Despite continued talk of a cooling UK housing market, stamp duty (SDLT) receipts are running comfortably above pre-pandemic levels, according to an analysis by estate agency Yopa of monthly HMRC receipts from January 2018 to June 2026. HMRC collected an average of £1.108 billion a month in SDLT receipts over the first half of 2026 — below 2025’s full-year monthly average of £1.285 billion (which was boosted by a rush of transactions ahead of April 2025’s stamp duty threshold changes), but still higher than every full calendar year since 2018 except 2022, when the market was still riding pandemic-boom momentum.
Monthly SDLT averages were £1.005 billion in 2018, £978 million in 2019, and £721 million during the pandemic-hit 2020, before climbing to £1.098 billion in 2021 and a record £1.346 billion in 2022. Activity eased in 2023 (£987 million) and recovered in 2024 (£1.086 billion) — both years the first half of 2026 continues to outperform, despite higher mortgage rates and no stamp duty incentive currently in place. The highest monthly receipt since 2018 was December 2021’s £1.737 billion; December 2025 came close, at £1.725 billion, with no temporary tax relief available that month.
“There’s been no shortage of headlines suggesting the housing market has lost momentum over the last couple of years, but stamp duty receipts paint a far more balanced picture,” said Yopa CEO Verona Frankish. “Buyers are navigating higher mortgage rates and greater affordability pressures, yet people continue to move home because life’s major milestones don’t stop.”
A separate analysis published the same day, by accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg, puts the resilient receipts in a longer-term tax context: the stamp duty on an average UK property purchase has risen by more than 100% over the past decade, while house prices rose just 28%. Between May 2016 and May 2026, the average property price in Britain rose from about £211,230 to £271,295 (+28.4%), while the average stamp duty payment jumped from £1,725 to £3,565 (+106.7%).
Blick Rothenberg attributes the gap to frozen tax thresholds, which have pushed a growing share of each transaction into higher tax bands as prices rose. Had thresholds been indexed to house-price growth since 2016, the nil-rate band would now stand at about £160,500 rather than £125,000, the £250,000 threshold would be above £321,000, and the £925,000 band would be near £1.2 million. The gap widens at higher price points: a buyer of a £1 million property now pays almost £6,600 more in stamp duty than under indexed thresholds, and at £2 million the difference exceeds £24,500.
“The data does not prove stamp duty alone is responsible” for the market’s behaviour, said Blick Rothenberg partner Mark Cunningham, citing the pandemic, temporary stamp duty holidays, higher mortgage rates and affordability pressures as concurrent factors — “however, the direction of travel is difficult to ignore.”
References
Financial Reporter – Stamp duty receipts remain ‘comfortably above’ pre-pandemic levels / PropertyWire – Stamp duty costs double over decade despite modest price growth
