How this works
Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) is Scotland's replacement for Stamp Duty Land Tax, devolved to the Scottish Parliament under the Scotland Act 2012 and administered by Revenue Scotland since April 2015. It works on the same progressive-band logic as SDLT but with different thresholds and rates: 0 % up to £145,000, then 2 % to £250,000, 5 % to £325,000, 10 % to £750,000, and 12 % above. The lower entry threshold means more buyers pay something, but the lower rates in the middle bands mean the average bill on a typical Scottish home is comparable to or lower than the SDLT equivalent in England.
The first-time buyer relief is structurally simpler than SDLT's: it raises the 0 % threshold to £175,000 with no upper price cap. A first-time buyer at £500,000 still gets the relief and saves £600 — small but unconditional. SDLT, by contrast, has a £500,000 cliff above which the relief disappears entirely.
The Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) for buy-to-lets and second homes is where Scotland diverges most sharply from England. It's an 8 % flat charge on the entire purchase price — not added per-band like SDLT's surcharge, but a separate lump on top of the standard LBTT. The supplement was 4 % until December 2022, rose to 6 %, and was raised again to 8 % on 5 December 2024 in the Scottish Budget. A £300,000 BTL purchase therefore pays £4,600 standard LBTT plus £24,000 ADS — a total of £28,600. Properties under £40,000 are exempt from ADS.
The formula
Bands are the Revenue Scotland published rates, unchanged since 2017 for the standard scale. ADS rises with each Scottish Budget — 4 % (2016 – Dec 2022), 6 % (Dec 2022 – Dec 2024), 8 % (since 5 Dec 2024). Excludes non-residential property (own LBTT scale), mixed-use property (treated as non-residential), Multiple Dwellings Relief (where you buy several dwellings in one transaction), and Group Relief (for corporate restructures).
Example calculation
- Standard buyer, £300,000 home.
- £145k × 0 % + £105k × 2 % + £50k × 5 % = £0 + £2,100 + £2,500 = £4,600.
- Effective 1.53 %. As a buy-to-let: add £300k × 8 % = £24,000 ADS → £28,600 total (9.53 % effective).
Frequently asked questions
Why is the ADS structured differently from England's surcharge?
Political choice: a flat 8 % on the whole purchase price is easier to communicate ("the ADS bill on a £300k flat is £24,000") and harder to game by splitting band boundaries. SDLT's per-band approach is arithmetically smoother but obscures the headline cost. The total revenue ends up similar; the optics differ. The flat structure also makes ADS punch much harder on cheaper properties — a £50k flat owes £4,000 ADS plus zero standard LBTT, a higher ratio than the equivalent SDLT supplement would land on.
How does the first-time buyer relief compare to England?
Scotland's relief is smaller in magnitude but more universal in application. Maximum saving for a Scottish FTB is £600 (£175k × 2 % − £145k × 2 % = £600 in deferred 2 % band). SDLT's relief saves up to £6,250 but only below the £500k cliff. The two systems have different theories of who needs help most: SDLT targets help at FTBs trying to access the more expensive English housing market; LBTT extends help more broadly across all FTBs since Scottish prices skew lower and a uniform benefit makes sense. For a typical first-home purchase under £300k in Scotland, the SDLT relief on the equivalent English property would save more — but only because the English property would face a higher bill in the first place.
Did the ADS rise to 8 % really happen in December 2024?
Yes — the Scottish Budget of 4 December 2024 announced the rise from 6 % to 8 %, effective for purchases concluded on or after 5 December 2024 (same-day implementation, very common for property-tax changes). Purchases that had completed missives before that date use the 6 % rate. The 2 percentage-point hike was justified by the Scottish Government as funding for first-time-buyer support measures, though the symmetry doesn't quite add up given how much more ADS revenue this generates relative to the small FTB-relief enhancement. This calculator uses the 8 % rate throughout — for a pre-Dec-2024 BTL purchase you'd need to manually scale the ADS line by 6/8 to back out the lower rate.