Title

Residential Land Transaction Tax statistics, by deprivation area, transaction type, measure and effective year

Last update

25 April 2024 25 April 2024

Next update

April 2025

Publishing organisation

Welsh Revenue Authority

Source 1

Land Transaction Tax returns, Welsh Revenue Authority

Contact email

data@wra.gov.wales

Designation

None

Lowest level of geographical disaggregation

Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation tenths (deciles)

Geographical coverage

Wales

Languages covered

English and Welsh

Data licensing

You may use and re-use this data free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government License - see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

General description

From 1 April 2018, LTT replaced Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) on residential and non-residential property and land interests purchased in Wales. The tax rates and tax bands for LTT vary depending on the type of transaction.

Taxpayers must notify the WRA of all land transactions with a value above £40,000. There are also circumstances where certain lease transactions are not notifiable if they are less than 7 years in duration. When filing an LTT return, the organisation paying the return has 30 days after the effective date to submit and pay the return.

This dataset includes estimates of LTT notifiable residential transactions received by the WRA by the close of 15 April 2024. Non-residential statistics cannot be reliably produced as identification of the correct deprivation area relies on the postcode to be provided for the property and land items as part of each transaction. As there is an inherent bias in the cases where missing or invalid postcodes are provided towards larger non-residential transactions, their results are not sufficiently complete or meaningful to be published.

The dataset includes a breakdown by:
- transaction type: residential only but (including sub-categories for main rate and higher rate transactions)
- Deprivation area: areas that represent a division of Wales into ten approximately equally populated areas, known as deciles, using deprivation ranks attributed to the nearly 2000 small areas in Wales (called Lower Super Output Areas), as measured by the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD). WIMD decile (or tenth) 1 is the most deprived, down to WIMD decile (or tenth) 10, which is the least deprived.
- measure: number of transactions, tax due, value of property taxed, average tax due per transaction and average value of property taxed
- effective year (financial)

WIMD ranks were updated recently (2019). We have used these latest WIMD ranks in this release. Each update of WIMD ranks is designed to last for around three to six years. When we first published this analysis last year, we used 2014 WIMD ranks.

There is a relatively small proportion of residential transactions where the postcode provided for the property and land items is missing or invalid. This means that the deprivation area cannot be allocated. For comparability, the area totals shown in this dataset therefore relate only to those transactions where the deprivation is known, and for that reason will not match the Wales total shown in other datasets.

A full explanation of how this dataset should be interpreted, especially in the context of higher rates transactions, can be found here: https://gov.wales/welsh-revenue-authority-local-area-statistics-2022-2023-explained-html

Data collection and calculation

See weblinks

Frequency of publication

Annual

Data reference periods

Data are shown by the financial year (April to March) in which the transaction was effective.

Users, uses and context

These statistics have been established to meet the immediate user requirement for data on the implementation of LTT, following the establishment of the WRA. Our key users are colleagues from the Welsh Treasury within the Welsh Government, the Office of Budget Responsibility, and other tax authorities in the UK.

Rounding applied

Values in this dataset are rounded to the nearest 10 transactions, nearest £0.1 million tax due, and nearest £1 million for the value of property taxed. Average tax due per transaction is shown to the nearest £10, whilst average value per transaction is shown to the nearest £1000.

Revisions information

Land Transaction Tax statistics are subject to revision. When filing an LTT return, the organisation paying the return has 30 days after the ‘effective date’ to submit and pay the return. The effective date is when the tax becomes liable to be paid, usually when a transaction is completed on a property.
This dataset (being annual figures) is unlikely to be affected by further transactions not submitted by June of the following year. However, values for existing transactions are subject to revisions for several years and may lead to some revisions when these data are next updated. In particular, this will be due to higher rate refunds. When a refund for higher rates residential LTT is claimed, the original transaction is amended to a main rate residential LTT transaction. The taxpayer has up to three years to sell their previous main residence and claim a refund.

Keywords

Land Transaction Tax; LTT; Tax; Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation; WIMD

Weblinks

https://gov.wales/land-transaction-tax-statistics
https://gov.wales/key-quality-information-land-transaction-tax-statistics
https://gov.wales/funding/fiscal-reform/welsh-taxes/land-transaction-tax
https://gov.wales/welsh-index-multiple-deprivation

Statistical quality

See weblinks

Name

WRAX0010