How much is the Right to Buy discount in 2026?

It depends heavily on where you live, and it's almost certainly less than you think. Since 21 November 2024, the maximum cash discount fell from £136,400 in London and £102,400 elsewhere in England to a set of regional caps ranging from £16,000 to £38,000 (Housing (Right to Buy) (Limits on Discount) (England) Order 2024). On top of that cash cap, your actual discount is calculated as a percentage of your home's value, starting at 5% and rising by 1% for every extra qualifying year, up to a maximum of 15% of the property's value or the area cash cap, whichever is lower (GOV.UK, government response to the Right to Buy consultation, April 2026). For most council homes, the cash cap bites first: on a typical £220,000 property, 15% would be £33,000, but if your area's cap is £16,000, that's what you get. Always check your specific council's discount cap before assuming a national average figure applies to you.

How long do I have to be a council tenant to qualify for Right to Buy?

Right now, three years of public sector tenancy, but that is changing. The government confirmed on 28 April 2026 that the minimum qualifying period will rise from three years to ten years, as part of the wider Right to Buy reforms being legislated through the Social Housing Bill, introduced to Parliament on 14 May 2026 (GOV.UK). The change takes effect once Parliamentary time allows, expected later in 2026 or in 2027, and is not retrospective for applications already in progress. If you're currently on year four or five of your tenancy and were planning to apply soon, it's worth checking the live implementation date with your local authority, because a tenant who qualifies today under the three-year rule may find the goalposts have moved by the time they're ready to proceed.

Can I buy a new build council house under Right to Buy?

Not for a long time after it's built, under the reforms confirmed in April 2026. New social homes will carry a 35-year exemption from Right to Buy, meaning a housing association or council can build knowing the stock won't be sold off within a generation (GOV.UK, government response to the Right to Buy consultation). The government has also extended the "cost floor" protection, which lets landlords limit the discount so the sale price doesn't fall below what was spent building and maintaining the home, from 15 years to 30 years. Together, these two changes are designed to stop newly built social housing being sold at a steep discount shortly after completion, which was previously eroding the overall social housing stock faster than councils could replace it.

Why has the Right to Buy discount gone down?

Because the government decided the previous discounts were shrinking the social housing stock faster than it could be replaced. Under the old rules, a discount of up to £136,400 in London or £102,400 elsewhere often meant a council home sold for a fraction of its value, with no guarantee the sale proceeds could fund a like-for-like replacement. The Housing (Right to Buy) (Limits on Discount) (England) Order 2024, in force since 21 November 2024, reinstated smaller 2003-level regional caps of £16,000 to £38,000 specifically to slow the loss of social housing. The follow-up reforms confirmed in April 2026, including the longer qualifying period, the new-build exemption and the extended cost floor, are aimed at the same goal from different angles: keeping more social housing in the social rented sector for longer.

Right to Buy discount crashed from £136,400 to £16,000

You've lived in your council home for years, paid your rent on time every month, and always half-assumed that one day you'd get a serious discount for buying the place outright. Maybe a neighbour or a family member bought their council house decades ago for a fraction of its value, and you've quietly been banking on doing the same. That version of Right to Buy is still the one most people carry around in their head. It's also tens of thousands of pounds and several policy changes out of date.

Here's the number that matters most: the maximum Right to Buy discount fell from £136,400 in London and £102,400 across the rest of England to as little as £16,000, and no more than £38,000 anywhere, on 21 November 2024 (Housing (Right to Buy) (Limits on Discount) (England) Order 2024). And it isn't finished changing. Further reforms confirmed by the government on 28 April 2026 are altering how long you need to have been a tenant, how the discount itself is calculated, and whether new-build council homes can be bought at all.

The discount that quietly shrank in November 2024

For years, Right to Buy discounts were set high enough that they made national headlines: up to £136,400 off in London, up to £102,400 everywhere else in England, index-linked so the cap grew each year. Those figures are exactly the ones still circulating in family conversation and online forums, which is part of the problem.

Since 21 November 2024, the government has reinstated the lower, 2003-level regional caps instead, ranging from £16,000 to £38,000 depending on your local authority area (Housing (Right to Buy) (Limits on Discount) (England) Order 2024; Trowers & Hamlins legal analysis, 2024). Crucially, these new caps are not index-linked, so unlike the old system, they won't quietly climb with house prices each year. Anyone who submitted a Right to Buy application before 21 November 2024 keeps the older, higher cap; everyone applying since then is working from the much smaller number.

So if you've been telling yourself you'll get "up to £100,000-odd" off, that figure almost certainly no longer applies to you. Check your own council's current cash cap before you plan your finances around a discount that stopped existing over eighteen months ago.

The bigger shake-up: what the 2026 reforms actually change

The November 2024 cash cap cut was only the opening move. On 28 April 2026, the government confirmed a further set of reforms, now being legislated through the Social Housing Bill introduced to Parliament on 14 May 2026 (GOV.UK, government response to the consultation on Reforming the Right to Buy). Three changes matter most for anyone currently renting from a council or housing association:

First, the minimum qualifying tenancy period is rising from three years to ten years. If you're five or six years into your tenancy and were counting down to eligibility, that clock has just been reset further out. Second, the discount itself moves from a flat percentage to a sliding scale: starting at 5% of the property's value and rising by 1 percentage point for every extra qualifying year, up to a ceiling of 15% of the property's value or the area's cash cap, whichever is lower. Third, new-build social homes get a 35-year exemption from Right to Buy altogether, and the "cost floor" protection, which stops a discount pushing the sale price below what the landlord spent building and maintaining the home, has been extended from 15 years to 30 years.

So if you're newly housed in a council or housing association new-build, factor in that you may not have any Right to Buy option at all for 35 years, not just a smaller discount than you expected.

It's also worth checking which scheme actually applies to you. Right to Buy, with the discounts and thresholds above, is for local authority (council) tenants. If you rent from a housing association, you're more likely to be covered by the separate Right to Acquire scheme, which generally carries a smaller discount and different eligibility rules, or by Shared Ownership if you moved in more recently under a part-buy, part-rent arrangement. Confusing the three is one of the most common mistakes people make when they first look into buying their rented home, and it can send you down the wrong application route entirely.

So before you fill in any paperwork, confirm with your landlord in writing whether you're a Right to Buy or Right to Acquire tenant, because the discount you're chasing may not be the one your tenancy actually qualifies for.

Worked example: what your discount is really worth

Take a council house valued at £220,000, close to the current UK average price (Nationwide HPI, June 2026). Under the new percentage rules, a long-standing tenant who qualifies for the maximum 15% would in theory be entitled to £33,000 off. But that percentage figure is capped by the area's cash limit, and most of England's regional caps sit at £16,000 to £38,000. If your local authority's cap is £16,000, the maximum you can actually claim is £16,000, less than half of the headline 15% figure, because the cash cap overrides the percentage whenever the percentage would otherwise produce a bigger number.

Run the maths the other way: the cash cap only stops binding once a property is worth more than roughly £107,000 (for a £16,000 cap) or £253,000 (for a £38,000 cap), at the 15% rate. For anything priced like a typical UK home, the flat cash figure, not the widely quoted "up to 15%", is what actually determines your discount. Use our Stamp Duty calculator to check what you'd owe on the discounted price, since Stamp Duty Land Tax is due on the amount you actually pay, not the full market value.

The maths, in one place:

Property value £220,000 (Nationwide HPI, June 2026) · 15% percentage-based discount ceiling = £33,000 · Typical regional cash cap = £16,000 to £38,000 (Housing (Right to Buy) (Limits on Discount) (England) Order 2024) · Actual discount where cash cap is £16,000 = £16,000 (cash cap overrides the percentage) · Actual discount where cash cap is £38,000 = £33,000 (percentage overrides the cash cap).

So before you get attached to a "15% off" figure, work out which of the two caps actually applies to your property's value in your area, because for most homes it's the cash figure that decides what you get, not the percentage.

What this means for your buying decision

The smaller discount changes the maths on financing the purchase too. A £16,000 to £38,000 discount is a meaningfully smaller deposit-equivalent than the old five- and six-figure sums, so you'll likely need a larger mortgage relative to the property's value than tenants who bought a decade ago. Run your own numbers through our mortgage calculator before assuming the discount alone gets you a comfortable loan-to-value band, and compare that against other low-deposit routes into ownership, including the no-deposit and low-deposit mortgages now available to first-time buyers generally, since Right to Buy is no longer obviously the cheapest path to a first home in every area.

If you're within a year or two of hitting the current three-year eligibility threshold, the maths points toward applying now rather than waiting, given the qualifying period is set to jump to ten years once the Social Housing Bill takes effect. Frankly, if you're five or more years away from ten years' tenancy under the new rule, most people in that position are better off treating Right to Buy as a longer-term plan and building savings through a Lifetime ISA or standard deposit route in parallel, rather than waiting on a scheme whose terms keep tightening. Once you do complete a purchase, whichever route gets you there, our new homeowner checklist covers the costs and deadlines that catch people out in the first year.