First-Time Buyer Stamp Duty: The £500,000 Cliff Edge

First-time buyer relief is generous — until you cross £500,000. At that exact price you can save £15,000 compared with standard rates. At £500,001 you save nothing, because relief disappears completely.

Estate agents and sellers know this cliff exists. Buyers stretching for a fifth bedroom in London commuter belt towns hit it constantly.

How relief works below £500,000

Qualifying first-time buyers pay:

• 0% on the first £300,000
• 5% on the portion from £300,001 to £500,000

Everyone buying together must never have owned a residential property anywhere in the world.

Use our first-time buyer stamp duty calculator to model your price.

The cliff in numbers

Price	First-time buyer SDLT	Standard SDLT
£480,000	£9,000	£14,000
£500,000	£10,000	£25,000
£510,000	£15,500	£15,500

At £500,000 the saving is £15,000. At £510,000 the saving is £0 — and the first-time buyer actually pays the same as a repeat buyer.

Negotiating from £505,000 down to £499,000 is not just £6,000 off the price. For a qualifying first-time buyer it can be £11,000+ when stamp duty is included.

Near-miss prices between £460k and £500k

Our calculator shows a warning on price pages in this range. If you are a first-time buyer at £490,000, holding the agreed price at or below £500,000 is worth more than extras like appliances or furniture in the negotiation.

Who does not qualify

Relief is lost if:

• Any joint buyer has owned before
• The price exceeds £500,000
• You are not buying a residential property

Scotland and Wales have different first-time buyer thresholds — see LBTT and LTT.

Shared ownership complications

Buying a share of a property can affect relief depending on market value and structure. Do not assume the calculator result is final — ask your conveyancer if you are using shared ownership or Help to Buy legacy schemes.

For the full band explanation, read how stamp duty is calculated.