Is There First-Time Buyer Relief Above £500,000?

First-time buyer Stamp Duty relief stops completely once the property price goes above £500,000. There is no taper and no partial relief: at £500,001 the relief is gone and Stamp Duty Land Tax is charged at the standard rates on the whole price. The relief cannot be claimed on transactions over £500,000¹.

Below that figure the relief is generous. In England and Northern Ireland it exempts the first £300,000 of the price from Stamp Duty, provided the total purchase price does not exceed £500,000¹. At a £500,000 price the maximum saving is up to £5,000¹. Above £500,000, a first-time buyer pays the same as any other buyer.

This page covers what the relief is worth up to the limit, what a buyer pays on a home over £500,000, how the rules differ in Scotland and Wales, and the 14-day deadline for filing the return and paying the tax.

First-time buyer relief stops completely above £500,000

The £500,000 figure is a cliff edge, not a gradual reduction. The relief applies in full to a purchase at exactly £500,000 and is unavailable at £500,001. The rule is set out plainly: the first-time buyer relief cannot be claimed on transactions over £500,000¹.

That cap replaced an earlier, higher limit. Standard Stamp Duty charges now apply to properties worth more than £500,000, replacing a £625,000 home value limit³. The change was part of a wider reversal of thresholds: property price thresholds for relief dropped from £625,000 to £500,000⁴. Before that, the threshold for first-time buyers in England and Northern Ireland had been £425,000 until 31 March 2025⁵.

For a buyer, the practical effect is that the tax bill jumps sharply at the boundary. A first-time buyer at £500,000 pays £10,000, against £15,000 at the standard rates, a saving of £5,000⁶. A first-time buyer at £510,000 pays £15,500, more than double the £500,000 bill⁷. The extra £10,000 of purchase price costs £5,500 more in tax, because the relief is lost entirely and the standard rates apply from the first pound.

The relief is not means-tested and does not depend on income. It depends on the price, on the buyer's history, and on the property. All of the qualifying conditions must be met for the relief to be available¹.

How much Stamp Duty you pay on a home over £500,000

Above £500,000, a first-time buyer pays Stamp Duty at the standard residential rates. Stamp Duty Land Tax is charged on a slice basis: rates are graduated so that more expensive properties face progressively higher rates⁸. Each band applies only to the part of the price that falls within it.

For a main residence in England and Northern Ireland, the rate is 5% on the portion of the price from £250,001 to £925,000⁹. The first-time buyer version of that band is 5% on the value between £300,000 and £500,000, and it does not apply over £500,000⁹. Once the relief is lost, the standard band structure takes over.

A worked example makes the difference clear. On a £500,000 home, a buyer pays £15,000 in Stamp Duty at the standard rates, but £10,000 as a first-time buyer⁶. The £5,000 gap is the relief. At £510,000, the first-time buyer pays £15,500⁷, because the relief no longer applies and the standard rates run across the whole price.

Stamp Duty Land Tax applies in England and Northern Ireland only⁸. Scotland and Wales have their own property taxes with their own rules, covered below.

The table shows the boundary effect: at £500,000 the first-time buyer saves £5,000, and at £510,000 the two figures are the same because the relief has gone.

What first-time buyer relief is worth up to £500,000: up to £5,000

Below the cap, the relief raises the point at which Stamp Duty starts. In England and Northern Ireland it exempts the first £300,000 of the price from Stamp Duty for a first-time buyer, provided the total purchase price does not exceed £500,000¹. Any value between £300,000 and £500,000 is taxed at 5%, and above £500,000 the relief is not available at all¹.

The maximum saving is thus much larger than in Scotland: up to £5,000 at a £500,000 price¹. That is the most the relief can ever be worth in England and Northern Ireland.

The relief is worth nothing at all on cheaper homes where no Stamp Duty is due anyway. A first-time buyer purchasing a house of £292,000 pays zero Stamp Duty⁹. The relief only bites once the price passes the point where tax would otherwise start.

For a mid-range example, on a first home costing £350,000 the total to pay would be £2,500: nothing on the first £300,000, and 5% on the remaining £50,000¹⁰. That is the shape of the relief in practice: a nil band up to £300,000, then 5% on the slice above it, up to the £500,000 ceiling.

Scotland's equivalent relief works differently. It raises the nil-rate threshold from the standard £145,000 to £175,000, potentially relieving up to £600 in tax¹. The relief is expected to help 12,000 first-time buyers in Scotland every year¹¹. The Scottish figure is a maximum of £600, against £5,000 in England and Northern Ireland, because the two reliefs are built on different thresholds.

Does first-time buyer relief apply in Scotland or Wales?

The £500,000 cap described on this page is a Stamp Duty Land Tax rule, and Stamp Duty Land Tax applies in England and Northern Ireland only⁸. Scotland and Wales run their own taxes on property purchases, with different reliefs and different limits.

Scotland's tax is Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, and it has its own first-time buyer relief. That relief raises the nil-rate threshold from the standard £145,000 to £175,000, potentially relieving up to £600 in tax¹. The Scottish relief is expected to help 12,000 first-time buyers every year¹¹. It is a smaller relief than the English one, and it is not capped at a £500,000 purchase price in the same way.

Wales notably does not have a first-time buyer relief for Land Transaction Tax, unlike Scotland's LBTT¹. A first-time buyer in Wales therefore pays Land Transaction Tax under the standard rules, with no first-time buyer discount.

For a first-time buyer buying a single property anywhere but Wales, the relief is likely to be available¹². That summary is a useful starting point, but the detail differs by nation, and the qualifying conditions in Scotland are set out in Revenue Scotland's own guidance¹.

If you are buying in Scotland, the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax page covers the rates, reliefs and returns. For Wales, see Land Transaction Tax.

Who counts as a first-time buyer for the relief

The relief is not simply about whether you have saved a deposit before. In Scotland, the qualifying conditions require that the property is residential and includes a dwelling; that the buyer is a first-time buyer, meaning a first-time owner of a property who has never previously owned a residential property anywhere in the world; that the buyer intends to occupy the dwelling as their only or main residence; that the transaction is not a linked transaction; and that the transaction is not one to which the Additional Dwelling Supplement applies¹.

The "anywhere in the world" wording matters. A buyer who has owned a home abroad is not a first-time buyer for these purposes. The relief is about property ownership history, not about where the property was.

Where there is more than one buyer, the relief is available only if every buyer meets all the relevant criteria¹. That is the rule that catches couples and friends buying together. If your co-buyer has owned a home before, the relief is not available to either of you. The same principle appears in lender guidance: if your home costs more than £500,000, or you are buying with someone who has already owned a home, you will not qualify for first-time buyer relief¹⁰.

For a fuller explanation of who qualifies, see Who counts as a first-time buyer for property tax. If you are buying with someone else, Buying a home with someone else sets out how joint purchases work.

Filing the return and paying within 14 days

Stamp Duty is payable at the point of completion¹³. As the buyer you have 14 days to pay any Stamp Duty you owe¹⁴. The return and the tax must be sent within 14 days of the effective date of the transaction².

That deadline is not a soft one. HMRC charges a late filing penalty and interest if the Stamp Duty Land Tax return is not filed on time². Filing late means penalties and interest on top of the tax itself.

Not every purchase needs a return. There are cases where a return is not required, including where the property was left to you in a will¹⁵. Most purchases above the nil-rate threshold do need one, and the conveyancer usually handles it as part of the legal work.

If you have overpaid, there is a separate refund route for the higher rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax. To apply, you need your details, the main buyer's details, details of the property that attracted the higher rates including the effective date of purchase and the SDLT unique transaction reference number, details of the previous main home sold including the effective date of sale, address and buyer's name, the amount of tax paid, the amount of tax to be repaid, and the bank account and sort code details of the payment recipient¹⁶. The deadline depends on when the previous home was sold: for properties sold on or after 29 October 2018, HMRC must receive the request by the later of 12 months after the date of sale or 12 months after the filing date of the return for the new main home¹⁶. For properties sold on or before 28 October 2018, the deadline is 3 months after the date of sale¹⁶. You must have sold your previous main home within 3 years of buying the new property, unless exceptional circumstances apply¹⁶.

What happens if you pay late

Late payment of Stamp Duty Land Tax carries consequences beyond the tax itself. HMRC charges a late filing penalty and interest if the return is not filed on time². The penalty applies to the filing, and interest accrues on the unpaid tax.

The wider late-payment penalty regime gives a sense of how HMRC treats delays. In the first year of the new penalties, if a payment is more than 30 days late, HMRC will start to apply late-payment penalties; after the first year, penalties start if a payment is more than 15 days late¹⁷. Those thresholds are part of the Making Tax Digital penalty structure, and they show the direction of travel: the longer a payment is late, the more it costs.

For Stamp Duty specifically, the safest approach is to treat the 14-day window as fixed. The conveyancer usually files the return and arranges payment as part of the completion process, which is why the deadline rarely becomes the buyer's problem in a straightforward purchase. It becomes the buyer's problem when the conveyancer fails to act, or when the buyer handles the return directly.

If a conveyancer has failed to pay the tax, the buyer remains liable to HMRC. The What to do if your conveyancer fails to pay property tax page covers that situation. For the deadline itself, see When is the deadline to pay Stamp Duty?.

Where to get help

The rules on first-time buyer relief and the £500,000 cap are set by HMRC for England and Northern Ireland, and by Revenue Scotland for Land and Buildings Transaction Tax. The starting points are the official guidance on sending a Stamp Duty Land Tax return² and on checking whether you need to send one¹⁵.

For free, impartial help with the wider costs of buying, MoneyHelper offers guidance on mortgages and home buying. A conveyancer or solicitor handling the purchase will normally deal with the return and the payment, and can confirm which reliefs apply to a particular transaction.

If a purchase has gone wrong, or a conveyancer has failed to file or pay, the Complaining when buying a home goes wrong page sets out the routes. For the full picture of what a purchase costs beyond the tax, see The costs of buying a house.