Cost of Selling a House Calculator
How much will it cost you to sell your house? Fill in the boxes and you get the full breakdown in under a minute. It prices the estate agent fee including VAT, the sale conveyancing, the EPC and the removal van. Was the property let out, or a second home? Tick one box and you get an estimate of the capital gains tax too. Every figure is a starting point you can edit.
Calculator
Cost of Selling a House Calculator
How much will it cost you to sell your house? Fill in the boxes and you get the full breakdown in under a minute. It prices the estate agent fee including VAT, the sale conveyancing, the EPC and the removal van. Was the property let out, or a second home? Tick one box and you get an estimate of the capital gains tax too. Every figure is a starting point you can edit.
The average home in England was worth £293,262 in June 2026 on the Land Registry house price index. Put your own asking price in.
The HomeOwners Alliance puts the 2026 average at 1.42% including VAT, with sole agency deals running from 1.2% to 1.8%. Use the quote you have been given, and check it includes VAT.
About £700 for a freehold sale on the HomeOwners Alliance figures. A leasehold sale costs more because of the management pack.
Our own EPC cost page puts a domestic certificate at £35 to £120, so £80 sits in the middle. Enter nothing if yours is still valid.
Leave this at zero if your agent's fee covers the marketing. Fill it in if you are paying a portal listing or a photographer yourself.
The HomeOwners Alliance publishes £334 for a one-bedroom local move and £731 for a three-bedroom one, so £550 sits between them. Distance, volume and packing move it a long way.
Only used for the tax estimate. If you inherited it, use the value at the date of death.
Only used for the tax estimate. Salary and rental profit before the sale. It decides how much of the gain is taxed at 18% and how much at 24%.
Your main home is covered by private residence relief, so there is no capital gains tax line here and the total above is the whole bill. Tick the let or second property box if that is not your position. Every figure here is a starting point, so replace them with your own quotes. The agent fee starts at 1.42% including VAT, the HomeOwners Alliance average for 2026, and the sale conveyancing starts at £700 from the same source. The EPC starts at £80, the middle of the £35 to £120 range on our own EPC cost page. Removals start at £550, between the HomeOwners Alliance figures of £334 for a one-bedroom local move and £731 for a three-bedroom one. The figures are for England: Scotland and Wales run a different conveyancing process and charge the buyer a different tax.
How much does it cost to sell a house?
Selling a house in England costs most people about £5,500, on a sale at £293,000. The Land Registry house price index put the average English home at that in June 2026. Your estate agent takes the biggest slice by far. The HomeOwners Alliance puts the 2026 average fee at 1.42% including VAT, so on a £293,000 sale your agent bill is about £4,161. Your solicitor takes about £700, and the EPC and the removal van take the rest.
The agent fee is the one number worth arguing about. Sole agency deals run from 1.2% to 1.8% including VAT. Three things move you up or down that range: how many agents you sign, how easy your house is to sell, and how hard you push. So get three quotes, ask for 1.2%, and say you have a cheaper quote elsewhere. On a £293,000 sale the gap between 1.8% and 1.2% is about £1,760, which is more than your solicitor costs.
Now the part that decides how much of this you get back. Was the house let out, or was it a second home? Then you may owe capital gains tax on the sale. Some of what you just spent comes off that gain and some of it does not. The agent fee comes off, and so does the sale conveyancing and any advertising you paid for yourself. Your EPC usually goes in too, as part of the cost of marketing the property, though the official list does not name it. The removal van does not. Nor does storage, cleaning, new carpets or the fee for paying your mortgage off early. The list is a fixed one, and it is shorter than most sellers assume.
Is the house your main home? Then you can stop at the cost total. Private residence relief covers the gain, so you have no tax line to worry about. If it was let, tick the box and you get an estimate of your bill at 18% and 24%, after the £3,000 allowance. Treat that as a rough shape rather than a return. The deductible figure the tool hands you is the one to carry into our capital gains tax calculator. There you add what you paid for the property and anything you spent improving it, and work through your reliefs properly.
Worked examples
How the numbers come out
An average English home sold through a high street agent
£293,000 sale price, 1.42% agent fee including VAT, £700 conveyancing, £80 EPC, no separate advertising, £550 removals, main home
- Estate agent fee = £293,000 × 1.42% = £4,160.60
- Conveyancing for the sale = £700
- Energy performance certificate = £80
- Costs that would come off a capital gain = £4,160.60 + £700 + £80 = £4,940.60, which the tool rounds to £4,941
- Removals = £550, which get no tax relief at either end
- Total cost of selling = £4,940.60 + £550 = £5,490.60, rounded to £5,491, which is 1.9% of the sale price
- This is a main home, so private residence relief covers the gain and there is no tax line
The same sale where the property had been let out
£293,000 sale price, bought for £200,000, 1.42% agent fee including VAT, £700 conveyancing, £80 EPC, £550 removals, £50,000 of other income, let property
- Selling costs are the same: £4,941 deductible and £550 not deductible
- Gain = £293,000 - £200,000 - £4,941 = £88,059
- Less the £3,000 annual allowance = £85,059 taxable
- £50,000 of income leaves £270 of the basic-rate band unused, so £270 is taxed at 18% and £84,789 at 24%
- Capital gains tax = £49 + £20,349 = £20,398
- Total to budget for = £5,491 of selling costs plus £20,398 of tax = £25,889
- Had the £550 of removals been added to the deductible costs by mistake, the gain would have been understated by £550 and the tax by £132
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