If you sell a UK residential property that isn’t your main home and owe capital gains tax on the sale, you must submit a 60 day capital gains tax return to HMRC and pay the tax within 60 days of the completion date. Miss that window and HMRC applies an automatic £100 penalty, with further charges and daily interest stacking on top the longer you wait.1HM Revenue & Customs. Penalties for Failure to File Returns on Time – CC/FS18a
When You Have to File
The rule catches UK residents who dispose of a residential property and owe CGT on the transaction. A disposal can be a sale, a gift, or a transfer of an interest in UK land, and it applies to individuals, trustees, and personal representatives handling an estate. If reliefs, losses, or your annual exempt amount reduce the gain to nothing, a UK resident does not need to file the 60-day return.
Non-UK residents work under a stricter rule. You must report every disposal of UK property or land, including commercial and mixed-use sites, whether or not any tax is due and whether or not you made a loss.2HM Revenue & Customs. Tell HMRC About Capital Gains Tax on UK Property or Land if You’re Not a UK Resident The requirement covers rights in assets that derive at least 75% of their value from UK land, and it applies whether or not you are registered for Self Assessment.
One narrow exemption exists. If you have already reported the disposal on a Self Assessment return before the 60-day deadline runs out, and the CGT you reported there is at least what would have been payable through the property return, you don’t need to file a separate 60-day return. This usually only comes up when completion happens close to the end of the tax year and you file Self Assessment quickly afterwards.
When the Property Was Your Home
If the property was your main home for the whole time you owned it, Private Residence Relief typically wipes out the gain and you have no filing obligation. Full relief depends on meeting every condition: you lived there as your main home throughout ownership, you didn’t let out any part (a lodger is fine), no part was used exclusively for business, the grounds were under 5,000 square metres, and you didn’t buy the property purely to profit from it.3GOV.UK. Tax When You Sell Your Home If only part of the gain qualifies (for example, because you lived there for some years and then let it out), the taxable portion must still be reported within 60 days.
Working Out the Gain Before You File
Start with the sale price, or market value if you gave the property away, and subtract the original purchase price. From that figure, take off allowable costs: solicitors’ and estate agent fees for both the purchase and the sale, stamp duty land tax you paid when you bought, and capital improvements made during ownership.4GOV.UK. Tax When You Sell Your Home – Work Out Your Gain Capital improvements mean things that permanently added value, like an extension or a new bathroom. Routine maintenance and repainting don’t count.
Then apply the annual exempt amount. Every individual gets a tax-free CGT allowance each year, currently £3,000 (£1,500 for trusts).5GOV.UK. Capital Gains Tax: What You Pay It On, Rates and Allowances If earlier gains in the same tax year have already eaten into that allowance, only what’s left applies to the property sale.
Capital losses from the same tax year or carried forward from earlier years reduce the taxable gain further. A loss on shares earlier in the year, for instance, can come off the property gain.6GOV.UK. Capital Gains Tax: If You Make a Loss Losses must have crystallised before the completion date to be usable on the 60-day return. If losses eliminate the gain entirely, no 60-day return is required, though you should still report the losses so HMRC has them on record.
The rate depends on your total taxable income for the year. From 6 April 2025, basic rate taxpayers pay 18% on residential property gains and higher and additional rate taxpayers pay 24%.7GOV.UK. Capital Gains Tax: What You Pay It On, Rates and Allowances If the gain pushes your total income past the basic rate threshold, you pay 18% on the portion within the basic rate band and 24% on the rest. Getting this right at the 60-day stage matters, because underpayment attracts interest.
Lettings Relief
If you let out part of your home while still living in the rest of it, some of the gain attributable to the let portion may be covered by lettings relief. The relief is capped at the lowest of three figures: the Private Residence Relief already calculated, £40,000, or the gain from the letting itself.8HM Revenue & Customs. HS283 Private Residence Relief 2025 It doesn’t apply where the whole property was rented out while you lived elsewhere.
Joint Owners File Separately
Where two or more people own a property together, each owner files their own 60-day return for their share of the gain. Spouses and civil partners are treated as separate individuals for CGT, each taxed on their own gains and each getting relief only for their own losses.9HM Revenue & Customs. HS281 Capital Gains Tax Civil Partners and Spouses Each person needs their own Capital Gains Tax on UK Property account. HMRC assumes joint owners hold equal shares unless you’ve filed Form 17 declaring different beneficial proportions, in which case those declared shares apply.
How to File the Return
The return goes in through HMRC’s Capital Gains Tax on UK Property account, accessed via the Government Gateway.10GOV.UK. Report and Pay Your Capital Gains Tax If you don’t have Government Gateway sign-in details, set them up first. The service walks you through the key dates (acquisition, exchange of contracts, and completion), the purchase and sale prices, your allowable deductions, and any reliefs. The completion date is what starts the 60-day clock, so make sure it’s correct.
Have your recent payslips or tax documents to hand, because you’ll be asked for your total annual income so the system can apply the right CGT rate. Once you submit, you get a confirmation with a unique reference number. If you can’t use the online service, you can request a paper form from HMRC and send it by post, but allow extra time for delivery both ways.11GOV.UK. Report Your Capital Gains Tax on UK Property by Post
Paying What You Owe
After filing, the system generates a 14-character payment reference starting with the letter “x”. Use it when you pay, because without it HMRC can’t match your payment to the return.12GOV.UK. Report and Pay Your Capital Gains Tax: Ways to Pay The payment has to reach HMRC inside the same 60-day window as the return.
You can pay by:
- Debit card, corporate credit card, or approval through your online bank account
- Bank transfer via Faster Payments, CHAPS, or Bacs
- Cheque sent by post
Faster Payments usually clears the same or next working day. CHAPS clears the same day if you send it before the bank’s cut-off. Bacs takes three working days, and cheques can take longer to process, so if you’re close to the deadline pick the fastest method available to you.
Penalties and Interest for Missing the Deadline
HMRC applies separate penalties for filing late and paying late. You can be hit with both at once.
Late filing penalties escalate the longer the return is outstanding:
- Immediately after the deadline: £100 automatic penalty
- Three months late: £10 per day for up to 90 days (maximum £900)
- Six months late: £300 or 5% of the tax due, whichever is higher
- Twelve months late: a further £300 or 5% of the tax due, whichever is higher
These apply even where no tax is due, which matters most for non-residents who must file on every disposal.1HM Revenue & Customs. Penalties for Failure to File Returns on Time – CC/FS18a
Late payment penalties come on top of that:
- 30 days after the due date: 5% of the unpaid tax
- Five months after the penalty date: a further 5% of what’s still unpaid
- Eleven months after the penalty date: a further 5% of what’s still unpaid
Someone who ignores the obligation completely could end up facing all three late payment penalties on top of all four late filing penalties.13GOV.UK. Self Assessment Legal Framework – SALF308a Interest also runs daily on any unpaid CGT from the original due date. As of January 2026, the late payment interest rate is 7.75%, set at the Bank of England base rate plus 4%.14GOV.UK. HMRC Interest Rates for Late and Early Payments That rate moves with the base rate, so check the current figure if you’re reading this later.
Fixing Mistakes After You File
If the figures on your 60-day return were wrong, you can amend the return through your Capital Gains Tax on UK Property account. Two restrictions apply: you can’t amend returns for the 2022 to 2023 tax year or earlier, and you can’t amend online if you’ve already filed a Self Assessment return covering the same tax year.15GOV.UK. Report and Pay Your Capital Gains Tax: If You Sold a Property in the UK on or After 6 April 2020 Once Self Assessment has gone in, corrections need to run through the Self Assessment process instead.
Agents and personal representatives filing on someone else’s behalf can’t amend online at all. They need to complete an amendment form, print it, and post it. The practical point: if you’re unsure about a figure, file with your best estimate inside the 60-day window and amend later. HMRC is much more forgiving about honest corrections than about late returns.
How the 60-Day Return Connects to Self Assessment
Filing the 60-day return doesn’t replace Self Assessment. If you’re registered for it, you must also include the property disposal on your Self Assessment tax return for the same tax year.15GOV.UK. Report and Pay Your Capital Gains Tax: If You Sold a Property in the UK on or After 6 April 2020 The tax you already paid through the 60-day return is credited against your total liability, so you won’t be taxed twice. If your income or other gains ended up different from what you estimated, the Self Assessment calculation adjusts the amount owed either way.
Order matters. Once Self Assessment goes in for a given tax year, you can no longer amend the 60-day property return for that year. If corrections might be needed, sort out the property return first, then file Self Assessment. For most people selling a buy-to-let or second home mid-year the sequence is simple: file the 60-day return promptly, then include the same disposal on your Self Assessment return by the following 31 January.