LBTT Calculator (Scotland Land and Buildings Transaction Tax)
Calculate Scotland's Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) on a property purchase from the price, buyer type (first-time buyer), and the Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS). LBTT is a separate tax regime from SDLT in England and Northern Ireland.
What is Scotland's LBTT?
The Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) is a one-off tax paid by the buyer when purchasing property or land in Scotland, administered by Revenue Scotland. It replaced SDLT (Stamp Duty Land Tax) in Scotland on 1 April 2015, when the Scottish Parliament first used its devolved tax powers to design its own regime. Rather than applying a single rate to the whole price, LBTT splits the price into bands and applies a progressive rate to each one, so only the portion within a band is taxed at that band's rate.
On top of the standard rates, there is First-Time Buyer Relief (which raises the nil-rate band from £145,000 to £175,000) and the Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) for anyone who will end up owning two or more homes. A key structural difference from SDLT's equivalent surcharge is that ADS is not layered onto each band — it is a flat 8% charged on the entire purchase price. England and Northern Ireland use SDLT, and Wales uses LTT (Land Transaction Tax); both have different rates and rules from LBTT.
Sources used in this calculation
Statutory figures such as tax and insurance rates come from the public bodies listed below. They change when the law is revised, so please also check the primary source before relying on the result for an important decision.
- UK Scotland LBTT standard rate bands & First-Time Buyer Relief — Revenue Scotland Effective from 2021-04 ／ Last checked 2026-09-08
- UK Scotland Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) rate — Revenue Scotland Effective from 2024-12 ／ Last checked 2026-09-08
How to use it
- Enter the property price Enter the price, in pounds, of the property you are buying or considering
- Choose the buyer type Select standard, first-time buyer, or additional dwelling
- Check the result See LBTT, ADS (if it applies), the total tax due, the effective rate, and the band-by-band breakdown
Tips for getting more out of it
- First-Time Buyer Relief requires that every buyer in the transaction is a first-time buyer. If a joint buyer has ever owned property before, the standard rate applies to the whole purchase.
- Unlike SDLT's additional-property surcharge, ADS is not layered per band — it is a flat charge on the whole price. That means the higher the property price, the larger ADS becomes relative to the standard LBTT.
- If you sell your previous main home within a set period after buying a new one, you may be able to reclaim the ADS you paid. Check Revenue Scotland's official guidance for the current time limit.
- Rates and thresholds can change with the Scottish Budget, so always confirm the current rates on revenue.scot before you complete a purchase.
Common use cases
Budgeting for a home purchase in Scotland
Work out the LBTT on top of the purchase price so you can plan your total budget including costs
Checking the first-time buyer saving
Compare the standard rate against the first-time buyer rate to see exactly how much relief you get
Considering a buy-to-let or second home
Estimate the tax once ADS is added, to feed into your investment return calculation
Comparing against England's SDLT
See how the tax and its structure differ for the same price in Scotland versus England (use money.wealth.uk_stamp_duty for the English figure)
Glossary
- LBTT (Land and Buildings Transaction Tax)
- A one-off tax paid by the buyer when purchasing property or land in Scotland, administered by Revenue Scotland.
- Progressive rate (banded taxation)
- A method that splits the price into bands and applies a rate only to the portion of the price that falls within each band.
- First-Time Buyer Relief
- A relief for buyers who have never owned a property, which raises the nil-rate band from £145,000 to £175,000. There is no upper price limit, and the maximum saving is £600.
- ADS (Additional Dwelling Supplement)
- An extra charge for anyone who will own two or more dwellings after the purchase. Unlike the band-based main tax, it is a flat 8% (as of 2026) on the whole purchase price.
- SDLT & LTT
- The equivalent property taxes in England/Northern Ireland and Wales respectively — separate regimes with different rates and rules from LBTT.
Frequently asked questions
Side Note — a tax regime that split off from SDLT
LBTT was introduced on 1 April 2015, the first time the Scottish Parliament made full use of the tax powers devolved under the Scotland Act 2012. Until then, Scotland used the same SDLT (Stamp Duty Land Tax) as England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. To reflect Scotland's own housing policy priorities, a new tax authority, Revenue Scotland, was created alongside a regime with different bands and rates from SDLT. From the outset, the standard nil-rate band was set higher than SDLT's, which is often said to make LBTT more favourable than SDLT for mid-priced homes.
The Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) was introduced in April 2016 at 3%, and has since been raised in stages — to 6% in December 2022, and to 8% in December 2024 — against a backdrop of rising house prices and growing demand for investment property. A key difference from SDLT's equivalent surcharge is that SDLT layers its surcharge onto each band, while ADS is a flat rate on the entire purchase price. Because of this design difference, the same scenario — buying a second home — is calculated quite differently in England and Scotland.
First-Time Buyer Relief was introduced in June 2018. Unlike the equivalent SDLT relief, it places no upper limit on the property price that qualifies. Even a first-time buyer purchasing an expensive home still benefits from the raised nil-rate band (worth up to £600) — a simpler design than SDLT's equivalent, which withdraws the relief entirely above a certain price.