First-time buyer relief on Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is the largest single saving available to most people buying a first home in England or Northern Ireland — but only if the purchase price stays inside HMRC's bands. The current 2026 regime is straightforward in principle: nothing to pay on the first £300,000, 5% on any slice between £300,001 and £500,000, and no relief at all once the price tips over £500,000 (HMRC, SDLT residential rates).
The harder question is where in the country those bands actually map to what's on the market. Land Registry transaction data for 2025 — 846,835 residential sales between £1,000 and £10 million, after stripping obvious data-entry outliers — gives a precise answer. We grouped every sale by postcode area (the letter prefix: SR for Sunderland, M for Manchester, SW for south-west London) and counted how many landed in each of the three first-time-buyer bands.
The headline split
Across the UK in 2025, 53.2% of recorded residential sales completed under £300,000 — well inside the nil-rate band for first-time buyers buying a main residence in England or Northern Ireland. A further 28.7% sat in the £300k–£500k slab where relief still applies on the first £300,000. The remaining 18.0% completed above £500,000, where first-time buyer relief is lost entirely.
| 2025 sale price band | Sales | Share | FTB SDLT position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under £300,000 | 450,814 | 53.2% | Full relief — £0 SDLT |
| £300,000–£500,000 | 243,310 | 28.7% | 5% on slice over £300k |
| Above £500,000 | 152,711 | 18.0% | No FTB relief — standard SDLT |
That national average hides almost everything. The regional spread is, in places, ten- or twentyfold.
Where the £300,000 ceiling still works
Ten postcode areas saw more than four in five sales complete under £300,000 in 2025. All but one sits in the North East or North West of England, and the median sale price in every one is below the £200,000 mark.
| Postcode area | Approximate region | 2025 sales | Under £300k | Share under £300k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SR | Sunderland | 3,813 | 3,492 | 91.6% |
| DH | Durham | 5,379 | 4,772 | 88.7% |
| TS | Teesside (Middlesbrough, Stockton) | 10,562 | 9,301 | 88.1% |
| WN | Wigan | 4,609 | 4,006 | 86.9% |
| FY | Blackpool / Fylde Coast | 5,369 | 4,649 | 86.6% |
| DN | Doncaster | 12,617 | 10,774 | 85.4% |
| BB | Blackburn | 8,436 | 7,132 | 84.5% |
| HU | Hull | 7,279 | 6,139 | 84.3% |
| DL | Darlington | 6,584 | 5,532 | 84.0% |
| BD | Bradford | 8,572 | 7,063 | 82.4% |
In Sunderland, only 77 sales out of 3,813 (2.0%) completed above £500,000 in 2025 — the price ceiling above which first-time buyer relief disappears. The median sale price in the SR postcode area for the year was £120,000. A first-time buyer at that median, with a 10% deposit and a £108,000 repayment mortgage at the Bank of England's recent quoted 5-year fix of 4.32%, would owe no SDLT and face a monthly mortgage payment of roughly £588 over a 25-year term.
The same pattern repeats — with progressively higher medians — through Durham (£142,000), Teesside (£150,000), and Darlington (£155,000). For context, our companion guide to the true cost of buying a £200,000 home in the UK lays out the full all-in monthly figure at that price point.
Where the relief band does the heavy lifting
Above £300,000 but below £500,000, first-time buyer relief still applies — but only on the first £300,000. The slice between £300,001 and £500,000 is taxed at 5%. A first-time buyer completing at exactly £500,000 therefore pays 5% on £200,000, or £10,000 of SDLT — versus £15,000 for a non-first-time buyer at the same price.
This relief band is concentrated in the London commuter belt and the South East ring around the M25.
| Postcode area | Approximate region | 2025 sales | Share £300k–£500k |
|---|---|---|---|
| RM | Romford / east London commuter | 6,628 | 54.2% |
| SS | Southend-on-Sea | 8,151 | 53.2% |
| DA | Dartford | 6,175 | 51.3% |
| LU | Luton | 4,794 | 50.7% |
| OX | Oxford | 9,466 | 47.5% |
| SG | Stevenage | 6,548 | 46.0% |
| CM | Chelmsford | 11,117 | 45.3% |
| MK | Milton Keynes | 8,285 | 44.7% |
| CR | Croydon | 4,955 | 44.0% |
| BS | Bristol | 15,654 | 44.0% |
In these areas, more than four in ten 2025 sales landed in the slab where first-time buyers still get partial relief but pay 5% on the upper slice. The arithmetic gets sharp quickly: at a £425,000 purchase the FTB bill is £6,250, at £475,000 it's £8,750, at £499,000 it's £9,950. Our worked example for buying at exactly £500,000 walks through the cliff-edge case where one extra pound of purchase price wipes out the relief entirely.
Where £500,000 is the starting point, not the ceiling
In five postcode areas — all in inner and west London — fewer than one in ten 2025 sales completed under £300,000.
| Postcode area | Approximate region | 2025 sales | Share under £300k | Share over £500k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | West London (Mayfair, Kensington, Notting Hill) | 6,159 | 6.2% | 70.8% |
| SW | South-West London (Chelsea, Battersea, Wimbledon) | 12,528 | 6.3% | 67.4% |
| NW | North-West London (Hampstead, St John's Wood) | 5,310 | 9.3% | 64.5% |
| N | North London (Islington, Highgate, Muswell Hill) | 8,738 | 9.8% | 59.0% |
| E | East London (Shoreditch, Hackney, Stratford) | 10,260 | 11.1% | 48.1% |
In the W postcode area — covering Mayfair, Kensington, and Notting Hill — 70.8% of 2025 sales completed above £500,000. The median sale price was £690,000. First-time buyer relief is unavailable on three quarters of the market; the standard SDLT bill at the median sits at £24,500. The picture is broadly the same across south-west, north-west and north London, and only begins to shift in outer-east London (E17, IG, RM) and south-east London (SE), where mid-band sales are more common.
For a buyer concentrated on the relief band, the practical effect is that the search has to move outside inner London entirely — to the commuter belt postcode areas listed above, or further out to the Home Counties where roughly 22–24% of stock still sits below £300,000.
How to read these numbers
Three caveats sit behind every figure in this piece.
The data is total sales, not first-time-buyer-only sales. HM Land Registry's Price Paid Dataset does not record buyer type. The shares above describe the opportunity set for first-time buyers — the share of available stock priced inside each relief band — not the share of those properties actually bought by first-time buyers. HMRC's separate SDLT statistical bulletin publishes claimed-relief volumes by year, and the latest releases show a meaningful regional skew toward exactly the areas highlighted here (HMRC, Annual Stamp Duty Statistics).
2025 Land Registry data is still partially backfilling. Registration of completed sales lags completion by several weeks to several months in some cases; the 2025 totals will increase modestly through 2026 as remaining transactions register. The proportional split between the three bands is broadly stable across earlier years, so the share figures are robust even if the absolute counts will tick up.
Postcode-area aggregation is coarse. The "W" postcode area covers wildly different streets — there are still sub-£300k flats in W3 and W5 — and the "SR" area includes coastal villages where prices behave differently from central Sunderland. For a street-level read, you need to look up the specific postcode itself.
What to do with the data
The first-time buyer relief band is the single largest cost lever inside the buyer's control: pay £299,999 and the SDLT bill is zero; pay £500,001 and it's £15,000. Knowing where in the UK that window is wide open — and where it's almost entirely closed — is the starting point for any first-home search that depends on the relief.
To see the true cost on any specific street, enter a postcode into the Homecost tool: you'll get the mortgage at today's Bank of England quoted rate, council tax for the local authority, energy-cost band from the EPC, and a personalised SDLT figure that includes first-time buyer relief if you tell it you qualify.
For the full mechanics of the relief itself — including the eligibility rules, joint-purchase tests, and the situations where relief can be clawed back — see our explainer on first-time buyer SDLT relief. For the monthly payment grid at the loan sizes typical in the affordable-area list, our breakdown for a £200,000 mortgage is the closest match. Other guides in the Regional Prices section cover specific cities in more depth.
Based on 846,835 HM Land Registry transactions recorded in 2025. Data accessed 21 May 2026.
This article is general information, not financial or tax advice. Speak to a qualified adviser, conveyancer or accountant before acting on first-time buyer relief or any other SDLT matter.