Moving abroad or to the UK: your residence status

Whether you count as resident in the UK for tax is decided by the statutory residence test, a set of rules that HMRC applies to each tax year as a whole. The test looks first at clear-cut cases: days spent in the UK, full-time work overseas, and where your only home is. If none of those settles it, it weighs how many days you spent here against your UK connections, such as family, accommodation and work.

The single most important number is 183. If you spend 183 days or more in the UK in a tax year, you are UK resident for that year, and there is no need to consider any other tests¹. Below that, the answer depends on your history over the previous three tax years and on the ties you keep here. A tax year runs from 6 April in one year to 5 April in the next², so a move made in, say, September is still assessed across the full year that began the previous April.

Residence status matters because it decides which income the UK can tax. Non-residents generally stop paying UK tax on foreign income, but UK income, such as rent from property here, usually stays within UK tax. Residents pay UK tax on their worldwide income. Getting the status right also affects what you must tell HMRC, whether you file a Self Assessment return, and in some cases Capital Gains Tax when you sell a UK home.

Residence is decided for the whole tax year

The statutory residence test never asks simply where you were on the day you moved. It asks whether you were resident in the UK across the whole tax year, 6 April to 5 April the next year¹. That is why someone who flies out in June can still be UK resident for the year, and why someone who arrives in February can be resident for the whole year that started the previous April.

This whole-year approach is what makes the day counts matter so much. Every day you are in the UK at midnight counts as a UK day, and the totals are compared against thresholds that depend on your residence history. If you were UK resident in one or more of the three tax years before the one you are considering, the thresholds are stricter, because the rules assume your life is still anchored here. If you were resident in none of those three years, the thresholds are more generous.

The test itself is split into parts: automatic overseas tests, automatic UK tests, the sufficient ties test, rules for deceased persons, and split-year rules¹. It is applied in order, and the first part that gives a clear answer settles your status.

One point worth knowing is that the statutory residence test has not always been the law. It was introduced for 2013 to 2014 onwards, and there are transitional provisions for people who were resident but not ordinarily resident under the old rules at the end of 2012 to 2013, whose income continued to be taxed under the pre-test rules for a further period⁴. For almost everyone now, the statutory residence test is the starting point.

Automatic overseas tests: when you are clearly non-resident

The automatic overseas tests are the cases where the rules say outright that you are not UK resident for the year. If one of them applies, you are non-resident and nothing else needs to be considered¹.

There are three of them, and each carries its own day limit:

The difference between the first and second tests reflects your history. Someone who has lived in the UK for years and then moves abroad is treated more strictly: they must keep UK visits under 16 days to be clearly non-resident in the first year away. Someone arriving from abroad, who was not UK resident in any of the previous three years, can spend up to 45 days here and still be clearly non-resident.

The third test is the one that catches many people who move abroad for work. If you work full-time overseas across the tax year and spend fewer than 91 days in the UK, you are non-resident, even if that is more days than the other tests allow. This matters for people who keep visiting the UK for family or meetings while based abroad.

A related rule protects students and holiday workers. If you normally live and study in the UK but work abroad during the holidays, for tax purposes you still count as a UK resident for that tax year⁵. A summer job overseas does not break UK residence.

Automatic UK tests: when you are clearly resident

The automatic UK tests work the other way: if one applies, you are UK resident for the year, regardless of any other connections you have abroad¹.

The first is the 183-day rule already mentioned: 183 days or more in the UK in the tax year makes you a UK resident, with no need to consider any other tests¹. This is the test that most often decides the position of people who move abroad part-way through a year, because a long stretch of the year spent here pushes them over the threshold.

The second concerns your home. You are UK resident if, for a period of at least 91 consecutive days, you had a home in the UK, you were present in that home for at least 30 days falling in the tax year, and either you had no home overseas or you were present in any overseas home for fewer than 30 days in the tax year¹. In practice this catches people who keep a house or flat here, use it for a month or more across the year, and do not genuinely live in a home abroad.

The practical effect of these tests is that keeping a UK home is not, by itself, fatal, but keeping one and using it heavily is. Someone who moves abroad, rents out their UK house and stays with family on brief visits is in a very different position from someone who keeps the house empty for their own use and spends long summer stretches in it.

Sufficient ties: counting days and UK connections

If no automatic test settles your status, the sufficient ties test does the work. It compares the number of days you spent in the UK with how many UK ties you have. The more ties, the fewer days you can spend here without becoming resident.

The ties are: a family tie, an accommodation tie, a work tie and a 90 day tie. If you were not UK resident in any of the three tax years before the one you are considering, you check against those four¹. If you were UK resident in one or more of those three years, you also have to consider a fifth, the country tie¹.

For someone who was UK resident in one or more of the three previous tax years, the number of ties needed to become resident again depends on days:

So a returning resident who spends 46 to 90 days in the UK needs at least 3 UK ties to become resident, while the same person spending over 120 days needs only 1¹. For someone who was UK resident in none of the three previous years, the position is stricter at the low end: all 4 UK ties are needed at the lowest day band¹.

The ties themselves are what you would expect. A family tie is about close family members being in the UK. An accommodation tie is about having a place to live available here. A work tie is about doing substantive work in the UK. The 90 day tie looks at how many days you spent in the UK in previous tax years. The country tie, which only applies to people who were recently UK resident, is about the country where you spent the most days in the year.

Because the test is mechanical, keeping records of travel dates matters. The difference between 45 and 46 days, or between 90 and 91, can change the answer, and the burden of proving your day count falls on you if HMRC asks.

Split-year treatment when you leave or arrive part-way through a year

Split-year treatment is what stops a mid-year move from being taxed as if nothing changed. Without it, someone who leaves the UK in October would be resident for the whole tax year and taxed on their worldwide income for all of it. With it, the year is divided into a UK part and an overseas part, and different rules apply to each.

Split years arise in defined cases. On the departure side, if in a year in which you are UK resident there is an actual or deemed departure from the UK, then you will need to consider split year cases 1 to 3¹. There are equivalent cases for arrivals. The conditions are specific: they cover things like starting full-time work abroad, and the circumstances of your departure or arrival.

Split-year treatment is not automatic. You have to meet the conditions of one of the split-year cases, and if you do not, the whole year is treated one way or the other. This is why the question "am I non-resident from the day I leave?" has no simple answer: the test looks at the year as a whole, and split-year treatment is a separate set of rules that may or may not divide it.

A separate set of rules, often called the temporary non-residence rules, applies to people who leave and come back. They bite if you return to the UK within 5 years of moving abroad, or 5 full tax years if you left before 6 April 2013, and were UK resident in at least 4 of the 7 tax years before moving abroad⁶. The rules also apply where your period of non-residence lasts 5 years or less¹. If your period of non-residence is more than 5 years, that is 5 years plus one day, these special tax rules do not apply¹. In short, a short spell abroad does not reset your UK tax position, and some income and gains can be taxed as if you had never left.

What your status means for the tax you pay

Residence status decides the reach of UK income tax. UK residents pay tax on worldwide income. Non-residents generally stop paying UK tax on foreign income, but UK-source income is different: if you live abroad and rent out property in the UK, have taxable savings interest from UK banks or building societies, have a pension outside the UK and were UK resident in one of the 5 previous tax years, or have any other untaxed UK income, you usually have to send a Self Assessment tax return⁷. The Non-resident Landlord Scheme governs how tax is taken from UK rent while you are abroad.

Selling a UK home from abroad has its own rules. If you are a non-UK resident selling UK property, you must tell HMRC within 60 days of transferring ownership, even if there is no tax to pay⁸. On the tax itself, in most cases you do not pay any tax for any tax years in which you, your spouse or civil partner spent at least 90 days in your UK home, provided you nominated it as your only or main home when telling HMRC⁸. This connects directly to Private Residence Relief and to Capital Gains Tax on property sales.

Foreign income while you are UK resident is taxed here, and where another country also taxes the same income, relief from double taxation may be available. You may need to apply for a certificate of residence to prove you are eligible for relief if you have not yet paid tax on the foreign income⁹. If you have income or gains from abroad that should have been declared, the Worldwide Disclosure Facility is the route for telling HMRC.

It is possible to be resident in the UK and another country at the same time, because each country applies its own rules. Where that happens, a double taxation agreement usually allocates taxing rights between them, and the certificate of residence is part of making that work⁹.

The wider framework is also changing. A policy measure announced in 2024 replaces the concept of domicile as a relevant connecting factor in the UK tax system with a system based on tax residence¹⁰. Under the new foreign income and gains regime, you are a qualifying new resident if it is one of your first 4 years of UK residence after a period of at least 10 consecutive tax years of non-UK residence¹¹. Inheritance Tax has its own long-term residence test: an individual is a long-term UK resident if they have been resident in the UK for at least 10 out of the last 20 tax years, and after becoming non-resident they remain in scope for a minimum of 3 years and a maximum of 10 years depending on how long they lived here¹². See inheritance tax for how that charge works.

Telling HMRC when you leave or arrive

You must tell HMRC if you are leaving the UK to live abroad permanently, or if you are going to work abroad full-time for at least one full tax year³. Foreign nationals leaving the UK must also tell HMRC¹⁴. The reason is practical: HMRC needs the information to work out the right amount of tax, and your tax code and filing obligations change when your residence changes.

On returning, you may need to register for Self Assessment, for example if you start working for yourself or have other income or gains from the UK or abroad⁶. Employees with no other untaxed income generally need not register. If you were abroad for less than a full tax year, you stayed UK resident, and this means you usually pay UK tax on foreign income for the entire time you were away⁶.

Moving within the UK also has a reporting duty of its own. You must tell HMRC of your new address if you move to or from Scotland, because Scottish Income Tax rates differ from the rest of the UK¹⁵. The rules on income tax bands and tax codes apply differently north of the border.

Benefits and the NHS use different residence tests

The statutory residence test is a tax test. It does not decide your entitlement to benefits or NHS treatment, which run on their own rules.

The main benefits test is the habitual residence test, which has 2 elements: a legal right to reside test and an objective assessment of factual evidence of habitual residence¹⁷. If you have been living abroad, or travelling abroad, for more than 3 months, you may not be eligible for UK benefits that are subject to the test¹⁸. For income-related benefits, you must have lived in the UK for a specific amount of time, usually 5 years¹⁸. So a person can be non-resident for tax but still pass the benefits test, or the reverse: the two systems answer different questions.

NHS treatment has its own rules too. If you come back to the UK specifically to get hospital treatment, or an NHS check-up for an existing illness or injury, you will normally have to pay, unless there is a healthcare agreement with your new country of residence or you qualify for another exemption¹⁹. Residence for tax and residence for healthcare are not the same thing.

Where to check your status and get help

The statutory residence test is set out in full in HMRC's guidance note, RDR3, which works through every test and tie with examples¹. HMRC's broader guidance on residence, domicile and the remittance basis, RDR1, covers the wider rules, including how leaving the UK to work in the EU affects your residence status now that the UK is no longer an EU member: if you first worked for the EU after 31 December 2020, your residence status does change²⁰.

For practical help, HMRC's guidance on moving or retiring abroad is the starting point for what to tell them and when³. If you need proof of your benefits or State Pension while abroad, there is a service that covers Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance for adults, Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance, Pension Credit, Personal Independence Payment and the State Pension²¹. The HMRC app and online account lets you check your tax code and filing obligations, and if a decision goes against you, the routes are an HMRC complaint or, ultimately, a tribunal appeal.

Where the position is complicated, such as a mid-year move with a UK home kept and foreign income arriving, the rules interact in ways that are hard to check alone. HMRC's published guidance is the authority, and it is free. Be wary of anyone promising a guaranteed non-resident position; the day counts and tie tests are mechanical, and the answer follows from the facts of your own year.