The annual exempt amount is £3,000 for 2026/27, down from £12,300 in 2022/23. That is a 75.6% cut in four years, and it is the reason CGT now reaches ordinary investors who never had to think about it. Rates are 18% and 24%.
Rates for 2026/27
Shares and property carry the same rates now. The separate 10% and 20% rates for non-property assets ended on 30 October 2024, so any guide still quoting them is describing a regime that no longer exists.
Business Asset Disposal Relief is charged at 18% from 6 April 2026, not the 10% it was for years. Trustees and personal representatives pay 24%.
"Within the basic rate band" is decided after your gain is added to your taxable income, not before. Someone on a basic rate salary can pay 24% on part of a disposal. The mechanics are worked through in how to calculate capital gains tax.
The £3,000 exempt amount is per person, resets each tax year, and cannot be carried forward.
Working out the gain
Sale proceeds, minus what you paid, minus allowable costs. Allowable costs are broker commission, stamp duty and professional fees tied directly to the purchase or sale.
The complication is cost basis when you have bought the same thing repeatedly at different prices. You cannot choose which units you sold. UK rules pool identical holdings into a Section 104 holding at their average cost, and every disposal draws from that pool.
Two rules override pooling. Anything bought on the same day as a disposal is matched first. Anything bought back within the next 30 days is matched second. Both exist to stop you selling purely to crystallise a loss and buying straight back.
By asset type
<strong id="7b2e0052-8">Shares and funds.</strong> Every sale outside a wrapper is a potential CGT event. Dividends are taxed separately under dividend rules and do not touch CGT. Holdings inside an ISA or pension are exempt entirely.
<strong id="c2e15679-6">Crypto.</strong> HMRC treats it as an asset, not currency, and the disposal list is wider than people expect: selling for fiat, swapping one token for another, spending it on goods or services, and gifting it to anyone other than a spouse or civil partner. Section 104 pooling and the 30-day rule both apply. Swapping token for token is the one that catches people, because no money moves and a taxable gain arises anyway.
<strong id="7b85c929-6">Property.</strong> Your main home is normally covered by Private Residence Relief. Second homes, buy-to-lets and land are not. Property has its own deadline: the gain must be reported and the tax paid within <strong id="3947d808-7">60 days of completion</strong>, separately from your self assessment return. Allowable costs include purchase costs, improvement spending such as an extension, and selling costs. Maintenance and repairs do not count.
What is actually worth doing
<strong id="c1849481-0">Use the wrappers.</strong> Holding investments inside an ISA or pension removes CGT completely. This is the only answer here that eliminates the tax rather than shifting it, and every other item on this list is timing.
<strong id="a13bc76e-4">Spread disposals across tax years.</strong> Two tax years means two exempt amounts, and more importantly it keeps each year's gain from being pushed over the band boundary. The cost is that you carry market risk for the extra months.
<strong id="a3fdc6a0-4">Transfer to a spouse or civil partner before selling.</strong> Transfers between spouses are free of CGT, and each person has their own exempt amount and their own tax band. This is usually the largest single saving available.
A £18,600 gain, sold by a higher rate taxpayer alone:
The same gain, half transferred to a basic rate spouse first, assuming their share stays inside their basic rate band:
<strong id="031b9c94-e">£1,098 saved</strong> on one disposal, from a transfer that costs nothing and takes a stock transfer form. The gain has to genuinely change hands before the sale for this to work, and the assumption that their share stays within the basic band is doing real work: if it pushes them over, the second half is taxed at 24% too and the saving falls to the exempt amount alone.
<strong id="2b1ad1dc-1">Crystallise losses.</strong> Selling something standing at a loss offsets gains elsewhere, and unused losses carry forward indefinitely. They only carry forward if you report them, which is why it is worth reporting a loss in a year you owe nothing. Watch the 30-day rule if you intend to buy back.
The part that decides the bill
Cost basis records. If you cannot show what you paid, HMRC can treat the whole disposal as gain.
That is not a hypothetical for anyone who has traded crypto across two or three exchanges, or drip-fed into the same fund for a decade through a platform that has since been acquired. A Section 104 pool is only as good as the transaction history behind it, and reconstructing one from bank statements the week before a deadline is where most of the real cost of CGT sits.
Our view, and it is arguable: for the majority of people the CGT bill is decided by record quality rather than by rate planning, and the hours spent optimising which tax year to sell in would be better spent making sure the purchase history is complete. Someone with a large, concentrated holding and a clear disposal plan would reasonably say the opposite, because for them the band split is worth more than the paperwork.
For the wrapper decision, see pension vs ISA. To size a specific disposal, use the capital gains tax calculator.
Rates and rules: GOV.UK, Capital Gains Tax rates, allowances and Business Asset Disposal Relief. This page explains the rules and is not personal tax advice.
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