Homebuyers paid £15.4bn in stamp duty last year, reflecting higher prices and a tax regime that has failed to keep pace with the housing market.
Homebuyers paid £15.4bn in stamp duty last year, according to analysis of the latest HMRC figures by [Coventry Building Society](chatgpt://generic-entity?number=0), an increase of 18% on the £13bn collected in 2024.
In December alone, stamp duty receipts reached £1.7bn, up 26% on the £1.4bn paid in November. The final months of the year followed a period of uncertainty shaped by April’s change to the nil-rate threshold and an Autumn Budget that ultimately left Stamp Duty policy untouched, despite widespread speculation.
From April, the nil-rate threshold fell from £250,000 to £125,000, increasing tax bills for many buyers and pulling a larger share of transactions into the scope of the levy.
The change has landed in a market where prices have risen sharply since the current stamp duty framework was introduced. In December 2014, when the system was last overhauled, the average UK home cost £176,561.
The latest UK House Price Index shows the average price now stands at £271,188 as of November 2025, an increase of more than £94,000 over the period.
Despite that rise, stamp duty thresholds have remained frozen, meaning properties that once sat comfortably below tax bands now incur a charge purely as a result of long-term house price growth.
URGENT REFRESH NEEDED
Jonathan Stinton, head of mortgage relations 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.”
PRICE JUMP
He added: “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 12 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.”
