The 60-Day Capital Gains Tax Deadline On UK Property Explained

The rule covers disposals of UK residential property where capital gains tax is actually due. In practice that means property which has not been your only or main home for the whole time you owned it.

The most common cases are a second home, a buy-to-let, a property inherited and later sold, a property you lived in for part of your ownership and let out for the rest, and a holiday home. A disposal is not limited to a sale for cash. Gifting a property, or transferring it to anyone other than a spouse or civil partner, is also a disposal and can trigger the same obligation.

Selling your own home usually produces no charge, because private residence relief covers the gain for the period it was your main residence. Where the property was your home for only part of the time, relief is apportioned and a chargeable gain can remain on the rest.

For 2026/27 the annual exempt amount is £3,000. Gains above that are taxed at 18% to the extent they fall within your remaining basic rate band, and 24% above it. Because a property gain is often large enough to use up the basic rate band on its own, most property disposals are taxed substantially at 24%. Our article on capital gains tax covers how the rates and the annual exempt amount work across all assets.

The 60 days run from the date the sale completes, not the date contracts are exchanged. This distinction matters because the two can be weeks or months apart, and it is completion that starts the clock.

There is a second date working in the background. For capital gains tax purposes the disposal is treated as taking place at exchange, which determines the tax year the gain falls into. So a sale exchanging in March and completing in May sits in the earlier tax year for the purpose of calculating the gain, while the 60 day reporting window runs from the later completion date.

The practical consequence is that the reporting deadline can arrive while you are still gathering the figures you need. The calculation requires the original purchase price, the costs of acquisition and sale, the cost of any capital improvements, and details of any periods when the property was your main residence. Assembling that after completion, with 60 days running, is where most of the difficulty arises.

Reporting is done through a Capital Gains Tax on UK property account with HMRC, which is separate from your Self Assessment account and has to be set up before you can file.

If you are UK resident, you do not need to report online where your total gains for the year are less than the annual exempt amount, currently £3,000. Nor is a report required where the gain is fully covered by private residence relief, which is the position on most sales of a main home.

There is also no requirement where the disposal produces a loss rather than a gain, and no separate report is needed for disposals of commercial property or land that is not residential, which are dealt with through Self Assessment in the usual way.

Where no report is required, the disposal may still need to appear on your Self Assessment return depending on your circumstances, so the absence of a 60 day obligation does not always mean nothing is due. GOV.UK's guidance on reporting and paying capital gains tax sets out the current position.

The 60 day submission is a payment on account rather than a final settlement, and this is the part that most often confuses people.

The tax you pay within 60 days is calculated on a reasonable estimate of your income for the year, because at the point of sale you may not know which band the gain falls into. If your income turns out differently, the final figure changes.

If you are registered for Self Assessment, the disposal then has to be reported again on your tax return for the relevant year, and the amount already paid is credited against your final bill. Paying within 60 days does not remove the need to include it on the return, and including it on the return does not remove the need to have reported within 60 days. Both obligations stand.

Where the eventual calculation shows you paid too much, the overpayment is dealt with through the return. Where it shows you paid too little, the balance falls due in the normal way. Our article on adjusted net income explains how income is measured for these purposes, which matters when working out how much of the gain falls into the higher rate band.

HMRC may charge interest on tax paid late and a penalty for late filing. The longer a return remains outstanding, the more the position deteriorates.

The obligation does not disappear because the deadline has passed. Where a disposal should have been reported and was not, filing as soon as the position is identified is generally better than waiting for the point at which it surfaces through the Self Assessment return.

Because the calculation and the deadline arrive together, and because the amounts involved on a property disposal are usually significant, this is a point at which professional input often earns its cost. An accountant or tax adviser can handle the reporting, and where a property disposal forms part of a wider financial picture, regulated financial advice may also be appropriate.

If you are not UK resident, the rule is considerably wider. You must report disposals of UK property or land even where you have no tax to pay, even where you made a loss, and even if you are registered for Self Assessment.

The obligation also extends beyond residential property to UK land generally, including commercial property and indirect disposals of UK property through certain company shareholdings.

The 60 day deadline applies to completions on or after 27 October 2021. For completions between 6 April 2020 and 26 October 2021 the window was 30 days. Anyone dealing with an older disposal that was never reported needs to work to the rule in force at the time.

This is a common trap for UK expatriates who kept a property after moving abroad and assume no report is needed because no tax is due. Our article on how investment income and gains are taxed covers the wider picture for people with UK assets.