Buying in London vs Australia: costs compared

Anyone can buy in London, but if you already own a house in Brisbane, HMRC charges you as if the London flat were your second home.

The short version

There are no restrictions on foreigners buying residential property in England. An Australian passport is no barrier at all.
The single biggest cost difference: Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) jumps by 5 percentage points on the whole price if you own a home anywhere in the world, Australia included [1][2]. Add 2% more if you haven't been in the UK for 183 days in the 12 months before you buy [3].
In NSW, an Australian citizen pays ordinary transfer duty with no foreign surcharge, wherever they live [7][9].
UK lenders cap how much they lend at high multiples of income, so 4.5 times salary is the line to know [4].
Sell your London home after living in it and Private Residence Relief usually covers the gain. Sell an Australian property while a foreign resident and withholding and CGT rules bite [6][10].

Can an Australian buy in the UK?

Yes, freely. England has no foreign ownership approval, no quota and no "locals only" property class. A terrace in Clapham or a new-build flat in Wembley Park is open to you on the same terms as a Londoner.

What changes is the tax, and it depends on two things HMRC cares about far more than your passport:

Do you own other residential property worth £40,000 or more, anywhere in the world? If yes, and the London place isn't replacing your main home, the higher rates apply [2].
Have you been in the UK for at least 183 days in the 12 months before you buy? If not, you're non-UK resident for SDLT and pay the 2% surcharge [3].

A UK passport doesn't switch either of these off: a British citizen who still owns a unit in Perth pays the higher rates too. Married couples and civil partners are treated as one buyer, so if your partner owns the Perth unit, you both pay [2].

Nearly all London flats are leasehold, with a service charge and sometimes ground rent. Check the remaining lease length early: short leases are harder to mortgage and expensive to extend.

Upfront costs side by side

Rates as at November 2026. Pounds converted at the RBA rate of £0.5199 per Australian dollar on 5 November 2026 (£1 is about A$1.92).

Cost	London	Buying back home (as an Australian living abroad)
Purchase tax / stamp duty	SDLT: 0% to £125,000, 2% to £250,000, 5% to £925,000, 10% to £1.5 million, 12% above [1]. First-time buyers pay 0% to £300,000 and 5% to £500,000, with no relief above £500,000 [1]	NSW transfer duty: A$11,602 plus 4.5% of the value over A$387,000, up to A$1.29 million (2026–27) [9]. Other states differ
Foreign buyer surcharge or additional duty	+5% higher rates if you'll own more than one home worldwide [2]; +2% non-UK resident surcharge [3]. Both can stack	None for Australian citizens in NSW [7]
Legal or conveyancing fees	A conveyancing solicitor, typically a few thousand pounds (quotes vary)	A conveyancer or solicitor, typically a few thousand dollars
Buyer's agent / commission	The seller pays the estate agent; buyer's agents are optional and charge a fee	Optional buyer's agent; common for buyers based overseas
Registration and other fees	HM Land Registry fee on a sliding scale, searches and a survey	Land registry transfer and mortgage fees of a few hundred dollars, plus building and pest reports
Loan fees	Arrangement or product fees on many UK mortgages, plus valuation	Application and valuation fees; lenders mortgage insurance above 80% LVR

The 5% surcharge is where Australians get caught. Plenty of people keep their first home back home, rent it out and then buy in London assuming they're "first-time buyers". They aren't. First-time buyer relief needs you never to have owned a home anywhere, and the higher rates count your Australian place [1][2].

One escape route: if the London flat replaces your main residence and you sell the old home within three years, you can claim back the higher-rate part [2]. The Australian place must really have been your main home.

The 2% non-resident surcharge is refundable too. If you spend 183 days in the UK in any continuous 365-day period, from 364 days before to 365 days after completion, you can amend your return within two years and get it back [3]. That matters for people buying in their first months on a new visa.

Getting a loan

In London

UK lenders lend to foreign nationals living and working in the UK, each with its own rules on visa type and time in the country. A Skilled Worker visa holder with UK payslips has far more choice than someone fresh off the plane on a Youth Mobility visa.

How much you can borrow is driven by income multiples. The Bank of England's policy treats a loan at 4.5 times income or more as high loan-to-income lending and keeps such loans to about 15% of new mortgages across the market [4]. From 28 October 2026, the 15% cap applies to the market as a whole rather than to each lender, so some lenders may lend above 4.5 times more often [4]. Deposits of 10% are common for residents; foreign nationals are often asked for 15% to 25%.

Back home

An Australian lender sees your pounds as foreign income. Expect a discount on how much of your salary counts, a lower maximum LVR than local borrowers get, and a shorter list of lenders. As an Australian citizen buying in your own name, you don't need FIRB approval and NSW charges no foreign surcharge [7]. Our guides on foreign income and deposits go into the detail.

Holding costs

	London	Australia (NSW example)
Annual property tax	Council tax, set by band and borough. In Kensington and Chelsea, Band D is £1,643.44 for 2026–27 including the Greater London Authority share [5]	Council rates; land tax on investment property above the NSW threshold. Your home is usually exempt
Building costs	Service charge for flats, sometimes ground rent; can run to thousands a year in older blocks or those with lifts and porters	Strata levies for units, building insurance for houses
Tax on rent	Taxed as UK income at your marginal rate. Mortgage interest only earns a basic-rate tax credit, not a full deduction	Foreign residents pay 30% from the first dollar on Australian rent up to A$135,000 (2025–26)

Tenants usually pay council tax; the service charge stays with you.

Once you're UK resident, the UK can tax worldwide income, including rent from your Sydney unit, with credit for Australian tax paid. Newcomers who've been non-UK resident for at least 10 years may be able to use the UK's foreign income and gains regime for their first four years; check whether you qualify with a UK adviser. And if you're still an Australian tax resident, Australia taxes your worldwide income, London rent included.

Selling and tax

London

Sell the flat you've lived in as your only or main home and Private Residence Relief usually removes the gain from tax entirely. Sell a buy-to-let and residential gains are taxed at 18% within your basic-rate band and 24% above it [6]. UK residents must report and pay CGT on UK residential property within 60 days of completion if tax is due. Non-residents must report every UK property sale, even with nothing to pay.

Australia

If you sell an Australian property while you're a foreign resident for tax, you generally lose the main residence exemption, even for years you lived there, unless the narrow life events test applies. Since 1 January 2025, buyers must withhold 15% of the price on every Australian property sale unless the seller provides an ATO clearance certificate by settlement, and foreign residents can't get one [10]. Changes announced in the May 2026 federal Budget would also replace the 50% CGT discount with indexation and a 30% minimum tax for gains arising from 1 July 2027. These are proposals until legislated.

Currency risk

Buy in London and move home later, and the pound's value on the day decides what your sale is worth in dollars. Pay an Australian mortgage from a sterling salary and the risk runs the other way every month.

A worked example

Illustration only. One budget, two places: £520,000 for a two-bedroom London flat (about A$1,000,200 at the 5 November 2026 RBA rate) against A$1,000,000 for a NSW home. For context, the average London property price was about £554,000 in August 2026, with flats down 5.0% over the year [8]. Legal, survey and loan fees are left out because they vary.

Upfront tax	London, owns nothing else, UK resident	London, still owns an Australian home	London, owns in Australia and just arrived	NSW, Australian citizen abroad
Stamp duty	SDLT £16,000 [1]	£16,000	£16,000	Transfer duty A$39,187 [9]
Higher rates (5%)	Nil	£26,000 [2]	£26,000	Nil
Non-resident surcharge (2%)	Nil	Nil	£10,400 [3]	Nil
Total	£16,000 (about A$30,800)	£42,000 (about A$80,800)	£52,400 (about A$100,800)	A$39,187

The SDLT sum: nothing on the first £125,000, 2% of the next £125,000 (£2,500) and 5% of the remaining £270,000 (£13,500). There's no first-time buyer relief because the price is over £500,000 [1]. The NSW sum: A$11,602 plus 4.5% of A$613,000.

Same flat, same price: the tax bill more than triples depending on what you own back home and when you arrived.

Which suits whom

These factors change the answer:

What you already own. Keeping an Australian home makes London more expensive to buy into. Selling it makes London cheaper, and may trigger Australian tax if you're a foreign resident by then.
How long you'll stay. Purchase costs take years to earn back. A two-year secondment rarely justifies them; a ten-year life might.
Leasehold detail. Lease length, service charges and building safety issues can matter as much as the price.
Whether you're moving home. An Australian property can become the house you return to, with the main residence rules worked out before you sell anything.
Estate planning. Two countries means two sets of succession and tax rules. Get advice in both.

Want to hear how other Australians handled the SDLT questions? Join Cooee UK, our Facebook group for Australians in the UK, at /join/.

Buying in London vs back home: what Australians really pay