Home movers face an even steeper bill, with fiscal drag adding to the cost
Fewer than one in 10 first-time buyers in Northern England paid stamp duty land tax in the first half of 2026, compared with 51% in the South East and almost eight in 10 in London, according to new analysis from Zoopla.
The property portal examined home buyer enquiries across England and found that stamp duty now functions as two separate taxes depending on location and whether the buyer is purchasing their first home or moving from an existing property.
First-time buyers do not pay stamp duty on purchases up to £300,000. Across England, 38% of first-time buyers paid the tax, while the remaining 62% owed nothing.
The proportion liable varied sharply by region. In the North East, only 2.1% of first-time buyers paid stamp duty, rising to 3.8% in Yorkshire and the Humber, 6.2% in the North West and 9.3% in the West Midlands. In each of these regions, most first-time buyer purchases fell below the £300,000 threshold.
The South East and East of England were closer to the tipping point, with 51% and 52% of first-time buyers respectively paying stamp duty. The average price of a taxed purchase in these regions stood at £395,000 and £390,000. In London, 79.7% of first-time buyers paid stamp duty, with an average purchase price of £475,000 and an average bill of £8,750, a sum buyers must fund separately from their deposit.
Existing homeowners buying their next property receive no equivalent relief. More than four in five home movers paid stamp duty in every English region except the North East, where the proportion was 63.5%.
Bills in the North remained modest, averaging £2,200 in both Yorkshire and the North West, where the tax amounted to less than one penny per pound of the purchase price.
The cost was markedly higher in southern England. In the South East, 95% of home movers paid stamp duty, averaging £11,250, or 2.7 pence per pound. In London, where the median asking price for home movers was £600,000, the average bill reached £20,000, more than three pence per pound.
Home movers account for six in 10 property purchases, and Zoopla said that when moving costs reach five figures in southern England, some transactions do not proceed. This reduces both demand for larger homes and the supply of starter homes for first-time buyers.
Stamp duty by region
Share of buyers paying stamp duty and median bill, by region
Source: Zoopla
“Where you're buying determines what you pay in stamp duty if you're a first-time buyer,” said Richard Donnell (pictured right), executive director at Zoopla. “In the North and Midlands, the £300,000 takes nine in 10 first-time buyers out of paying anything extra to buy their home. In London and the South East, the cost of buying an average first time buyer homes is above £300,000 for many buyers which means the majority of first-time buyers face a stamp duty bill on top of an often sizable deposit.
“For home movers, stamp duty is a near-certain cost wherever you live - and in Southern England it runs to five figures. Six in 10 property purchases are made by existing homeowners. When the cost of moving becomes a meaningful friction, some of those moves don't happen, especially with lower levels of house price inflation in recent years across southern England.”
The analysis also pointed to fiscal drag as a compounding factor, as stamp duty thresholds have not kept pace with house price growth. The £250,000 threshold at which the 5% rate begins for home movers was set in 2014. Adjusted in line with house prices, it would now stand at around £380,000, which Zoopla said could save the average buyer up to £6,500 in stamp duty on purchases between £250,000 and £380,000.
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