Residential stamp duty across the 1%, 2%, and 6% bands.
Stamp duty due
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Effective rate
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Total cost
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Your breakdown
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Three bands, charged slice by slice
Residential stamp duty in Ireland is charged in progressive bands, the same way income tax works. The portion of the price up to 1 million euro is charged at 1 percent. The slice from 1 million to 1.5 million is charged at 2 percent. Anything above 1.5 million is charged at 6 percent. The word that matters is portion. Crossing into a higher band does not re-rate the whole price, it only lifts the rate on the part of the price that sits in that band.
That banding is recent. The 6 percent top rate on the slice above 1.5 million was introduced in Budget 2025, so older guides that show a flat 1 percent or 2 percent on homes are out of date for high-value purchases. For the vast majority of Irish buyers, whose homes cost well under 1 million euro, the effective rate is simply 1 percent of the price.
A 1.2 million euro home across two bands
Take a 1.2 million euro purchase. The first 1 million euro is charged at 1 percent, giving 10,000 euro. The next 200,000 euro, the slice between 1 million and the price, falls in the 2 percent band, giving 4,000 euro. Nothing reaches the 6 percent band because the price is below 1.5 million. The duty is 14,000 euro, which is an effective rate of 1.167 percent on the full price, not 2 percent.
The chart shows the two bands stacked into the 14,000 euro total. The lower band does the heavy lifting, and the 2 percent band adds only a thin extra layer on top.
First-time buyers and the Help to Buy link
First-time buyers pay the same stamp duty rates as everyone else. There is no stamp duty exemption for a first home in Ireland. What first-time buyers can access is the separate Help to Buy scheme, which refunds income tax and DIRT paid over the previous four years toward the deposit on a new-build or self-build, up to a cap. It is a refund of other taxes, not a reduction in stamp duty, so the two work alongside each other rather than overlapping.
One mistake buyers make is forgetting stamp duty in the closing budget. The duty is paid on completion, on top of the deposit, the legal fees, and the valuation, and a mortgage will not cover it. On a typical 400,000 euro home that is 4,000 euro of cash you need ready on the day. Build it into your savings plan from the start rather than scrambling for it at the closing table.
Buyer questions
Is stamp duty charged on the house price or including furniture?
It is charged on the consideration for the property itself. Genuinely separate movable contents, such as freestanding furniture, can be excluded if they are realistically valued and documented apart from the property price, which slightly reduces the duty. Fixtures that form part of the building are not separable.
Who actually pays and files the stamp duty?
The buyer pays it. In practice your solicitor files the return and pays the duty to Revenue through the online stamping system as part of closing, then includes it in the closing statement. You provide the funds; they handle the mechanics.
Do I pay stamp duty on a new build differently from a second-hand home?
The stamp duty rates themselves are the same on a new build and a second-hand home, so a 400,000 euro property is charged 1 percent either way. The difference shows up around it: a new build carries VAT within its price, and the stamp duty is charged on the price including that VAT, while a second-hand home has no VAT. New builds are also the route into the Help to Buy refund, which is not available on second-hand homes. So the duty is identical, but the surrounding tax picture differs, and that is worth factoring into the total cost comparison between the two.