Understanding Cayman Islands Stamp Duty: The 7.5% and 10% Rates, Caymanian Concessions and Mortgage Duty (2026)

Stamp duty is the one tax event in a Cayman Islands property purchase: 7.5% of the consideration on a transfer of immovable property, rising to 10% where the consideration is CI$2,000,000 or more, plus 1% or 1.5% on any mortgage. There is no annual property tax, no capital gains tax and no inheritance tax, which is why the duty on the transfer dominates closing costs and why the rates are worth understanding before an offer is made. The figures come from the Schedule to the Stamp Duty Act (2019 Revision) as substituted by two sets of 2025 Regulations, and every band on this page names the paragraph it is read from. The stamp duty calculator applies them in seconds; this guide explains them.

The two instruments that set today's rates

The Stamp Duty Act (2019 Revision) charges duty under heads listed in its Schedule. The head that matters for a purchase is "Conveyance or transfer of any immovable property"; the head that matters for financing is the mortgage head. Section 27 of the Act lets Cabinet substitute the rates by regulation, and Cabinet did so twice in twelve months.

• Stamp Duty (Rates of Duty) Regulations, 2025 (SL 3 of 2025), gazetted on 12 February 2025, rewrote the Caymanian concession paragraphs (10), (11), (11A), (11B) and (12) of the conveyance head. The concessions now apply island-wide; the earlier carve-outs for Seven Mile Beach and parts of George Town are gone, and a second-property tier was added that did not exist before.
• Stamp Duty (Rates of Duty) (No. 2) Regulations, 2025 (SL 63 of 2025), in force on 1 January 2026 as part of the 2026 to 2027 Budget, split the general rate in two by adding a 10% band at CI$2,000,000 to paragraph (2) and to each concession paragraph, with a transitional provision preserving the prior rate for any conveyance, transfer or agreement executed before commencement.

Because the rates moved twice in a year, older summaries are often wrong in one direction or the other. The figures below were reconciled against the instruments themselves on 30 August 2026.

The standard rate: paragraph (2)

Consideration	Rate	Provision
Below CI$2,000,000	7.5% of the whole consideration	Schedule, conveyance head, paragraph (2)(a), as substituted by SL 63 of 2025
CI$2,000,000 or more	10% of the whole consideration	Paragraph (2)(b), as substituted by SL 63 of 2025

The 10% band is a cliff, not a marginal rate. A purchase at CI$1,999,000 attracts CI$149,925; a purchase at CI$2,000,000 attracts CI$200,000. The extra CI$1,000 of price carries CI$50,075 of duty. Around the threshold the apportionment of price between the immovable property and any chattels, and the valuation the Lands and Survey Department places on the transfer, both decide which side of the line a purchase falls.

What the duty is charged on

Duty is charged on the consideration for the immovable property. The Lands and Survey Department assesses and collects it for the Commissioner of Stamp Duty, who is the Minister of Finance, and values every transfer. In practice duty is paid on the higher of the price and the market value, so a discounted or related-party price does not reduce the charge.

Chattels

The head applies to immovable property. Movable items included in a sale, such as free-standing furniture and appliances, are not part of the land, and a genuine apportionment of the price to them sits outside the dutiable base. The apportionment has to reflect real value: fixtures, built-in units and anything forming part of the property cannot be relabelled as chattels. The calculator deducts the chattels figure entered before it tests the bands, and the full closing-cost model does the same.

Currency

Cayman property is usually marketed in US dollars and duty is assessed in Cayman Islands dollars. The fixed rate is CI$1 to US$1.20, and the calculator converts a US-dollar price before applying the bands. A US$2,500,000 listing is CI$2,083,333 and sits in the 10% band; a US$2,350,000 listing is CI$1,958,333 and sits at 7.5%.

Caymanian concessions: first property

Paragraph (10), as substituted by SL 3 of 2025, sets the concession for a Caymanian buying a first immovable property alone. The design is marginal: an exempt slice, then a 3.75% band on the excess only, then a cliff back to the full rate on the whole consideration.

Single Caymanian, first property	No duty up to	3.75% on the excess up to	Above that
Land with a building	CI$550,000	CI$650,000	7.5% of the whole consideration
Land without a building	CI$250,000	CI$350,000	7.5% of the whole consideration

A first-time buyer of a CI$650,000 home pays 3.75% of CI$100,000, which is CI$3,750. One dollar more and the whole consideration is dutiable at 7.5%: CI$48,750 on CI$650,001. Where two to ten Caymanians buy together and the property is the first immovable property of each of them, paragraph (11) lifts the thresholds: the exemption runs to CI$600,000 and the 3.75% band to CI$700,000 for land with a building, and to CI$450,000 and CI$550,000 for raw land.

Caymanian concessions: second property

The 2025 Regulations added a tier that did not exist before. Paragraph (11A) charges a Caymanian buying a second immovable property 3.75% of the whole consideration, with no exempt slice, where the consideration is CI$600,000 or less for land with a building or CI$300,000 or less for land without one. Above those amounts the full 7.5% applies. For two to ten Caymanian co-purchasers, paragraph (11B) lifts the thresholds to CI$700,000 and CI$550,000.

Paragraph (12) limits the concessions to a Caymanian's first and second purchases in the Islands and deals with people who owned property before becoming Caymanian: the first-property exemption is not available for their first purchase as a Caymanian, but the second-property rate is, where the purchase is in fact their second immovable property. Since SL 63 of 2025 every concession paragraph also carries the 10% band, so a CI$2,000,000 purchase pays 10% whatever the buyer's status.

Duty on the mortgage

A mortgage or charge over immovable property attracts its own duty under the Schedule's mortgage head: 1% of the sum secured where it is CI$300,000 or less, and 1.5% where it is more, in each case on the whole amount rather than the excess. Financing CI$300,000 costs CI$3,000 in mortgage duty; financing CI$301,000 costs CI$4,515. The duty is customarily paid by the borrower and collected by the bank at drawdown, alongside the commitment and documentation fees. The mortgage calculator models the repayments themselves.

Who pays, and when

The buyer customarily pays the conveyance duty and the borrower the mortgage duty, as part of the closing-day cash flow with the deposit, legal fees and bank charges. Duty is paid on the instrument, the transfer or the charge. The Lands and Survey Department's stamp duty page states that duty is payable upon execution of the document and that the document should be presented to the Department immediately thereafter; interest runs on duty outstanding after 45 days at 10% per annum for the first month and 20% per annum thereafter. The Department's registration rule runs in parallel: documents are lodged for registration within 45 days of first signature, with a late registration fee for each further 45-day period. The closing attorney handles both in practice.

Three worked examples

A standard buyer, financed

A condo is bought for CI$750,000 with CI$25,000 of the price fairly attributed to furniture, and CI$500,000 is financed. The dutiable base is CI$725,000, below CI$2,000,000, so paragraph (2)(a) applies: CI$54,375 on the transfer. The mortgage exceeds CI$300,000, so 1.5% applies: CI$7,500. Total stamp duty is CI$61,875, before legal fees, agent commission and bank charges.

A first-time Caymanian buyer inside the band

The same condo at a CI$600,000 price with the same chattels gives a base of CI$575,000. The buyer is a single Caymanian buying a first property with a building: the first CI$550,000 is exempt and 3.75% applies to the CI$25,000 above it, so the transfer duty is CI$937.50. With the same CI$500,000 mortgage the mortgage duty is CI$7,500, which is now the larger of the two lines.

A high-value purchase after 1 January 2026

A house is bought for CI$2,100,000 with CI$60,000 of genuine chattels. The base is CI$2,040,000, at or above CI$2,000,000, so paragraph (2)(b) applies and the duty is CI$204,000. Had the sale agreement been executed before 1 January 2026, the transitional provision in SL 63 of 2025 would keep the 7.5% rate, CI$153,000, however long the stamping took. The date on the agreement is therefore a fact the calculator asks for.

What stamp duty is not

• It is not an annual tax. The Cayman Islands levy no annual property tax. Once the transfer is stamped, the recurring costs of ownership are strata fees, insurance, utilities and, for a mortgage, the repayments.
• It is not charged on rent. The conveyance head applies to transfers of immovable property; leases fall under other heads of the Schedule, outside the scope of this page.
• It is not reduced by a low price. The Lands and Survey Department's valuation sets a floor under the consideration.
• It is not the only closing cost. Legal fees, agent commissions, the bank's commitment and valuation fees, Land Registry fees and the first strata payment sit alongside it; the property closing-costs calculator lays out the whole closing-day cash flow, and the property costs guide explains it field by field.

Stamp duty and the PR points system

For a work-permit holder planning a permanent-residence application, the duty has a second life. Factor 3 of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Regulations (2025 Revision) scores local investment, and its definition of total investment for property includes the purchase price plus the stamp duty paid. The duty is therefore part of the numerator in the Factor 3 formula, alongside the mortgage, and the complete PR points guide sets out how that formula works. The PR points calculator takes the total investment figure as one of its inputs.

Where the numbers come from

Stamp Duty Act (2019 Revision), Schedule, conveyance head paragraphs (2), (10), (11), (11A), (11B) and (12) and the mortgage head; Stamp Duty (Rates of Duty) Regulations, 2025 (SL 3 of 2025), gazetted 12 February 2025; Stamp Duty (Rates of Duty) (No. 2) Regulations, 2025 (SL 63 of 2025), in force 1 January 2026. All three instruments are published on legislation.gov.ky. Figures reconciled 30 August 2026 and held in one file in this site's code so that a rate change fails a test on purpose and produces a notice to newsletter subscribers.

Nothing on this page is legal or financial advice. Concession eligibility turns on facts, including Caymanian status, prior ownership and the paragraph (12) rules, that a Cayman Islands attorney or the Lands and Survey Department can confirm for a specific purchase; an immigration attorney is the right person for the Factor 3 question.