UK tax residency is not decided by your visa or your nationality but by the statutory residence test (SRT), which looks at how many days you spent in the country and what ties you keep with it. A UK tax resident reports worldwide income to HMRC; a non-resident reports only UK-source income. From 6 April 2025 the concepts of domicile and the remittance basis of taxation no longer feature in that logic: a four-year regime for new residents applies instead.
What UK tax residency means
Tax residency is the status that determines how much of your income falls within UK taxation for a given tax year. The UK tax year does not follow the calendar: it runs from 6 April to 5 April the following year. Status is worked out separately for each such year, so the same person can be a resident in one year and a non-resident in the next.
Immigration status and tax status in the UK are not directly connected. You can hold a UK visa and not be a tax resident, and you can arrive visa-free, stay longer than planned and become one. The calculation follows the facts: days of physical presence, available accommodation, work, family and a comparison with other countries. That is why the UK tax residence test is worth working through before a move rather than after it.
The consequences are substantial. A resident brings foreign employment income, dividends, interest, overseas rental profits and gains on the disposal of overseas assets into UK reporting. A non-resident reports only UK-source income, such as rent from a UK property. For someone with international income, the difference between those two positions can run into six figures.
The clearest way to see what actually changed is a side-by-side comparison of the old and the new rules, because a great deal of material still online describes the system that has been abolished.
What changed on 6 April 2025
The reform did not touch the residence test itself. The SRT remains in force unchanged. What went is the link between taxation and domicile — the long-standing status determined by a person’s country of origin and their father’s domicile. In its place came a regime based purely on how long someone has been UK resident.
The old and the new rules compared
| Item | Before 6 April 2025 | From 6 April 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Basis for taxing foreign income | Domicile and non-domiciled (non-dom) status | Length of UK residence |
| Relief for arrivals | Remittance basis of taxation, indefinitely while non-dom status lasted | Four-year regime for foreign income and gains (FIG) |
| Cost of the relief | £30,000 a year after 7 years of residence out of 9, £60,000 after 12 out of 14 | No charge; a claim costs you the Personal Allowance and the capital gains annual exempt amount |
| Bringing relieved income into the UK | No — remitting it to the UK made it taxable | Yes, with no further tax charge |
| Inheritance tax on overseas assets | Deemed domicile: residence for 15 of the previous 20 years | Long-term UK residence: 10 of the previous 20 years |
Three groups are affected differently. For those arriving for the first time after a long absence the new regime is often better than the old one: the relief carries no annual charge and the money can be moved freely into the UK. For long-standing UK residents with non-dom status the relief has closed and worldwide reporting now applies. For those who have been here a decade the inheritance tax change matters most. The mechanics of the new regime are set out in detail on the page about the UK FIG tax regime.
The statutory residence test
The SRT has three parts, applied strictly in order. As soon as one part gives a definitive answer, there is no need to go further. The order and the day thresholds are published on GOV.UK.
Part 1. The automatic overseas test
Applied first. You are automatically non-resident for a tax year if any one of the following holds: you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK; or fewer than 46 days, if you have not been a UK resident in any of the three previous tax years; or you worked full-time abroad, averaging at least 35 hours a week, spent fewer than 91 days in the UK and worked no more than 30 days in it.
Part 2. The automatic UK test
Applied if the first part gives no answer. You are automatically resident if you spent 183 days or more in the UK in the tax year; or your only home was in the UK for 91 days or more in a row and you stayed in it for at least 30 days; or you worked full-time in the UK for any period of 365 days, with at least one day of that period falling in the tax year in question.
Part 3. The sufficient ties test
This is the common position for people living between two countries: neither automatic part applies, and status turns on the combination of days spent in the UK and ties to it. This is where disputes arise — how a single day is counted, or whether one tie is treated as met, can decide status for a whole year.
The five UK ties
There are exactly five ties, and each is tested against a formal criterion rather than a general sense of attachment to the country. HMRC sets out the definitions in its guidance on the ties test.
- Family tie. Your spouse, civil partner or cohabitee from whom you are not separated, or a child under 18, is a UK resident.
- Accommodation tie. Accommodation is available to you in the UK for a continuous period of 91 days or more, and you spent at least one night in it during the tax year.
- Work tie. You worked in the UK for 40 days or more in the tax year, a working day being any day on which you worked at least three hours.
- 90-day tie. You spent more than 90 days in the UK in either or both of the two previous tax years.
- Country tie. You spent more midnights in the UK than in any other single country. This tie counts only for those who were UK resident in at least one of the three previous tax years.
Note the asymmetry: the country tie applies only to leavers. It is one reason why breaking the tax link with the UK is harder for people departing than avoiding it is for people arriving.
Benefits of working with Imperial & Legal on your tax status
- Review of your personal travel calendar for each tax year
- Identification of all five UK ties on the documented facts
- Modelling of residence scenarios before the decision to move
- Preparation of a status file in case HMRC raises an enquiry
- Reconciliation with the double taxation agreements in force
- Ongoing reporting of foreign income and overseas assets
- Support on the route to a settled status in the country
The number of ties settles nothing on its own — it works only together with the number of days spent in the country, and the thresholds differ for arrivers and for leavers.
How many days and how many ties
HMRC publishes two separate tables: one for people who were UK resident in at least one of the three previous tax years (leavers), and one for those who were resident in none of them (arrivers). The figures below follow the official HMRC guidance.
Leavers: UK resident in one or more of the three previous tax years
| Days spent in the UK in the tax year | UK ties needed for residence |
|---|---|
| More than 15 but not more than 45 | At least 4 |
| More than 45 but not more than 90 | At least 3 |
| More than 90 but not more than 120 | At least 2 |
| More than 120 | At least 1 |
The table for arrivers is shorter: they cannot have a country tie, so the maximum is four ties, and the lower boundary starts at 46 rather than 16 days. Below 46 days an arriver is automatically non-resident, whatever their ties.
Arrivers: not UK resident in any of the three previous tax years
| Days spent in the UK in the tax year | UK ties needed for residence |
|---|---|
| More than 45 but not more than 90 | All 4 |
| More than 90 but not more than 120 | At least 3 |
| More than 120 | At least 2 |
The practical lesson from both tables is the same: the longer your connection with the UK, the fewer days it takes to remain its tax resident. Someone who has never lived here needs more than 45 days and all four applicable ties. Someone who left a year ago needs only 46 days and three ties — and above 120 days a single tie, such as available accommodation, is enough.
Benefits of seeking professional advice on your tax status
- Day and tie counting under the statutory residence test
- Eligibility check for the four-year relief for new residents
- Assessment of the status consequences for inheritance tax
- Preparation and filing of the Self Assessment return on time
- Representation in correspondence and enquiries from HMRC
- Planning of foreign income and assets before the move
- Coordination with the tax rules of the country of departure
If the test shows that you have become a UK tax resident, the next question is whether you fall inside the four-year window of relief.
The FIG regime: your first four years of residence
The foreign income and gains (FIG) regime replaced the remittance basis of taxation from 6 April 2025. It is available to a qualifying new resident — someone within their first four years of UK residence following a period of at least 10 consecutive tax years of non-UK residence. The definition and the claim procedure are set out in the GOV.UK guidance.
What the regime gives you. Foreign income and gains arising on or after 6 April 2025 are relieved from UK tax and, unlike under the old system, that money can be brought into the UK freely with no further tax charge. Relief is claimed selectively: you can nominate particular sources rather than all of them.
What it costs. For any year in which relief is claimed you lose the Personal Allowance for Income Tax and the annual exempt amount for Capital Gains Tax, along with married couple’s and marriage allowances. In such a year you also cannot claim foreign income or capital losses, and you cannot carry them forwards or backwards. For someone with modest foreign income a claim may therefore be uneconomic: the saving can be smaller than the value of the allowances given up.
Key limits. The four years run consecutively from the start of UK residence and cannot be rolled over — an unused year is simply lost. The claim is made in the Self Assessment return, by the anniversary of the 31 January following the end of the tax year.
Overseas Workday Relief
A separate relief for employees, Overseas Workday Relief, is tied from 6 April 2025 to the same qualifying new resident status and the same four years. Earnings are apportioned by the number of workdays in and outside the UK, and the overseas part is relieved — but only up to the lower of 30% of qualifying employment income for the year or £300,000. The conditions and the election procedure are published in the guidance for globally mobile employees.
The FIG regime covers only income arising on or after 6 April 2025. For money accumulated during the years the old system was in force there is a separate transitional mechanism.
Income accumulated before 6 April 2025
Anyone who previously used the remittance basis is likely to hold a significant amount of foreign income and gains offshore that was never remitted to the UK and so was never taxed. As a general rule, bringing that money into the country still makes it taxable at ordinary rates, even though the relief itself has been abolished.
To unlock those funds, a temporary measure was introduced: the temporary repatriation facility (TRF). It allows pre-6 April 2025 foreign income and gains to be designated in advance at a flat rate, after which the money can be brought into the UK at any time with no further tax charge. The conditions and rates are published in HMRC helpsheet HS264.
TRF charge by tax year
| Tax year | Flat rate charge |
|---|---|
| 2025 to 2026 | 12% |
| 2026 to 2027 | 12% |
| 2027 to 2028 | 15% |
The facility is available for exactly three tax years and ends after 2027 to 2028. It can be used only by someone who is UK resident in the year of designation and who previously used the remittance basis. What can be designated is not only the old income itself but also funds of uncertain origin and capital payments from non-UK trusts — precisely the categories that most often stand in the way of moving money into a UK bank account.
Long-term UK residence and inheritance tax
Inheritance tax is the one part of the system where domicile was decisive before the reform and where it has been replaced with a new concept. From 6 April 2025 overseas assets fall within the UK inheritance tax net if a person is a long-term UK resident. The criterion is published in the GOV.UK guidance.
You are a long-term UK resident for a tax year if you were UK tax resident either for all of the previous 10 consecutive tax years or for a total of 10 years or more within the previous 20. The old threshold was 15 years out of 20, so the status now arises five years earlier — for many families that is a decisive change in their planning.
The status also persists after departure. As a general rule the tail runs for up to 10 tax years after residence ends, and where the period of UK residence was shorter than 20 years the tail is reduced by one year for every year short of 20: 10 to 13 years of residence gives a 3-year tail, 14 years a 4-year tail, 15 years a 5-year tail. A separate rule applies to anyone who had deemed UK domicile on 30 October 2024: for them the tail is 3 years after becoming non-resident.
What falls within the net. Overseas assets owned outright, and overseas assets in a trust that the person set up or added to — in the second case a charge is possible even in respect of periods when they were not a long-term UK resident. The standard rate of inheritance tax is 40% and the nil-rate band is £325,000; both are fixed at those levels for the 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to 2028 tax years. Practical structuring options are covered on the pages about wills and inheritance and international tax and estate planning.
The tax return, deadlines and rates
A UK tax resident reports foreign income through a Self Assessment return. Even where foreign income ends up relieved under the FIG regime, the relief itself has to be claimed — which means a return still has to be filed. The reporting process is covered on the page about the Self Assessment tax return.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Tax year boundaries | 6 April to 5 April |
| Registering for Self Assessment | by 5 October after the end of the tax year |
| Paper return for 2025 to 2026 | by 31 October 2026 |
| Online return for 2025 to 2026 | by 31 January 2027 |
| Payment of tax for 2025 to 2026 | by 31 January 2027 |
| Personal Allowance, 2026 to 2027 | £12,570 (reduced where income exceeds £100,000) |
| Income Tax rates, 2026 to 2027 | 20% up to £50,270, 40% up to £125,140, 45% above |
The deadlines and rates above follow the official publications on Self Assessment deadlines and Income Tax rates, and apply to England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland has its own rates and band thresholds.
Split year treatment
If you arrived or left part way through a tax year, your status does not necessarily apply to the whole of it. Split year treatment divides the tax year into a UK part and an overseas part, with the overseas part treated as a period of non-residence. HMRC provides for eight sets of circumstances: Cases 1 to 3 apply to people leaving the UK and Cases 4 to 8 to people coming to the UK. The conditions for each Case are formal, they do not apply automatically to every move, and the treatment has to be reflected in the return.
Key takeaways
- Status is determined by the SRT for each tax year separately and does not depend on your visa
- The automatic residence threshold is 183 days; below it, days and ties decide together
- Domicile and the remittance basis of taxation were abolished on 6 April 2025
- Relief for new residents lasts four years, after at least 10 years of non-residence
- A FIG claim costs you the Personal Allowance and the CGT annual exempt amount
- Pre-reform offshore funds can be regularised through the TRF until the end of 2027 to 2028
- Overseas assets fall within inheritance tax after 10 years of residence out of 20
How your status is established: five stages
Establishing tax status is not a one-off certificate but work that runs for as long as your connection with the UK lasts. Below is the order in which Imperial & Legal handles such matters, from the first assessment to the annual recalculation.
Initial review of the position and travel calendar
Status calculation and eligibility check for the relief
Gathering supporting evidence and preparing the reporting
Filing the Self Assessment return and paying the tax
Annual recalculation of status and long-term planning
Common mistakes in establishing status
Most disputes arise not from elaborate structures but from a handful of recurring errors in the basic calculation.
- Counting days by the calendar year. The UK tax year starts on 6 April, and counting by the calendar almost always produces the wrong answer.
- Treating a visa as a tax status. Having no UK visa is no protection against residence, and holding one does not by itself make you resident.
- Relying on outdated non-dom material. Text presenting the remittance basis and the 15-of-20-years threshold as current law leads to decisions built on an abolished system.
- Claiming the FIG regime without doing the arithmetic. With modest foreign income, losing the Personal Allowance and the CGT exempt amount can outweigh the saving.
- Losing years of the relief window. The four years run consecutively from the start of residence and cannot be rolled over — an unused year simply disappears.
- Overlooking the country tie on departure. Leavers often remain resident because of it while continuing to regard themselves as non-resident.
- Not documenting travel. Without tickets, stamps and statements, evidencing a day count to HMRC several years later is extremely difficult.
Each of these is correctable, but by then the correction happens in correspondence with HMRC rather than in advance — and that costs more.
Tax solutions
Tax status and reporting for UK residents and new arrivals
Status determination
Calculation under the statutory residence test for every tax year.
Four-year FIG relief
Eligibility check and preparation of the claim in your return.
Self Assessment return
Preparation and filing of reporting on UK and foreign income.
Inheritance and assets
Assessment of long-term residence consequences for overseas assets.
Examples from practice
Three typical situations show how the same rules produce different outcomes.
An entrepreneur arriving because of a spouse’s job. She spends more than 183 days in the UK in the very first year, so she is automatically resident. If she had not been a UK resident for the previous 12 years, the FIG regime is available: foreign income from an online business can be taken out of the UK base for four years and still moved freely into a UK bank account. The calculation has to be done before the end of the first tax year, or the first of the four years is lost.
An investor living between two countries. He spends around 100 days a year in the UK, has accommodation available here and adult children, and his wife is a UK resident. An arriver at 91 to 120 days needs at least three ties: the accommodation and family ties are already met, and 40 working days would add a third. The difference between 39 and 40 working days decides status for the whole year.
A family leaving the UK after 12 years. Long-term resident status has already arisen, and the inheritance tax tail will run for about three years after residence ends. The country tie also counts for leavers, so even 46 days a year with three ties will preserve UK residence. Both the calendar and the structure of overseas assets need planning — this is covered in more detail in the section on tax planning for HNWI.
Client stories on tax status
Tax planning for married couple moving to England to settle (Indefinite Leave to Remain)
Tobias and Hannah moved to the UK from Austria. The couple received a pre-settled status, which is granted to EU citizens, permitting them to relocate...
Tax planning for a foreign person when moving and buying a property in England
Pablo is originally from South America. He has been living in Britain for several years. His business involves supplying construction equipment to...
Tax planning in England for a client with an investor visa
Andy is a long-standing client of Imperial & Legal. We helped him to obtain a UK investor visa and settle in London. He is originally from South Africa, but he changes locations quite often to...
Tax Returns for Client Who Applies for Indefinite Leave to Remain
Anna relocated to the United Kingdom from New Zealand. She had been happy there with her husband Frederik. He had had a successful automobile business....
English tax return for a client with an Innovator visa
Santiago came to the UK from Costa Rica. We knew him from when he applied for his Innovator's visa to the UK. Imperial & Legal helped him to put together the necessary documents and...
UK tax return for a spouse visa holder
Paola and James are an international couple. She's originally from Brazil. And he is Irish, but now living in London. They share a common sphere of activity - they both work as engineers in the...
One of those clients described why the question of status only came up for her after the move rather than before it.
When my husband got an interesting job offer from the UK, we immediately decided to relocate. I run an online business and can work from anywhere in the world. However, I understood that it was not so easy since I received payments from different countries and feared that I might get into trouble with tax authorities. That’s why, I decided to contact Imperial & Legal’s specialists who helped me do everything right.
UK tax residency is a calculation rather than a formality: it rests on a travel calendar, five formal ties and dates that cannot be moved. Since the 2025 reform there are fewer decision points, but each one is tighter: four years of relief, three years of the transitional facility for pre-reform funds, and ten years before overseas assets come within inheritance tax.
The right order of steps is the same for arrivers and leavers: calculate status for each year, then choose the reliefs that apply, then claim them in the return on time. Related questions — property taxes and the wider approach to tax solutions — are worth considering alongside status rather than separately. The questions most often raised in consultations are set out below.
