International tax & UK residence.

Your residence is decided for each tax year by the Statutory Residence Test. The tests are taken in order, and the first one that settles your position decides it. A day usually counts as a UK day if you are in the UK at midnight, with some exceptions.

Automatic overseas tests

If you meet any of these, you are automatically non-UK resident for the tax year:

• you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK, and you were UK resident in one or more of the previous three tax years
• you spend fewer than 46 days in the UK, and you were not UK resident in any of the previous three tax years
• you work full-time overseas for the tax year, spend fewer than 91 days in the UK, work more than 3 hours in the UK on fewer than 31 days, and have no significant break from overseas work

Automatic UK tests

If none of the overseas tests applies and you meet any of these, you are automatically UK resident:

• you spend 183 days or more in the UK in the tax year
• you have a home in the UK for at least 91 consecutive days, at least 30 of them in the tax year, you are present in it on at least 30 days, and you have no overseas home or spend fewer than 30 days in any you have
• you work full-time in the UK for any 365-day period that falls at least partly in the tax year, with more than 75% of the days on which you work more than 3 hours being days worked in the UK

Sufficient ties test

If no automatic test settles it, your UK ties are combined with your UK days. The ties are:

• family: a spouse, civil partner or partner, or a child under 18, who is UK resident
• accommodation: a place to live in the UK that is available to you for at least 91 consecutive days and where you spend at least one night in the year
• work: working more than 3 hours a day in the UK on at least 40 days
• 90-day: more than 90 days in the UK in either of the previous two tax years
• country: for people who were UK resident in any of the previous three years, being in the UK more than in any other single country

The more ties you have, the fewer days you can spend here. You are UK resident if you have at least this many ties:

The country tie only counts for people who were UK resident in any of the previous three years.

If you are UK resident for a tax year, you are resident for the whole of it unless split year treatment applies. It applies only if your circumstances fit one of eight cases:

• Leaving the UK: starting full-time work overseas, being the partner of someone who does, or ceasing to have any home in the UK
• Arriving in the UK: starting to have your only home here, starting full-time work here, ceasing full-time work overseas, being the partner of someone ceasing full-time work overseas, or starting to have a home here

Each case has its own conditions, and where more than one applies, priority rules decide the split date. The overseas part of the year is then treated broadly as a period of non-residence.

From 6 April 2025, all UK residents are taxed on their worldwide income and gains as they arise, and domicile no longer decides how foreign income and gains are taxed. The remittance basis was abolished and replaced by the four-year foreign income and gains (FIG) regime for new arrivals.

How it works:

• Who qualifies: people in their first four tax years of UK residence, after at least ten consecutive tax years of non-UK residence. Nationality and domicile are irrelevant.
• What is covered: most foreign income and gains, such as profits of an overseas trade or property business, dividends from non-UK companies, foreign interest and foreign capital gains.
• What is not: foreign employment income, although Overseas Workday Relief may give relief for work done abroad.
• No UK tax on relieved income and gains, and they can be brought into the UK without a tax charge.
• You choose which sources to claim for, on your Self Assessment return, year by year. Unused years cannot be carried forward.

Claiming has a cost: you lose the personal allowance and the capital gains tax annual exempt amount for that year, and the foreign income still counts towards adjusted net income for the High Income Child Benefit Charge and childcare support. That is why we model it before you claim.

If you used the remittance basis before April 2025, the Temporary Repatriation Facility lets you designate earlier foreign income and gains and pay a flat charge of 12% in 2025/26 and 2026/27, or 15% in 2027/28.

Read: Residence, not domicile: how the UK taxes overseas income now →

Where the UK and another country both tax the same income or gains, double taxation relief usually prevents you paying twice, either through the terms of a double tax treaty or by crediting the foreign tax against the UK tax. Relief has to be claimed correctly, and the interaction between two countries' rules and tax years needs care.

If you live abroad and let UK property:

• your letting agent, or your tenant if the rent is over £100 a week, must deduct basic rate tax from the rent under the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme
• HMRC can approve you to receive the rent without deduction
• you still file a UK tax return on your rental profits
• if you sell UK property or land, the sale must be reported to HMRC within 60 days, even where no tax is due

Read: Non-resident landlords and UK property →

Leaving cleanly means understanding which UK ties still count, how many days you can spend here, what happens to UK income and property you keep, and how long inheritance tax exposure continues under the long-term residence rules. If you return within five years, some income and gains from your time abroad can be taxed on your return.

Moving to or from the UK: how we help →