SDLT Lease Premium Calculation: Relevant Rental Figure Guidance (Archived Post-2015 for Scotland

SDLT on Scottish Lease Premiums and the Relevant Rental Figure

This archived guidance relates to old SDLT rules for Scottish leases before April 2015. It shows that, in some historic lease cases, SDLT on a lease premium could also depend on a “relevant rental figure”, so the rent element might need to be considered as well as any premium. For Scottish transactions from April 2015 onwards, LBTT generally applies instead of SDLT.

• The topic is a technical part of historic SDLT rules for leases in Scotland, not current Scottish property tax law.
• A lease transaction could include both an upfront premium and rent payable over the term.
• The phrase “relevant rental figure” suggests that rent could form part of the SDLT calculation for a lease premium in some cases.
• The source material is incomplete, so it identifies the issue but does not give the full legal rule or calculation method.
• When reviewing an older Scottish lease, check the effective date, the type of lease transaction, and the underlying SDLT legislation or fuller HMRC guidance.
• For Scottish land transactions taking effect from April 2015, SDLT generally no longer applies and LBTT should be considered instead.

Scroll down for the full analysis.

SDLT on a lease premium: what the “relevant rental figure” is

This page concerns a technical part of the old Stamp Duty Land Tax rules for leases in Scotland before April 2015. It refers to the “relevant rental figure” when calculating SDLT on a lease premium. Although the source text is very brief, the point matters because lease transactions can involve both a premium and rent, and older SDLT calculations sometimes required particular figures to be identified for tax purposes.

What this rule is about

Under SDLT, the tax treatment of a lease could depend on more than one element of consideration. A lease might involve:

• a premium paid for the grant or assignment of the lease, and
• rent payable over the term.

The source heading shows that this page deals with the calculation of SDLT where there is a lease premium, and specifically with the “relevant rental figure”. That expression is part of the calculation framework used in SDLT legislation and guidance for certain lease transactions.

The archived notice is also important. It confirms that, from April 2015, SDLT no longer applies to land transactions in Scotland. Those transactions are instead within Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, or LBTT. So this material is only relevant to Scottish transactions from the SDLT period, or to historic analysis of older leases.

What the official source says

The supplied source contains only the page title and an archive notice. It identifies the topic as:

• calculation of SDLT,
• lease premium, and
• relevant rental figure.

It also states that the page is archived because SDLT ceased to apply to Scottish land transactions from April 2015, when LBTT replaced it in Scotland.

On the material provided, the safe conclusion is limited. The official source tells you the topic area, but does not set out the operative rule in the extracted text. It does, however, clearly place the issue within historic SDLT lease calculations rather than current Scottish transaction taxes.

What this means in practice

If you are dealing with a Scottish lease transaction, the first question is timing.

• If the effective date was before SDLT ceased to apply in Scotland, historic SDLT rules may still matter.
• If the transaction took effect from April 2015 onwards, SDLT is generally not the relevant Scottish land tax. LBTT is.

If you are reviewing an older lease, the mention of a “relevant rental figure” suggests that you should not look only at any premium paid. Lease tax calculations under SDLT often required separate attention to the rent element and to how that rent was measured for the statutory formula.

In other words, a lease premium calculation may not stand alone. The rent position may feed into the analysis, depending on the particular statutory provision in point.

How to analyse it

Because the extracted source is incomplete, the sensible approach is to work through the issue in stages.

1. Identify the tax regime.
   • Was the land in Scotland?
   • Did the transaction take effect before April 2015, when SDLT still applied in Scotland?
   • If not, is LBTT the correct regime instead?
2. Identify the transaction type.
   • Is this the grant of a lease, an assignment, or another lease-related transaction?
   • Was any premium paid?
   • What rent was payable under the lease?
3. Check whether the legislation requires a rental figure for the premium calculation.
   • The page heading indicates that, at least in some cases, a “relevant rental figure” forms part of the SDLT calculation framework.
   • You would need the underlying legislative provision or fuller manual text to know exactly how that figure is defined and used.
4. Distinguish historic SDLT guidance from current law.
   • An archived HMRC page may still help explain historic practice.
   • But it should not be treated as current guidance for Scottish transactions now within LBTT.

Example

Illustration: a solicitor is reviewing a lease of Scottish commercial property granted before April 2015. The lease involved an upfront premium and annual rent. The archived SDLT material suggests that the SDLT calculation may require more than simply taxing the premium in isolation. The adviser would need to check whether the statutory calculation for that historic transaction refers to a “relevant rental figure”, and if so how that figure is derived from the lease terms.

By contrast, if the same lease had an effective date after SDLT ceased to apply in Scotland, the adviser should not start from this SDLT manual page. The transaction would instead need to be considered under LBTT.

Why this can be difficult in practice

The main difficulty here is that the source provided is only a heading and archive notice. It identifies the legal topic, but not the rule itself. That creates two practical risks.

• A reader may assume the page gives a complete answer on how to calculate tax on a lease premium, when it does not.
• A reader may overlook the archive notice and apply old SDLT material to a Scottish transaction that actually falls under LBTT.

There is also a broader technical difficulty with lease taxation. Lease transactions often involve multiple moving parts: premium, rent, term, variation, assignment, and effective date. A term such as “relevant rental figure” is usually defined by legislation and may not mean the same thing as the rent simply stated in the lease. Context matters.

Key takeaways

• This archived page concerns historic SDLT calculations for lease premiums and refers to a “relevant rental figure”.
• For Scottish land transactions from April 2015 onwards, SDLT is generally not the applicable tax; LBTT is.
• If you are analysing an older Scottish lease, check the underlying SDLT legislation or fuller guidance before relying on the heading alone.

This page was last updated on 24 March 2026

Useful article? You may find it helpful to read the original guidance here: SDLT Lease Premium Calculation: Relevant Rental Figure Guidance (Archived Post-2015 for Scotland

View all HMRC SDLT Guidance Pages Here