When a buyer purchases an additional dwelling in Wales for £200,000, the Land Transaction Tax bill is £10,700 — calculated against a separate, parallel set of band rates rather than as a surcharge bolted onto the standard table. That structural choice makes Wales different from England (which adds a 5-percentage-point overlay to its standard SDLT bands) and Scotland (which adds a flat 8% Additional Dwelling Supplement to the entire price). It produces a price curve that moves in opposite directions across price points: Wales is cheaper than England under £300,000 and more expensive above £400,000.
This guide walks through the higher residential band table effective from 11 December 2024, three worked examples, a cross-regime comparison, and the procedural rules buyers most often ask about.
The headline band table
The Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA) publishes a dedicated rate table for "higher residential" transactions — that is, purchases where the buyer (or the buyer's spouse, civil partner, or minor child) already holds an interest worth £40,000 or more in another residential property anywhere in the world, or where the buyer is a company. The table applies to transactions with an effective date on or after 11 December 2024.
| Price slice | Higher residential rate |
|---|---|
| Up to £180,000 | 5% |
| £180,001 – £250,000 | 8.5% |
| £250,001 – £400,000 | 10% |
| £400,001 – £750,000 | 12.5% |
| £750,001 – £1,500,000 | 15% |
| Over £1,500,000 | 17% |
Source: Welsh Government — Land Transaction Tax rates and bands, retrieved 26 May 2026.
Two features catch English and Scottish buyers off guard.
There is no nil-rate band. The 5% rate starts at £1, not at £180,001. A £100,000 second home triggers £5,000 of LTT in Wales, where the equivalent English purchase would also attract £5,000 (the 5% surcharge applies, but the 0% slab below £125,000 absorbs the standard rate) and a Scottish purchase would attract £8,000 (8% ADS on the full price above the £40,000 floor).
The bands are a separate table, not an add-on. England layers a 5-percentage-point surcharge on top of its standard SDLT slabs (0% becomes 5%, 2% becomes 7%, and so on). Scotland adds a flat 8% supplement to the standard LBTT figure for the whole price. Wales instead has parallel band rates that you read like the standard table — same nil-rate / lower-rate / higher-rate structure, just calibrated for additional-dwelling and corporate buyers.
Three worked examples
Each calculation slices the price across the bands. The "effective date" for LTT is normally the day completion takes place.
£200,000 additional dwelling
| Slice | Rate | Tax on slice |
|---|---|---|
| First £180,000 | 5% | £9,000 |
| Next £20,000 | 8.5% | £1,700 |
| Total LTT | £10,700 |
£300,000 additional dwelling
| Slice | Rate | Tax on slice |
|---|---|---|
| First £180,000 | 5% | £9,000 |
| Next £70,000 | 8.5% | £5,950 |
| Final £50,000 | 10% | £5,000 |
| Total LTT | £19,950 |
£500,000 additional dwelling
| Slice | Rate | Tax on slice |
|---|---|---|
| First £180,000 | 5% | £9,000 |
| Next £70,000 | 8.5% | £5,950 |
| Next £150,000 | 10% | £15,000 |
| Final £100,000 | 12.5% | £12,500 |
| Total LTT | £42,450 |
The WRA's own published worked example at £260,000 arrives at £15,950 (£9,000 + £5,950 + £1,000) by the same method — confirming the slicing rule.
Wales versus England versus Scotland
| Purchase price | England SDLT + 5% surcharge | Wales LTT (higher) | Scotland LBTT + 8% ADS |
|---|---|---|---|
| £100,000 | £5,000 | £5,000 | £8,000 |
| £150,000 | £8,000 | £7,500 | £12,100 |
| £200,000 | £11,500 | £10,700 | £17,100 |
| £300,000 | £20,000 | £19,950 | £28,600 |
| £400,000 | £30,000 | £29,950 | £45,350 |
| £500,000 | £40,000 | £42,450 | £63,350 |
| £750,000 | £65,000 | £73,700 | £108,350 |
Method: each figure applies the published band table for the relevant regime to the price slice, with the additional-dwelling overlay specific to that regime. Sources: HMRC SDLT residential rates, Revenue Scotland LBTT ADS, WRA LTT higher residential bands. All figures fetched 26 May 2026.
Two patterns emerge.
Under about £300,000, Wales is cheaper than England. The 5% Welsh entry rate covers the same £180,000 slice that English additional-dwelling buyers see priced at 5% (£0-£125k) and 7% (£125k-£180k) under the surcharged table. Wales only catches up to the English figure between £200,000 and £300,000, where the 8.5% Welsh slab bites.
Above about £400,000, Wales becomes more expensive than England. The 10% and 12.5% Welsh slabs kick in earlier and harder than the equivalent English slabs (England's 10% additional-property slab does not start until £250,000, and the next step up to 15% does not arrive until £925,000). By £750,000, the Welsh bill is £8,700 higher than the English equivalent.
Scotland remains the costliest at every price tested because the 8% ADS applies to the entire price, not to a slice. The point is not that one regime is "better" — they are different tax bases with different policy intents. Buyers planning a cross-border move need to recompute, not assume the English number carries.
For an interactive walk-through of any price point in any regime, the stamp duty calculator handles all four UK regimes (SDLT, LBTT, LTT and NI) with the additional-dwelling and first-time-buyer flags applied.
What counts as a higher rate transaction in Wales
The higher residential bands apply if any of the following are true on the effective date of the transaction:
- The buyer, or their spouse / civil partner / minor child, already holds a major interest worth £40,000 or more in another dwelling anywhere in the world, and the buyer is not replacing their only or main residence within the qualifying period.
- The buyer is a company.
- The purchase is of more than one dwelling, and the multiple-dwellings relief rules do not displace the higher rates.
If the buyer is replacing their only or main residence — selling the old home on the same day, or having sold it within the preceding three years — the higher rates do not apply on the new home, even if other properties are owned (for example, an inherited share or an overseas holiday flat held below the £40,000 floor). This is the same "replacement of main residence" logic that runs across all three UK regimes, but the Welsh test is administered by the WRA, not by HMRC.
The three-year refund route
If a buyer pays higher rates on a new main residence but then sells the previous main residence within three years of completion, they can apply to the WRA for a refund of the higher-rate element. The application is made via the WRA online refund form and must include the LTT return reference for the original purchase. The standard residential tax on the new property remains due — only the difference between the higher and standard band tables is refundable.
Procedurally this mirrors the English additional-property refund route, with two distinctions worth knowing.
- The Welsh refund is calculated against the parallel band table, not as a simple "5% of price" credit. The arithmetic is "higher-band tax minus standard-band tax", which at £300,000 is £19,950 − £4,500 = £15,450 of refundable surcharge.
- The WRA's published service-standard targets for refund processing differ from HMRC's; buyers should plan for a cash gap between sale completion and refund receipt.
Who files, where, and when
LTT returns are filed with the Welsh Revenue Authority, not HMRC. The filing deadline is 30 days from the effective date of the transaction, and the tax must be paid by the same deadline. In almost all conveyances the buyer's solicitor or conveyancer files on the buyer's behalf and remits the tax from completion funds — but the deadline matters because late-filing penalties accrue against the buyer, not the solicitor.
The return is filed online via the WRA's portal at gov.wales/file-land-transaction-tax-online. Where contracts were exchanged before 11 December 2024 but completion is on or after that date, the previous higher-rate band table (effective 22 December 2020 to 10 December 2024) may apply under transitional rules. The WRA publishes the prior tables on the same rates-and-bands page.
What the Welsh market actually looks like at these bands
Based on 43,328 Welsh residential transactions registered with HM Land Registry in 2025, the distribution across the LTT band breakpoints was:
| Price band | 2025 transactions | Average price |
|---|---|---|
| Up to £180,000 | 17,674 | £129,552 |
| £180,001 – £250,000 | 10,193 | £215,403 |
| £250,001 – £400,000 | 10,743 | £313,145 |
| £400,001 – £750,000 | 4,066 | £514,036 |
| £750,001 – £1.5M | 523 | £952,233 |
| Over £1.5M | 129 | £4,361,977 |
Source: HM Land Registry pp-complete (Wales rows, sale_date 2025), fetched 26 May 2026.
Median Welsh sale price in 2025 was £207,500 — squarely inside the 8.5% slice for higher-rate buyers. The modal Welsh transaction sat in the under-£180,000 band, where any additional-dwelling purchase pays a flat 5% LTT with no nil-rate band protection. For a worked example anchored to a real Welsh postcode in the higher-rate impact zone, CF23 5EZ in Cardiff recorded 14 sales averaging £221,571 in 2025.
Related guides
The Welsh LTT rules sit inside the wider UK property tax landscape. The SDLT vs LBTT vs LTT cross-regime comparison sets out the three standard rate tables side by side, and the additional property stamp duty surcharge explainer walks through the English 5% surcharge in detail. The cross-border relocation cost guide covers the SDLT/LBTT/LTT delta a buyer encounters when moving between nations. For other UK property tax explainers, browse the Cost Intelligence blog category.
The rates and worked examples above are factual descriptions of the WRA's published band tables as of 26 May 2026. Welsh tax bands are reviewed at each Welsh Budget and can change at short notice; check the WRA's official rates and bands page before acting on any specific transaction. This is general information, not advice. Speak to a qualified conveyancer or tax adviser before acting.