Homebuyers paid £15.4bn in stamp duty last year, up 18% from the £13bn paid in 2024.
In December, homebuyers paid £1.7bn – up 26% on the £1.4bn paid in November. This followed a year shaped by April’s threshold change and an Autumn Budget that left stamp duty policy unchanged, despite widespread speculation.
In April, the nil-rate threshold for stamp duty fell from £250,000 to £125,000, increasing tax bills for many buyers and bringing more purchases into the scope of the tax.
This came against the backdrop of a housing market where prices have risen markedly since the current stamp duty thresholds were introduced. At that time, in December 2014, the average UK property cost £176,561.
According to the latest UK House Price Index, the average price is now £271,188 (November 2025) — an increase of more than £94,000.
Despite this significant increase in house prices, stamp duty thresholds have remained frozen, meaning many homes that sat comfortably below tax bands a decade ago now incur a charge simply because prices have climbed.
Jonathan Stinton, head of intermediary relationships at Coventry Building Society, said: “We talk a lot about affordability in the housing market, but stamp duty is the cost people feel immediately. It’s a tax that hasn’t kept pace with how the market has changed, and that mismatch is dragging more and more buyers into paying more than they expected.
“Put simply, house prices have jumped by almost £100,000 since the thresholds were introduced, yet the tax bands unashamedly haven’t moved with them. Buyers today are being charged as though they’re shopping in a market from a decade ago.
“If stamp duty has any chance of being considered fair and proportionate, it has to reflect the world we live in now, not the one we lived in twelve years ago. An urgent refresh of the thresholds would bring the system back in line with reality and take some of the pressure off people trying to move.”
