SDLT for Overseas Buyers

SDLT is a slice tax, not a cliff-edge tax. Each rate applies only to the portion of the price that falls inside its band, so moving £1 above a threshold costs pennies rather than thousands. The residential bands below have been in force since 1 April 2025.

Because the bands are marginal, the headline 12% top rate is not the rate you pay. On a £2,000,000 purchase the banded tax comes to £153,750, an effective rate of 7.69% before any surcharge.

• 0% on the portion up to £125,000
• 2% on the portion from £125,001 to £250,000
• 5% on the portion from £250,001 to £925,000
• 10% on the portion from £925,001 to £1,500,000
• 12% on everything above £1,500,000

Surcharges behave differently from the bands. They are flat percentages of the entire purchase price, applied on top of the banded tax — including the slice that the bands themselves tax at 0%. HMRC's own worked examples charge the non-resident surcharge on the first £125,000.

The non-resident surcharge is 2 percentage points and has applied since 1 April 2021. For SDLT purposes you are treated as non-resident if you were present in the UK on fewer than 183 days in the 12 months before the effective date of the transaction — a day-count test, not a visa or domicile test. It is possible to be UK resident for income tax and non-resident for SDLT, or the reverse.

The additional-dwelling surcharge is 5 percentage points and has applied since 31 October 2024, up from the earlier 3%. It bites whenever you will own more than one dwelling at the end of the day of completion — including homes owned anywhere in the world. Buyers replacing their only or main residence are outside it, and a buyer who has not yet sold the old home can pay the surcharge and reclaim it if the sale completes within the statutory window.

The same flat at the same price produces four very different tax bills depending on who is buying and why. The table below sets them side by side.

Note the spread: £140,000 separates the buyer replacing a main home from the non-resident adding to a portfolio. On a prime London purchase that gap is often larger than the negotiating room on price.

Where a company or other non-natural person buys a single dwelling for more than £500,000, SDLT is charged at a flat 17% of the whole price rather than through the bands. A non-resident company adds the 2 percentage point non-resident surcharge, giving a flat 19%.

At £2,000,000 that is £340,000 for a UK company and £380,000 for a non-resident company — £86,250 to £126,250 more than an individual buying the same property as a second home. Certain reliefs, such as acquisition for a genuine property rental business, can take the purchase out of the 17% flat rate and back into the ordinary rates plus the additional-dwelling surcharge, but the relief is conditional and can be clawed back.

The entry charge is only half the picture. A company-owned home over £500,000 also attracts the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings every year it is held.

An SDLT return must be filed and the tax paid within 14 days of completion. In practice your conveyancer handles both and will hold the SDLT alongside the purchase money, so the cash needs to be in the UK before completion, not after.

Two refunds are worth knowing about. If you pay the additional-dwelling surcharge because your previous main home had not yet sold, you can reclaim it once that sale completes within the statutory time limit. And if you pay the non-resident surcharge but then spend enough days in the UK to meet the SDLT residence test in the period around completion, you can amend the return and reclaim the 2%. Both claims have deadlines, so flag them to your solicitor at the outset rather than remembering them a year later.

All figures are for a single residential property in England or Northern Ireland at a price of £2,000,000, using rates current as at August 2026.

Figures current as at August 2026.

Worked Example: Non-Resident, Additional Dwelling

A buyer resident outside the UK purchases a £2,000,000 flat while retaining a home abroad. Both surcharges apply.

Both surcharges are calculated on the full £2,000,000, including the first £125,000 that the bands themselves tax at 0%.

Every figure on this page is taken from the following official guidance, checked on 15 August 2026.

• GOV.UK: Stamp Duty Land Tax — residential property rates
• GOV.UK: Rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax for non-UK residents
• GOV.UK: Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings — the basics