Every first-time buyer scheme compared

The at-a-glance version — details and links to full guides below. All figures as of July 2026:

Which scheme fits you? Start with your constraint

Every scheme solves one specific problem, so the fastest way to narrow the field is to name yours:

• “I’m still saving a deposit” → Lifetime ISA now, and watch the new FTB ISA — free government money on top of what you save.
• “I have 5% but no more” → the Mortgage Guarantee Scheme means 95% mortgages exist; true no-deposit routes exist too if even 5% is out of reach.
• “Prices near me are just too high” → First Homes (if you can find one) attacks the price directly; Shared Ownership attacks the slice of it you need to finance.
• “My income won’t stretch to the mortgage I need” → Shared Ownership shrinks the mortgage; family-help routes like a guarantor mortgage can stretch what lenders will offer. It’s worth knowing your baseline first — see how much you can borrow.
• “I rent from the council” → Right to Buy may beat every other option on this list.
• “Family can help” → a gifted deposit is the simplest boost there is, and combines with almost everything above.

Schemes also stack: a Lifetime ISA bonus can fund the deposit on a Shared Ownership share; stamp duty relief applies alongside nearly everything. The combinations are where a broker earns their keep.

Lifetime ISA — and the brand-new FTB ISA

The Lifetime ISA is the workhorse savings scheme: save up to £4,000 a year and the government adds 25% — up to £1,000 of free money annually. You must open one between 18 and 39, the account needs to be open 12 months before you buy, the home must cost £450,000 or less, and withdrawing for anything other than a first home (or retirement) costs a 25% penalty that eats into your own savings. Your solicitor claims the bonus at purchase.

Mortgage Guarantee Scheme: why 5% deposits exist

This one works entirely behind the scenes. Since July 2025 a permanent Mortgage Guarantee Scheme has had the government guaranteeing part of participating lenders’ 95% mortgages, giving them the confidence to keep low-deposit deals on the shelf. You don’t apply for it and may never know your lender used it — you simply apply for a 95% mortgage on a home up to £600,000, and it’s open to movers as well as first-time buyers. Two practical notes: not every 95% deal sits inside the scheme (plenty of lenders offer them independently), and high-LTV borrowing means pricier rates and affordability checks doing the real gatekeeping. If even 5% is the sticking point, our guide to no-deposit mortgages covers the genuine 100% routes and who they suit. The new-build world has also run its own developer-backed low-deposit scheme — see our Deposit Unlock guide for its current status and the alternatives.

First Homes: 30–50% off — with a catch or two

The headline-grabber: eligible first-time buyers in England can buy selected new-builds at 30–50% below market value, with the discount permanently attached to the home and passed on to the next eligible buyer when you sell. The gates: household income under £80,000 (£90,000 in London), a post-discount price of £250,000 or less (£420,000 in London), and local councils can add their own criteria — key workers and local residents often get priority. The honest caveat is supply: there’s no central listing site and availability is genuinely limited, so it’s a scheme you hunt for rather than rely on. Full eligibility, the resale rules and how to actually find one are in our dedicated First Homes scheme guide.

Shared Ownership: shrink the mortgage, not the home

Buy a share of a home — on newer leases that can start from as little as 10% — and pay subsidised rent on the rest, with the option to “staircase” to bigger shares (often up to full ownership) over time. It’s the scheme that attacks the affordability problem most directly: a 25% share of a £280,000 flat needs a mortgage and deposit sized for £70,000, not £280,000. The trade-offs deserve clear eyes: you’ll pay mortgage plus rent plus service charges on a leasehold home, and selling has extra steps. Specialist variants exist too, including Older People’s Shared Ownership (55+) and HOLD for people with long-term disabilities. How the shares, rent, staircasing and mortgages actually work is covered in our full shared ownership guide.

Right to Buy: for council tenants

If you’re a secure council tenant in England with a qualifying public-sector tenancy behind you, Right to Buy lets you purchase your home at a discount — and some lenders will even treat the discount as your deposit. The scheme has been significantly reformed recently, with discounts reduced and rules tightened, so the sums look different from the stories you may have heard from longer-standing tenants. What the reforms changed, current discount levels and how the mortgages work are all in our Right to Buy guide.

Family-help routes: the unofficial schemes

Not government schemes, but for many buyers they do more than any of the above — the “Bank of Mum and Dad” remains one of the biggest lenders in the country in all but name:

• Gifted deposits — the simplest route: family money towards your deposit, with a signed letter confirming it’s a gift. Combines with nearly every scheme on this page.
• Guarantor and family-assist mortgages — family income or savings backing your application, stretching what lenders will offer without handing money over permanently.

Stamp duty relief: the scheme people forget is a scheme

First-time buyers in England and Northern Ireland pay no stamp duty up to £300,000, then 5% on the portion between £300,000 and £500,000 — above £500,000 the relief vanishes entirely and standard rates apply to the whole price. Every person on the purchase must be a genuine first-time buyer, and your solicitor claims the relief on the return. The band-by-band sums, joint-buyer traps and new-build quirks are in our first-time buyer stamp duty guide.

Scotland, Wales, London: the regional picture

Wales

Help to Buy Wales — a shared equity loan on new-builds up to £300,000 — is still running but closes to purchases in September 2026, so anyone hoping to use it is now genuinely against the clock given how long new-build completions take. Beyond it, Homebuy Wales offers equity loans on existing homes in participating areas, and Wales runs its own Shared Ownership version (household income £60,000 or less). Note there’s currently no first-time buyer relief in Wales’s Land Transaction Tax — the stamp duty break above stops at the border.

Scotland

Scotland’s support sits under LIFT (Low-cost Initiative for First-Time Buyers), with two shared equity strands: Open Market Shared Equity for buying on the open market — currently closed to new applications, with reopening expected in 2026/27 — and New Supply Shared Equity, which remains open and helps you buy 60–80% of a new-build from a council or housing association with the Scottish Government holding the rest.

London

London uses the national schemes with bigger numbers and tighter squeezes: First Homes caps rise to £420,000 (price) and £90,000 (income), Shared Ownership is the workhorse given prices, and the LISA’s £450,000 property cap — unchanged for years — is the binding constraint for many central-London buyers, pushing LISA savers toward outer boroughs.

Schemes that have closed (so you can stop Googling them)

Plenty of what ranks in search results no longer exists. Help to Buy equity loans in England closed to new applications in 2023 (the Welsh version survives until September 2026). The Help to Buy ISA closed to new accounts in 2019 — existing holders can keep saving, and will be able to transfer into the new FTB ISA when it launches. And the original temporary Mortgage Guarantee Scheme ended in June 2025, replaced a month later by the permanent version above. If a scheme you’ve read about isn’t on this page, check the date on what you were reading.

First-time buyer schemes: FAQs

Last updated: July 2026. Scheme status and thresholds verified at the time of writing and subject to change.