According to the latest figures from HMRC, stamp duty receipts for March came to around £1.4bn, a rise from around £1.05bn in the prior month.
In March last year, receipts came to around £864m, and in April, they were estimated at around £957m.
HMRC said the “higher receipts” in the period from February to March 2025 compared to previous years were “driven by a combination of increased transaction levels prior to the change to residential stamp duty land tax thresholds from April 2025 and higher rates of stamp duty land tax surcharge for additional properties”.
Changes to the duty came into force from 1 April, with the threshold for existing buyers reverting to £125,000 and first-time buyers paying the duty on purchases over £300,000.
Barclays reported earlier this week that homebuyers rushing to avoid higher stamp duty bills drove up mortgage completions by 50% in March.
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Since April last year, 10 months have exceeded £1bn in stamp duty receipts.
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “This year overall has seen higher stamp duty receipts than a year earlier. 2023/24 wasn’t a golden year for property, with the weight of inflation and higher interest rates dampening buyer numbers. Both eased off in 2024/25, encouraging more sales and hiking tax bills. There was a definite bump in sales and tax, just before the end of the stamp duty holiday, as a flurry of buyers hurried to take advantage of the tax saving while they could. If this follows the usual patterns of a short-term tax break, we can expect the tax take to dip again in the months to come, as a lull tends to follow a rush like this.”
