Chancellor John Healey delivered the UK’s Autumn Budget to the House of Commons on October 28, 2026, the first full Budget of his chancellorship under Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Among the headline property-related measures, the House of Commons Library’s own post-Budget summary confirms a further two-percentage-point rise in the income tax rates charged on savings and property income from April 2027, taking those rates to 24%, 44% and 49% across the basic, higher and additional bands. That stacks on top of the two-percentage-point rise already legislated in the 2025 Budget, meaning landlords and other property-income earners are now facing a second consecutive annual increase rather than a one-off adjustment.
The rise is not the only lever Healey pulled on housing. The Commons Library also confirms an extra £1.5 billion for the Social and Affordable Homes Programme, aimed at delivering around 10,000 additional homes in England, and the introduction of a new First Time Buyer ISA from April 2029 carrying a 25% government bonus on qualifying savings toward a first home — a measure PwC and Forvis Mazars both describe in their post-Budget summaries, alongside confirmation that the existing £20,000 annual ISA allowance is unchanged. Unlike the tax-rate rise, which bites immediately from the following tax year, the First Time Buyer ISA is a multi-year commitment: savers have roughly two and a half years before the scheme opens, which is a planning window rather than an immediate benefit.
What the Budget did not touch is, for now, harder to confirm with the same confidence. Legal-directory coverage (ICLG) reported a tax overhaul affecting foreign sovereign investors, and Bloomberg separately reported an extra 3% tax on banks expected to raise £1.5 billion — both plausible given the pre-Budget speculation that Healey might revisit sovereign-immunity exemptions on UK property and business taxation, and that the bank surcharge (currently 3% on profits above a £100 million allowance) could rise. Neither figure, however, could be independently corroborated against a primary HM Treasury or gov.uk document in this review, so they are noted here as single-outlet reports rather than confirmed facts.
Zagdim’s View — If you hold UK rental property or savings income, the concrete number to plan around is the rate: 24%/44%/49% from April 2027, not a one-off change but the second step in a two-year run-up. If you’re saving toward a first UK home, the new ISA bonus is real but not immediate — it opens in April 2029, so it shapes a multi-year savings plan rather than this year’s budget. Anything described here as sourced to a single outlet (the sovereign-investor and bank-tax items) is worth confirming against the Budget’s own published documents before acting on it.
References
House of Commons Library – Autumn Budget 2026: A summary / PwC UK – Autumn Budget 2026 / Forvis Mazars – Autumn Budget 2026 Summary: What it means for you / Citizens Advice – What the Autumn Budget 2026 means for you
