 | 2.14% |
| England (SDLT) vs Scotland (LBTT) | £333,000 | £6,650.00 | 2.00% |
| Wales (LTT) vs Scotland (LBTT) | £310,000 | £5,100.00 | 1.65% |
These are standard-rate, single-property figures — a sole buyer purchasing one home to live in, no first-time-buyer relief, no additional-dwelling surcharge. Relief and surcharges shift each regime's numbers independently and move these crossover prices; Homecost's SDLT vs LBTT vs LTT comparison covers the full set of buyer types side by side.
Why the lines cross where they do
Each nation sets its own nil-rate band and its own marginal rates, and none of the three copied the others' boundaries when devolution split SDLT into three separate taxes.
| Regime | Nil-rate band | Next slab | Rate on next slab |
|---|---|---|---|
| England & NI (SDLT) | £0–£125,000 | £125,001–£250,000 | 2% |
| Wales (LTT) | £0–£225,000 | £225,001–£400,000 | 6% |
| Scotland (LBTT) | £0–£145,000 | £145,001–£250,000 | 2% |
Wales starts buyers off with the largest nil-rate band of the three (£225,000, against £145,000 in Scotland and £125,000 in England) but then applies 6% on the £225,000–£400,000 slab — roughly three times England's 5% rate on the equivalent stretch of price (£250,000–£925,000). That combination makes Wales look cheap at lower prices, lets England close the gap as price rises, and the two swap places once enough of the purchase price sits inside Wales's steeper band. £350,000 is the exact point of balance. The England/Scotland and Wales/Scotland crossovers are the same mechanism playing out against LBTT's own slab boundaries (2% to £250,000, then 5% to £325,000, then 10% above that).
How sharp the crossover is
England vs Wales, around £350,000
| Price | SDLT (England) | LTT (Wales) | Wales vs England |
|---|---|---|---|
| £345,000 | £7,250.00 | £7,200.00 | −£50.00 |
| £349,000 | £7,450.00 | £7,440.00 | −£10.00 |
| £349,999 | £7,499.95 | £7,499.94 | −£0.01 |
| £350,000 | £7,500.00 | £7,500.00 | £0.00 |
| £350,001 | £7,500.05 | £7,500.06 | +£0.01 |
| £351,000 | £7,550.00 | £7,560.00 | +£10.00 |
| £355,000 | £7,750.00 | £7,800.00 | +£50.00 |
England vs Scotland, around £333,000
| Price | SDLT (England) | LBTT (Scotland) | Scotland vs England |
|---|---|---|---|
| £328,000 | £6,400.00 | £6,150.00 | −£250.00 |
| £332,000 | £6,600.00 | £6,550.00 | −£50.00 |
| £332,999 | £6,649.95 | £6,649.90 | −£0.05 |
| £333,000 | £6,650.00 | £6,650.00 | £0.00 |
| £334,000 | £6,700.00 | £6,750.00 | +£50.00 |
| £338,000 | £6,900.00 | £7,150.00 | +£250.00 |
Wales vs Scotland, around £310,000
| Price | LTT (Wales) | LBTT (Scotland) | Scotland vs Wales |
|---|---|---|---|
| £305,000 | £4,800.00 | £4,850.00 | +£50.00 |
| £309,000 | £5,040.00 | £5,050.00 | +£10.00 |
| £309,999 | £5,099.94 | £5,099.95 | +£0.01 |
| £310,000 | £5,100.00 | £5,100.00 | £0.00 |
| £311,000 | £5,160.00 | £5,150.00 | −£10.00 |
| £315,000 | £5,400.00 | £5,350.00 | −£50.00 |
The England/Wales and England/Scotland gaps widen by roughly £5 for every £1,000 moved away from their crossover — Wales's 6% band is a full percentage point steeper than England's 5% at that price level, and LBTT's climb from 5% to 10% at £325,000 accelerates the England/Scotland gap fast once past £333,000. The Wales/Scotland gap widens more gently, at roughly £1 per £1,000, because LTT and LBTT's rates are closer in shape at that point on the scale.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland was not devolved a property transaction tax of its own. SDLT applies there on the same terms as England, so every England figure above holds for a Northern Ireland purchase too.
What this doesn't cover
These are standard residential rates only — a single buyer purchasing their only home. First-time buyer relief reduces the English and Scottish bills (Wales has no first-time buyer relief); the additional-dwellings surcharge adds a further percentage in all three nations. Both shift the crossover prices independently — see the SDLT vs LBTT vs LTT comparison and the Welsh LTT higher rates guide for those cases.
Land Registry price-paid data — the source behind most of Homecost's regional cost guides — covers England and Wales only; Scotland's Registers of Scotland data isn't part of the dataset. The crossover figures above come from the published rate cards rather than sale volumes, so that gap doesn't affect them, but it does mean Homecost's transaction data can't say how many buyers actually complete at each threshold.
Run your own numbers
The stamp duty calculator runs all four UK regimes side by side — enter any price and see the SDLT, LTT and LBTT bill for it directly, rather than reading it off a table. A relocation from Bristol to Cardiff, or a comparison either side of the Wales border, is exactly what it's built for; CF10 1AA in central Cardiff is a starting point.
This is general information about how each tax works, not advice on where or when to buy. Location, timing and personal circumstances all affect the final bill — speak to a qualified conveyancer or tax adviser before completing a purchase.