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Stamp Duty guide

First time buyers? Good news! You’re exempt from stamp duty on both new and second hand houses.
Existing owner occupiers of new property less than 125 sqm? Floor area exemption certificate required.
Go to column 2.
Existing owner occupiers of new property greater than 125 sqm? Partial exemption test applies.
Go to column 3.
Existing owner occupier of second hand property? Go to column 4.
Investor? Go to column 5.

	1	2	3	4	5
Threshold and Bands	First Time Buyers	Existing Owner Occupiers	Existing Owner Occupiers	Existing Owner Occupiers	Investor
	All Houses	New House < 125 sqm	New House >125 sqm	All Second Hand Homes	All Houses
Less than €125,000	Exempt	Exempt	0%	0%	0%
Next €875,000	Exempt	Exempt	7%	7%	7%
Over €1m	Exempt	Exempt	7%	7%	7%

How to calculate stamp duty on a NEW property

Stamp duty is payable on the VAT-exclusive cost of the property. To calculate the VAT-exclusive amount you divide the cost of the property by 1.135.

Example: A property costs €545,000 (VAT-inclusive). Divide this total by 1.135 to get the cost on which stamp duty is payable, in this case €480,176 (VAT-exclusive).

There is a further amount of relief if you are an existing owner-occupier of a property greater than 125sqm. The stamp duty is payable on 1⁄4 of the VAT-exclusive cost price OR the site cost, whichever is the greater.

Using the previous example of a house for €545,000, and a site cost of €232,000, we can see that stamp duty is payable on 1⁄4 of €480,176 = €120,044 OR the site cost (€232,000/1.135, which equals €204,405) whichever is the greatest. In this case the site cost is the greatest, so stamp duty is payable on €204,405, the chargeable consideration. This would attract stamp duty as follows:

€125,000 @ 0% nil
€ 79,405@ 7% €5,558.35
Total €5,558.35

This relief doesn’t exist for investors.