Penalties and interest on a late Stamp Duty Land Tax return
Find out about penalties and interest if you file your return late or make a late payment.
Applies to England and Northern Ireland
HMRC charges a late filing penalty if your Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) return is not filed on time. You must pay any SDLT due within 14 days of the effective date of the transaction. Interest will be charged on any late payment.
Find out more about the effective date of the transaction in the section when you need to send a return in Check if you need to send a SDLT return.
If you file your return late
You’ll pay an automatic fixed penalty if you do not file your return on time. The penalty amount will depend on how late you file your return.
You’ll pay a fixed penalty of:
- £100 if you file your return up to 3 months after the filing date
- £200 if you file your return more than 3 months after the filing date
You’ll pay a tax-based penalty and a fixed penalty if you do not file your return within 12 months of the filing date. The tax-based penalty can be up to the full amount of the tax due on the return.
Appeal a late penalty
You can appeal a late filing penalty if you could not file your return by the deadline because of an unusual event. The event must have been either unforeseeable or beyond your control.
We’ll only accept a reasonable excuse for not meeting the deadline if this event stopped you from:
- filing the return yourself
- making arrangements for someone else to file it
Check if you can appeal against a late filing penalty.
If you do not pay or make a late payment
You must pay any SDLT due within 14 days after the effective date of the transaction. If you pay the tax late, you’ll pay interest from the day after you should have paid it until the day you pay it.
If you do not pay, we’ll write to you and your representative (if you have one). We’ll tell you how much tax you’ve underpaid and how much interest we’ve charged you so far.
You should pay the tax due and the interest as soon as possible. The sooner you pay your overdue amount, the lower the interest amount will be.
We use the official rate of interest set by HM Treasury to work out how much interest you’ll have to pay. Find out more about the current HMRC late payment and repayment interest rates.
We charge interest if:
- we’ve not received your payment of the tax due
- there’s no evidence to show beyond reasonable doubt that you sent your payment when you filed your return
If you’re charged late payment interest
Interest charged on tax that is paid late is not a penalty so you cannot appeal against it. It’s a charge to compensate HMRC for not having the money when we should have, so you must pay it.
You can write a letter to us if you want a full breakdown of the interest or if you think:
- we caused your late payment
- you should not pay any interest
- you’ve been charged too much
You should explain in your letter why you think our actions caused the late payment. Include any supporting evidence with your letter.
Send your letter and any supporting evidence to:
BT Stamp Duty Land Tax
HM Revenue and Customs
BX9 1HD
United Kingdom
We’ll write to you with a decision.