Free · cited to HMRC
Leaving the UK
The UK decides your residence by counting days and weighing ties, and it reserves the right to tax you on the way back in. This is the whole record, cited, before it is personalised to your dates and your ties.
- 16 days
- Non-resident under
- HM Revenue and Customs
- 183 days
- Resident at or above
- HM Revenue and Customs
- 5 years + 1 day
- Clean break needs
- HM Revenue and Customs
- 6 Apr to 5 Apr
- Tax year runs
- HM Revenue and Customs
Sources verified 2026-09-29
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When you stop being a tax resident
The Statutory Residence Test runs in a fixed order. You are non-resident if you meet an automatic overseas test; if you do not, the automatic UK tests and then the sufficient ties test decide it.
Days in a year
What each mark means
- <16You are usually non-resident if you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK in the tax year.
- <46Fewer than 46 days keeps you non-resident if you have not been UK resident in the three previous tax years.
- 183+You are resident under the automatic UK tests if you spent 183 days or more in the UK.
16 or 46 days
You are usually non-resident if you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK in the tax year, or fewer than 46 if you have not been UK resident in the three previous tax years.
HM Revenue and Customs
35 hrs / 91 days
Working abroad full-time also makes you non-resident: an average of at least 35 hours a week, with fewer than 91 days in the UK and no more than 30 of those spent working.
HM Revenue and Customs
183 days
You are resident under the automatic UK tests if you spent 183 days or more in the UK, or your only home was in the UK for 91 days or more in a row and you stayed in it at least 30 days, or you worked full-time in the UK for any 365-day period touching the tax year.
HM Revenue and Customs
Cases 1 to 3
You are resident for a whole tax year, but that year can be split into a UK part and an overseas part. A departure engages split year cases 1 to 3; where more than one applies, priority ordering decides which, and from what date.
HM Revenue and Customs
No treaty relief
Sole UK residence means you were resident for the year and at no point in it were you treaty non-resident. It is the unit the temporary non-residence rules are counted in.
HM Revenue and Customs
What leaving costs
The UK charges no exit tax on departure. It does something else instead: if you come back too soon, it reaches back and taxes what you received while you were away.
Charged on return
Return after a period of temporary non-residence and you may be taxed, in the year you return, on income and gains you received or remitted during the whole period you were away.
HM Revenue and Customs
No charge on leaving
Leaving is not the taxable event. Once you have left and ceased UK residence, gains you make afterwards are not chargeable unless your non-residence was temporary and you resume UK residence within the window.
HM Revenue and Customs
CGT on return
A capital gain you make while temporarily non-resident, and not already charged some other way, is chargeable to Capital Gains Tax for the period you return in.
HM Revenue and Customs
Post-departure assets
Assets you acquire after leaving and dispose of while away are not normally caught. HMRC lists exceptions for assets connected with your earlier UK residence.
HM Revenue and Customs
Double tax relief
A gain can be taxed abroad in the year it arises and again by the UK for the year you return. Where you paid foreign tax on it, you may be able to claim relief for double taxation.
HM Revenue and Customs
4 of 7 years
You are temporarily non-resident if you had sole UK residence in 4 or more of the 7 tax years before you left and your period of non-residence lasts 5 years or less.
HM Revenue and Customs
5 years + 1 day
Above 5 years the rules stop applying, and HMRC means 5 years plus one day. Leaving on 4 May 2015 and returning on 4 May 2020 is not long enough.
HM Revenue and Customs
Property excepted
As a non-resident you do not normally pay UK tax when you sell an asset. UK property and land are the exception.
HM Revenue and Customs
Day after, day before
Your period of temporary non-residence starts the day after the last residence period in which you had sole UK residence, and ends the day before the next one begins.
HM Revenue and Customs
Leaving is half the question.
Everything above is the published record, and it is true of anyone leaving the UK. The other half is yours alone: where you would go, which residence routes you actually qualify for, and then which of these rules bite your profile, in what order, and by when. That is your Exit Plan, and it starts from your free matches.
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What you have to file, and when
Telling HMRC you have gone is a filing, not an email, and which form you use depends on whether you already complete a tax return.
One full tax year
You must tell HMRC if you are leaving the UK to live abroad permanently, or going to work abroad full-time for at least one full tax year. Holidays and business trips do not trigger it.
HM Revenue and Customs
Form P85
If you do not normally complete a Self Assessment return, you tell HMRC on form P85, sending parts 2 and 3 of your P45 with it. Continuing to work for a UK company abroad still means filing the P85.
HM Revenue and Customs
SA109, by post
If you do complete a Self Assessment return, you tell HMRC through the residence section, form SA109, and it has to go by post. HMRC's online service cannot be used to tell them you are leaving.
HM Revenue and Customs
31 January online
A Self Assessment return for a tax year is due by 31 January after that tax year ends if you file online, or by 31 October if you file on paper. If HMRC's notice to file reaches you late, the deadline can instead be 3 months from the notice.
Taxes Management Act 1970
5 previous years
Living abroad, you still usually file a Self Assessment return if you have taxable savings interest from UK banks or building societies, or a pension outside the UK and were UK resident in one of the previous 5 tax years.
HM Revenue and Customs
52 weeks
Working in a country with no UK social security agreement, you pay UK National Insurance for the first 52 weeks if your employer has a place of business in the UK and you lived in the UK immediately before starting.
HM Revenue and Customs
Certificate of coverage
Working in a country that does have an agreement, a certificate of coverage evidences that you pay National Insurance in the UK and do not owe local social security contributions.
HM Revenue and Customs
Companies, not people
The controlled foreign company rules apply to companies resident outside the UK that are controlled by UK residents. When a charge arises it is charged on each UK company holding a relevant interest in the foreign company, not on an individual.
HMRC
TIOPA 2010 Part 9A
A charge reaches only a foreign company's chargeable profits, meaning profits that pass through the CFC charge gateway as artificially diverted from the UK, and only where none of the exemptions applies. Chapter 2 of Part 9A of TIOPA 2010 sets out the steps.
HMRC
Place of management
A company you keep after you leave the UK has a permanent establishment wherever it has a fixed place of business through which its business is wholly or partly carried on, and a place of management is the first thing the OECD Model lists as one.
OECD
Who signs, where
A company also has a permanent establishment in a country where a person acting for it habitually concludes its contracts, or plays the principal role leading to contracts it routinely concludes without material change, unless that person is an independent agent acting in the ordinary course of their own business.
OECD
Two tests
A company is resident in the UK for tax purposes if it is incorporated in the UK, with certain exceptions, or if the central management and control of its business is in the UK.
HMRC
Treaty non-resident
A company that is UK resident under either test but also resident in a treaty partner's country, where the treaty tie-breaker awards residence to that country, is treaty non-resident, and CTA09/S18 provides that it is not resident for UK tax purposes.
HMRC
Incorporation rule
The incorporation rule at CTA09/S14 states that, with certain exceptions, a UK incorporated company is resident in the UK for tax purposes, and a UK incorporated company claiming to be non-resident other than through a treaty is a case HMRC refers to its base protection policy team.
HMRC
When control counts
The place of central management and control decides residence only for companies not incorporated in the UK, and for UK incorporated companies within an exception to the incorporation rule whose central management and control is outside the UK.
HMRC
Who really controls
Where central management and control sits is primarily a question of fact, and it is the highest level of control of the business that counts, whether exercised by the board in accordance with the articles or by an individual shareholder who has in fact assumed management and control of the business.
HMRC
These are the charges on the way out. For the income tax on the other side, the Tax Delta puts your own salary or self-employed profit against every destination rate OmniFlag can cite, each from the government page that sets it. Open the Tax Delta
The four that catch people
16 days
Fewer than this many days in the UK and an automatic overseas test makes you non-resident, or 46 days if you were not resident in the previous three tax years.
HM Revenue and Customs
183 days
At or above this, an automatic UK test makes you resident regardless of where else you live.
HM Revenue and Customs
5 years + 1 day
Stay away for less than this and returning can pull the income and gains of your whole absence back into UK charge.
HM Revenue and Customs
4 of 7
Sole UK residence in this many of the 7 tax years before departure is what makes the temporary non-residence rules apply to you at all.
HM Revenue and Customs
What people get wrong about leaving the UK
- Wrong
I was out of the country for four years, so the UK has no claim on that time.
The rule
Four years is inside the temporary non-residence window. If you had sole UK residence in 4 or more of the 7 tax years before you left, returning within 5 years lets HMRC tax income and gains from the whole period abroad in your year of return. The break has to exceed 5 years, meaning 5 years and a day.
RDR3 Statutory Residence Test, HM Revenue and Customs
- Wrong
I spent under 183 days in the UK, so I am non-resident.
The rule
183 days makes you resident, but staying under it does not make you non-resident. You are non-resident only if you meet an automatic overseas test, such as under 16 days, or fail the automatic UK tests and the sufficient ties test. Having your only home in the UK for 91 days in a row can make you resident on far fewer than 183 days.
Tax on foreign income: UK residence and tax, HM Revenue and Customs
- Wrong
I told HMRC I was leaving through my online account.
The rule
If you complete a Self Assessment return, the residence section is form SA109 and it must be sent by post. HMRC's online services cannot be used to tell them you are leaving the UK, so an online submission does not do it.
Tax if you leave the UK to live abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
- Wrong
Once I am non-resident the UK stops taxing me entirely.
The rule
You usually still pay UK tax on UK income. What changes is that foreign income falls out of charge. Rent, some pensions and UK savings interest can remain taxable, and a double-taxation agreement relieves being taxed twice rather than removing the UK charge.
Tax on your UK income if you live abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
- Wrong
I left in November, so the UK tax year splits there automatically.
The rule
Split year treatment is not automatic. You are resident for the whole year unless one of the departure cases 1 to 3 is met, each with its own conditions, and where several apply a priority ordering decides which case governs and from what date.
RDR3 Statutory Residence Test, HM Revenue and Customs
Questions people ask about leaving the UK and form P85
What is form P85, and do I need to file it?
Form P85 is how you tell HMRC you are leaving if you do not normally complete a Self Assessment return, sent with parts 2 and 3 of your P45. You have to tell HMRC if you are leaving to live abroad permanently, or going to work abroad full-time for at least one full tax year. If you do complete Self Assessment, the residence section, form SA109, does the same job.
Tax if you leave the UK to live abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
Can I tell HMRC I am leaving online?
Not through HMRC's own online services. If you complete a Self Assessment return, the residence section is form SA109 and it has to go by post. Holidays and business trips do not trigger the requirement to tell HMRC at all.
Tax if you leave the UK to live abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
How does the Statutory Residence Test work?
You are usually non-resident if you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK in the tax year, or fewer than 46 if you were not UK resident in the three previous tax years. You are resident if you spent 183 days or more. Staying under 183 days does not make you non-resident on its own: between the two, the automatic UK tests and the sufficient ties test decide it.
Tax on foreign income: UK residence and tax, HM Revenue and Customs
What is split year treatment when you leave the UK?
You are resident for a whole tax year, but that year can be split into a UK part and an overseas part. It is not automatic: a departure has to meet one of split year cases 1 to 3, each with its own conditions, and where more than one applies a priority ordering decides which case governs and from what date.
RDR3 Statutory Residence Test, HM Revenue and Customs
When does the UK tax year actually end?
5 April, with the next one starting 6 April. Every day count in the Statutory Residence Test is measured against that year, not the calendar year, which is what makes a December departure land differently from a June one.
Tax if you leave the UK to live abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
Do I keep paying National Insurance while I work abroad?
Usually you pay social security where you work. In a country with no UK agreement you pay UK National Insurance for the first 52 weeks if your employer has a UK place of business and you lived in the UK immediately before. In an agreement country, a certificate of coverage shows you pay in the UK instead of locally.
National Insurance if you work abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
Can I still make voluntary National Insurance contributions?
You may be able to pay voluntary contributions while working abroad. Whether you are eligible depends on your circumstances, and it is worth checking before a gap opens rather than after.
National Insurance if you work abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
Will I be taxed twice on the same income?
The country you move to may tax your UK income. Where it has a double-taxation agreement with the UK, you can claim relief in the UK so the same income is not taxed twice. If you have already claimed under an agreement, you do not need to report that income to HMRC again.
Tax on your UK income if you live abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
Does selling my UK house after I leave trigger UK tax?
Non-residents do not normally pay UK tax on disposals, but UK property and land are the stated exception, so a UK house is exactly the asset that stays in charge after you go.
Tax on your UK income if you live abroad, HM Revenue and Customs
This is the general record. Your dates are what make it a plan.
Everything above is true of anyone leaving the UK, which is why it is free. What it cannot tell you is which of these applies to you, in what order, against your assets and the date you actually go. That sequencing is the Exit Plan, part of Pulse: built from your own answers, cited to the same government sources, and re-derived when they change.
Free. No card. Every page about a place stays free.
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OmniFlag helps you research and plan. It is not a law firm or tax advisor and does not give legal or tax advice. Confirm anything you act on with a licensed professional before you file it.