Should You Sell Shares Before the Budget? CGT and 28 October 2026

What's confirmed and what's only reported

Confirmed: the Budget is on Wednesday 28 October 2026. Until then, the 2026–27 rates apply to gains on shares. Add your taxable gain (your gains after the £3,000 allowance) to your taxable income (your income after your Personal Allowance). The part that fits within the £37,700 basic rate band is taxed at 18%, and the rest at 24%.

Reported: Wes Streeting was Health and Social Care Secretary in May 2026 when he said on the BBC's Political Thinking podcast that Capital Gains Tax should match income tax. That means rates of 20%, 40% and 45%. That's a politician's view, not government policy. Other claims are going round with no named source, so I haven't repeated them. Our round-up of Budget 2026 rumours for share investors covers each named proposal in more detail.

What happened last time rates changed on Budget day

At the Budget on 30 October 2024, the main rates went from 10% and 20% to 18% and 24%. The new rates applied to sales made on or after 30 October 2024, the day of the announcement. There was no warning period.

Not every change starts on the day. Business Asset Disposal Relief is a lower rate for people selling their business or shares in a company they work for. The same Budget raised it in two steps, on 6 April 2025 and 6 April 2026. You won't know which kind of change you're dealing with until 28 October.

A mid-year rate change also makes the paperwork harder. HMRC's own tax return couldn't keep up in 2024–25, and people had to work out an adjustment themselves.

Selling before the Budget: what you gain and what you give up

A sale before the Budget swaps an unknown tax bill for a known one. To see what's at stake, take the same £7,000 of taxable gain at the higher rate Wes Streeting suggested.

If rates don't change, the tax is the same whether you sell before the Budget or after it.

For a sale through a broker, the date that usually counts is the date of the trade, not the date the money settles. But in 2024 the new rates could still apply to sales agreed before Budget day and completed after it, where the timing was aimed at a tax advantage. HMRC's guidance doesn't say how that applies to a share trade that settles a day or two after it's placed. A trade that has settled before 28 October avoids that question. The trade confirmation your broker sends, called a contract note, shows the settlement date.

You give up the shares. Buying them back in the same account runs into HMRC's 30-day rule, explained below. You also pay dealing fees, and 0.5% stamp duty if you buy UK company shares again. And if you'd otherwise have sold in a later tax year, you pay the tax sooner: tax on a gain made in 2026–27 is due by 31 January 2028. If the Budget leaves Capital Gains Tax alone, the early sale will have cost you fees and saved nothing.

Why selling and buying straight back doesn't work

The plan sounds neat: sell before the Budget to bank the gain at today's rates, then buy the same shares back. HMRC's 30-day rule matches your sale with shares you buy back in the 30 days after it, not with the shares you've held for years.

So your sale shows little or no gain now, and you pay tax on the full gain when you eventually sell. Our guide to the 30-day rule has worked examples.

How Bed and ISA and Bed and spouse are treated

Bed and ISA means selling in your ordinary account and buying the same shares back inside a Stocks and Shares ISA. The 30-day rule only matches shares bought back the same way you held them, which HMRC calls the same capacity. Shares in an ISA count as a separate holding, so the ISA purchase isn't matched with your sale. From then on, gains inside the ISA are tax-free.

Two limits apply. You can put £20,000 a year into ISAs, and £3,000 of gains a year are tax-free. If your gains are bigger than £3,000, moving shares across over several tax years can keep each year's gain within the allowance. Later years' sales are taxed at whatever rates apply then.

Bed and spouse means you sell and your husband, wife or civil partner buys the same shares. The 30-day rule only matches shares bought by the person who sold, so their purchase isn't caught. Your gain is taxed at today's rates, the shares become your spouse's, and there are dealing costs on both sides.

You can also give shares to your spouse or civil partner without Capital Gains Tax, as long as you live together. They take on what you paid, so the gain moves to them. When they sell, the gain can use their own £3,000 allowance if they haven't used it.

Using this year's £3,000 allowance

The allowance is £3,000 for 2026–27 and it can't be carried forward. Any you haven't used by 5 April 2027 is gone. Using it before the Budget or after makes no difference to the allowance itself, unless the Budget changes it with immediate effect.

If you have shares sitting at a loss, selling them sets the loss against your gains in the same tax year. Unused losses carry forward, as long as you claim them within four years. The 30-day rule applies to losses too, so buying the same shares back in the same account within 30 days means the loss is worked out using the buy-back price.

When to get advice

Whether a sale makes sense depends on your plans for the shares, your other gains and your income. A regulated financial adviser can look at your situation.

Get specialist tax advice as well if:

• your gains run to tens of thousands of pounds, where timing is worth real money,
• the shares are in your own company or came from an employer share scheme, which have their own reliefs and rates,
• you're thinking of moving abroad,
• the shares are held in a trust.