A simple step-by-step guide.
This tool walks you through three checks, in order. These cover what's known as the statutory residence test.
If you moved to or from the UK part way through the year, the year can be split into a UK part, where you're taxed as a UK resident, and an overseas part, where you're mostly only taxed on UK income. Finish the check above and you'll be offered this as a next step.
Worth knowing
Most people are not caught by this. If you leave the UK, work abroad and pay tax on your salary or self-employment income there, that income is not suddenly taxed again just because you later return to the UK. The five-year rule is about specific things such as capital gains, dividends, pension lump sums and income that was deliberately delayed until you got back.
If you leave the UK and become non-resident, but then come back within five full tax years, HMRC may look again at certain income and gains you received while you were away. This is called temporary non-residence. It matters most for things you received during the overseas period but only deal with after you return.
Income and gains that can be caught on return include: certain lump sums from pensions, dividends from UK companies, capital gains, and some income that was deliberately delayed until you came back. If you set up a company abroad to hold investments, the rules on close companies can also pull profits back into the UK tax net when you return.
Worth knowing
A company is UK tax resident if it is registered in the UK, or if its key management decisions are made in the UK.
A UK-resident company pays UK corporation tax on its profits and gains from anywhere in the world. Whether you then pay personal tax on any drawings from the company depends on your tax residence for that year.
I kept seeing the same questions pop up on various overseas workers groups and platforms, so I vibe-coded this site in about 90 minutes to save everyone some time. You're welcome!
This is the classic question, and the answer is NO. If you are a UK resident, dividends paid to you from a company in the UAE, or anywhere else, are taxable in the UK. To get out of the UK tax net you need to leave the UK yourself, per the tests above.
Mostly, but not entirely. Non-residents still pay UK tax on UK income, such as rent from a UK property, some UK dividends and bank interest. They are also still within UK capital gains tax on UK residential property (but not normally on shares).
Usually yes. If you were not resident in any of the previous 3 years, a similar rule lets you spend up to 45 days in the UK without becoming resident. Nice!
You only need to file if you have UK income that needs reporting, you have capital gains on UK property, or HMRC has asked you to. If you have no UK income, you usually do not need to file.
A day counts if you were in the UK at midnight. Going to Paris for lunch and coming back before midnight doesn't wipe the day. You need to be out of the UK at midnight.
The UK cares how many days you spend there, where you work, and what connections you keep. Other countries have different systems. This site is about the UK only.
No. A holiday or extended backpacking trip doesn't create a split year. Split-year treatment only applies to the eight specific situations in the calculator, such as leaving to work full-time abroad, or coming to the UK to live and work. Use the split-year tool above to see if you qualify.
A work day is any day you do more than 3 hours of work in the UK. One quick email probably won't hit that. Three hours of emails, calls and spreadsheets will. If HMRC investigates, you better have good records!
Whether 90 days is fine depends on whether you were resident before, whether you work in the UK, and how many connections you still have. Generally, most people working abroad get 90 days, but remember, only 30 of those can be work days in the UK. Trip over that, you'll fail this automatic test, and be down to the "sufficient ties".
No. Residence is about days, work, and ties to the UK. You can hold ten passports and still be UK resident if you spend enough time in the UK.
It might work initially, but 99% of the time it will catch up with you. If you need to file, file. If you're not sure whether you need to, the answer is probably worth finding out before they write to you.
I don't. I run an investment business. Feel free to contact me about it.
You can leave the UK and become non-resident if you genuinely reduce your UK footprint. Whether that's fair depends on your point of view. Some people think taxing anyone who has lived in the UK for a number of years is reasonable, others think once you've (genuinely) left you shouldn't be taxed by the UK government on your overseas income or business interests. It's also a question of who has paid in and who has taken out over a lifetime. Someone who worked in the UK for thirty years and paid a lot of tax may feel they have earned the right to leave and pay tax somewhere else. Someone who left the UK straight after university, never paid much in, but then made a lot of money abroad may look like a different case. And someone who returns later in life, perhaps as a pensioner using the NHS, may become a net drain on the system again. So the fairness question shifts depending on whether you are looking at one year, a working lifetime, or an entire life. But the rules are what they are for a reason. The UK doesn't really have the economic clout to run citizenship based taxation.
Crown servants, diplomats and armed forces personnel posted abroad are still counted as UK tax residents, so they keep filing UK tax returns and paying UK tax on their employment income.
If you have a question about this site, or spot any errors, drop a message below.