Extend or move: which one costs less?

The honest answer first

Nobody can tell you which is cheaper without your two numbers, and most pages that try are written by someone who earns a fee on one of the answers. I sell no leads and take no commission from estate agents or builders, so here is the comparison written as arithmetic instead of advice.

Cost of moving equals the price gap between your home and the next one, plus the transaction costs below. Cost of extending equals the build, plus the professional fees, plus the planning application where you need one, plus a contingency. Extending wins on paper when the space you need costs less to build than that price gap plus those fees. Moving wins when what you actually want is a different street, a different school run or a different commute, because no extension delivers those at any price.

What moving costs: the first measurement

A published moving calculator puts the total at £13,018 on a home worth £292,000: £7,519 to buy, £4,910 to sell and £589.50 on the day itself.

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, Cost of Moving Calculator, checked 13 August 2026.

One transparency note on that table. Added up line by line, the buying section comes to £7,524 against the published subtotal of £7,519, and the three subtotals come to £13,018.50 against a published total of £13,018. That is rounding inside the source rather than a hidden cost, and I would rather show it than smooth it over.

Run the £292,000 English average through the published stamp duty bands: nothing on the first £125,000, 2% on the next £125,000 is £2,500, and 5% on the £42,000 above £250,000 is £2,100. Total £4,600, which is exactly the stamp duty line in the moving calculator. That is my own arithmetic on the published bands, and it is one reason to trust the rest of that calculation.

Sources: GOV.UK, Stamp Duty Land Tax: residential property rates, checked 13 August 2026; HomeOwners Alliance, Cost of Moving Calculator, checked 13 August 2026.

Selling without buying comes to about £4,878 on a £290,000 home: £4,118 estate agent, £700 conveyancing and £60 for the Energy Performance Certificate. Removals sit outside that, at £334 to £2,243 or more.

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, Cost of selling a house in 2026, checked 13 August 2026.

What movers actually paid: the second measurement

A removals and conveyancing platform publishes what its own users spent, and the total is higher: £17,831 for home movers, against £2,315 for first-time buyers, who have no house to sell and often no stamp duty to pay.

Source: reallymoving, Cost of Moving Report 2025, published 9 December 2025.

Where you move matters more than almost anything else on this page:

Source: MoneyWeek, How much does it cost to move house? (reporting reallymoving data), published 17 November 2025.

The lines behind that total:

Source: MoneyWeek, How much does it cost to move house? (reporting reallymoving data), published 17 November 2025.

The same arithmetic explains most of the gap between the two totals on this page. A stamp duty line of £9,750 corresponds to a purchase price of about £395,000 for a main home at standard rates, well above the £292,000 English average. The report does not state the price it assumes, so read that as my arithmetic rather than as a figure from the source.

Sources: GOV.UK, Stamp Duty Land Tax: residential property rates, checked 13 August 2026; MoneyWeek, How much does it cost to move house? (reporting reallymoving data), published 17 November 2025.

For scale: Moving costs swallow 46% of the median annual salary in England, in the words of reallymoving chief executive Rob Houghton. That is the number worth sitting with before you assume moving is the light option.

Source: MoneyWeek, How much does it cost to move house? (reporting reallymoving data), published 17 November 2025.

Stamp duty: the line you cannot shop around

Every other cost on this page has a range you can negotiate. This one is set by where the house is and who is buying it. England and Northern Ireland, main home:

First-time buyer relief means no stamp duty up to £300,000 and 5% on the part between £300,001 and £500,000. Above £500,000 the relief does not apply at all.

Source: GOV.UK, Stamp Duty Land Tax: residential property rates, checked 13 August 2026.

Buying an additional property, a second home or a buy-to-let, moves you to higher rates:

Buyers who are not resident in the UK pay a further 2% on top, on property in England and Northern Ireland bought on or after 1 April 2021.

Source: GOV.UK, Stamp Duty Land Tax: buying an additional residential property, page last updated 1 April 2025.

On 1 April 2025 the thresholds went back to their older levels: the nil rate band for home movers from £250,000 back to £125,000, first-time buyer relief from £425,000 back to £300,000, and the maximum price at which that relief still applies from £625,000 back to £500,000.

Source: NatWest, Stamp Duty Changes April 2025, change dated 1 April 2025.

The change was large enough to show in the national statistics: ONS attributes the slowdown in annual house price growth from 3.9% to 2.7% to base effects from those April 2025 stamp duty changes.

Source: ONS, Private rent and house prices, UK: July 2026, published 22 July 2026.

Scotland and Wales have their own tax

Scotland charges Land and Buildings Transaction Tax instead:

First-time buyer relief in Scotland lifts the nil rate band to £175,000, worth up to £600.

Source: Revenue Scotland, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax: residential property, checked 13 August 2026.

The Additional Dwelling Supplement adds 8% of the purchase price on transactions on or after 5 December 2024, up from 6% before that date.

Source: Revenue Scotland, Additional Dwelling Supplement, rate in force from 5 December 2024.

Wales charges Land Transaction Tax, with main residential rates as follows:

Source: Land Transaction Tax rates via third-party summaries (Property Tax Partners, StampDutyRate); the official gov.wales page could not be read, checked 13 August 2026.

What the next house costs

The average UK home costs £271,000, up 2.7% in the 12 months to May 2026 (provisional figure). The averages differ enough between nations that the same move is a different decision in each of them:

Source: ONS, Private rent and house prices, UK: July 2026, published 22 July 2026.

An average is not your street, so use it as a sanity check rather than a valuation. If the house you are eyeing needs work on top of the price, the guide to buying a house to renovate covers what to budget for beyond the purchase.

The fees you can shop around for

Estate agent

The average estate agent fee is 1.42% including VAT. Sole agency usually runs 1.2% to 1.8% including VAT, multi-agency 3% to 3.6%, with the whole spread between 0.9% and 3.6%. On a £275,000 sale, 1.42% is roughly £3,900.

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, Estate Agent Fees, checked 13 August 2026.

That 1.42% deserves its provenance. It is 1.18% plus VAT, from a survey of 2,137 sellers in England and Wales carried out between May and July 2018. The series behind it runs 1.8% in 2011, 1.5% in 2014, 1.3% in 2015 and 1.18% in 2018, all plus VAT, with multi-agency at 2.5% plus VAT. So it is a well-founded figure with an old date on it, not a reading of this year.

Source: TheAdvisory, Estate Agent Fees: The Definitive Guide, underlying survey ran to 1 July 2018.

A second guide gives sole agency at 1% to 2% of the sale price, rising to 3.5% in some cases, multi-agency at roughly 3% to 3.5%, and joint agency from 2%. Minimum fees of around £1,000 exist, and VAT at 20% goes on top wherever it is not already included.

Source: Zoopla, The complete guide to estate agent fees, published 19 October 2023.

The fixed-fee alternative changes the arithmetic: on a £270,000 sale, 1.42% comes to £3,834 against a fixed fee of around £1,499. The catch is in the terms: fixed fees are usually paid upfront and are not refunded if the house does not sell.

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, Estate Agent Fees, checked 13 August 2026.

Conveyancing

Disbursements run to £700 or more on top of the fee, and a leasehold property adds around £300.

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, Conveyancing Fees, index quarter ending 31 March 2025.

A second measurement puts buying at £1,200 to £1,500 on a home near the £267,100 average it uses, and selling at £1,000 to £2,500. By price: up to £100,000 it is £1,050 freehold or £1,220 leasehold, and from £1 million it is £2,430 or £2,520. VAT at 20% applies to the fee.

Source: Zoopla, How much are conveyancing fees?, published 12 July 2026.

A third source lands in the same place: £400 to £1,500 to buy, £610 to £950 to sell, with searches at £250 to £450.

Source: Unbiased, How much does it really cost to move home?, published 29 April 2025.

The disbursements underneath those fees, itemised:

On a leasehold sale the seller pays £300 to £800 for the management pack.

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, Conveyancing Fees, index quarter ending 31 March 2025.

An independent check puts all the searches together at £150 to £250, so the £250 to £450 above is the upper reading rather than the only one.

Source: Rightmove, The costs of conveyancing, checked 13 August 2026.

Survey

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, How much does a house survey cost in 2026?, checked 13 August 2026.

The professional body itself does not publish exact prices. It places Level 1 at the lower end, starting at a few hundred pounds, and Level 3 at the top, with some bespoke services above £1,000.

Source: RICS, House surveys: the costs, types and benefits, checked 13 August 2026.

A third source prices the lender valuation at £150 to £1,500, a HomeBuyer's report at £400 to £1,000 and a building survey at £630 to £1,500.

Source: Unbiased, How much does it really cost to move home?, published 29 April 2025.

Removals

Local moves, up to 20 miles, by the size of the house:

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, How much do removals cost?, removal data from November 2025.

Over 100 miles, VAT included, the same job costs more:

Packing a three-bedroom house costs around £400 to £500, unpacking about £200, and dismantling and reassembling furniture adds £125 on average.

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, How much do removals cost?, removal data from November 2025.

A second network of quotes prices the same job a little higher:

For a three-bedroom home the same quote network gives £1,020 locally, £1,320 regionally (50 to 125 miles) and £1,770 long distance (over 125 miles), with full packing at £480. Across everything it quotes, the spread is £430 to £3,300.

Source: Sirelo, Removal Costs UK 2026, guide dated 1 August 2026.

A third guide quotes the same figures as the first one and names it as the source, so treat it as one measurement repeated rather than two agreeing.

Source: MoneySuperMarket, How much do house removals cost? (repeating HomeOwners Alliance figures), published 9 July 2026.

Mortgage and paperwork

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, Cost of Moving Calculator, checked 13 August 2026.

What extending costs instead

The build is priced by the square metre: £1,800 to £3,000 per square metre across the UK and £2,300 to £3,400 per square metre in London, with a two storey extension at around £1,900 per square metre. The calculator on this site prices a rear extension higher, at £2,400 to £3,600 per square metre including VAT, from its own validated 2026 guide set; treat the guide band here as the optimistic end and run your own numbers in the cost calculator. In whole projects:

Source: HomeOwners Alliance, House Extension Costs, checked 13 August 2026.

A second guide prices the build excluding VAT, which is worth holding in mind when you set the two lists next to each other.

A 30 square metre mid-specification kitchen extension works out at around £82,500 excluding VAT in that guide. The professional fees sit outside the build cost:

Source: Homebuilding & Renovating, How much does an extension cost in 2026?, published 19 February 2026.

A householder planning application in England costs £548, plus a Planning Portal service charge of £75.83 plus VAT. The fee went up from £528 on 1 April 2026.

Both extension cost guides still carry the older number: one says £258, the other £528. That is a small amount of money and a useful reminder that a cost guide ages faster than the fee it quotes.

Source: Planning Portal, How much does a planning application cost?, fee in force from 1 April 2026.

A note on VAT, because the two guides above treat it differently: the per square metre ranges in the first table include VAT at 20%, and the second guide quotes its rates excluding it. Add a fifth to the second set before you compare the two.

For your own project rather than a national average, the cost calculator puts a range on the work by size and specification, and rear extension costs, side return costs and loft conversion costs break down each route to more space. Whether you need an application at all is worth checking before you budget for one: planning permission for an extension sets out where permitted development ends.

Putting the two side by side

1. Price the move as one number, not as a house price. The price of the next house is not the cost of moving. The cost of moving is the gap between what you sell for and what you buy for, plus the transaction costs on this page. Write both parts down separately, because only one of them is negotiable.
2. Work out your own stamp duty first. It is the largest single line for most movers and it is the one that changes most with where you are and who you are. Use the bands for your nation, and check whether first-time buyer relief, the additional property rates or the non-resident surcharge apply to you.
3. Add the fees you can actually shop for. Estate agent, conveyancing on both sides, the survey, the mortgage arrangement fee, the Energy Performance Certificate and the removals. Each of these has a spread of hundreds or thousands of pounds, which is where the two published totals on this page differ from each other.
4. Price the extension by the space you need. Square metres times the rate for your part of the country, then the professional fees, the planning application if you need one, and a contingency on top. An extension is not one price, it is a price per square metre and a decision about how many.
5. Compare what each one buys, not just what each one costs. Moving buys a different house: a different street, a different school run, a different commute, and a layout somebody else chose. Extending buys a specific amount of space in the house you already know. Those are different goods, and a spreadsheet on its own cannot rank them.
6. Count the things neither total shows. Months of living on a building site against weeks of packing and viewings. Borrowing costs on either route. And the risk that the build turns up something nobody priced, which is what the contingency is for.

Step four has a line most comparisons leave out. Build costs are quoted as if nothing goes wrong, and on an existing house something usually does, so put a contingency on top before you compare anything. The budget planner holds the whole extension side in one place.

Step six is about time as well as money. An extension means months of programme and, for most people, living through it. Moving costs weeks of viewings, packing and a chain you do not control. Neither total on this page prices that, and for plenty of households it settles the question.

Sources on this page

• GOV.UK, Stamp Duty Land Tax: residential property rates, checked 13 August 2026.
• GOV.UK, Stamp Duty Land Tax: buying an additional residential property, page last updated 1 April 2025.
• NatWest, Stamp Duty Changes April 2025, change dated 1 April 2025.
• Revenue Scotland, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax: residential property, checked 13 August 2026.
• Revenue Scotland, Additional Dwelling Supplement, rate in force from 5 December 2024.
• Land Transaction Tax rates via third-party summaries (Property Tax Partners, StampDutyRate); the official gov.wales page could not be read, checked 13 August 2026.
• ONS, Private rent and house prices, UK: July 2026, published 22 July 2026.
• HomeOwners Alliance, Cost of Moving Calculator, checked 13 August 2026.
• reallymoving, Cost of Moving Report 2025, published 9 December 2025.
• MoneyWeek, How much does it cost to move house? (reporting reallymoving data), published 17 November 2025.
• HomeOwners Alliance, Cost of selling a house in 2026, checked 13 August 2026.
• HomeOwners Alliance, Estate Agent Fees, checked 13 August 2026.
• TheAdvisory, Estate Agent Fees: The Definitive Guide, underlying survey ran to 1 July 2018.
• Zoopla, The complete guide to estate agent fees, published 19 October 2023.
• HomeOwners Alliance, Conveyancing Fees, index quarter ending 31 March 2025.
• Zoopla, How much are conveyancing fees?, published 12 July 2026.
• Unbiased, How much does it really cost to move home?, published 29 April 2025.
• Rightmove, The costs of conveyancing, checked 13 August 2026.
• HomeOwners Alliance, How much do removals cost?, removal data from November 2025.
• Sirelo, Removal Costs UK 2026, guide dated 1 August 2026.
• MoneySuperMarket, How much do house removals cost? (repeating HomeOwners Alliance figures), published 9 July 2026.
• HomeOwners Alliance, How much does a house survey cost in 2026?, checked 13 August 2026.
• RICS, House surveys: the costs, types and benefits, checked 13 August 2026.
• HomeOwners Alliance, House Extension Costs, checked 13 August 2026.
• Homebuilding & Renovating, How much does an extension cost in 2026?, published 19 February 2026.
• Planning Portal, How much does a planning application cost?, fee in force from 1 April 2026.

Tax rates come from GOV.UK and Revenue Scotland and are rules rather than estimates, with the Welsh rates carrying the caveat above. Everything else is a market estimate from a cost guide or a platform's own transaction data, and those sources disagree with each other by thousands of pounds, which is the point of showing more than one. This is guidance for working out your own two numbers, not a substitute for a conveyancer, a tax adviser or a builder's quote.