United Kingdom · Tax regime
4-year Foreign Income and Gains regime
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Last verified July 2026
Live since 6 April 2025, replacing the remittance basis. Finance Bill 2025-26 makes a series of technical corrective amendments, most with retrospective effect to 6 April 2025.
This is the single most consequential change in European private wealth taxation this decade. The UK has moved from a system where a non-dom could shelter offshore wealth for 15 years to one where relief lasts exactly 4 years, and where the concept of domicile has been deleted from the tax code entirely. The 4 years are also cleaner than the old remittance basis. Relief applies whether or not you bring the money onshore, so FIG-relieved income can be spent freely in the UK.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- There is no charge to enter. That marks a real change from the old remittance basis charge of GBP 30k–60k a year. The real cost lies elsewhere, in the surrendered personal allowance and CGT annual exempt amount, plus the compliance burden of quantifying and disclosing every pound of relieved foreign income and gains on a UK tax return.
- Route type
- Tax regime, not a visa
- Physical presence
- This is governed by the Statutory Residence Test. The regime requires UK residence, so there is no minimum-days planning to do. The real planning happens beforehand, in securing the 10-year clean break.
- Family
- Each individual qualifies on their own residence history. There is no family unit and no derivative benefit for a spouse
- Permanent residency
- Not applicable. This is a tax regime, not an immigration route. You will need separate leave to remain.
- Citizenship
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- UK tax resident under the Statutory Residence Testat least 10 consecutive tax years of non-UK residence immediately before the first qualifying yearwithin the first 4 tax years of UK residenceclaim made through Self Assessment, with the relieved income and gains quantified and disclosed
What can go wrong
- Four years is not a strategy. It is a countdown. Year 5 taxes worldwide income and gains at full UK rates with no transition. There is no extension, no roll-over of unused years, and no second bite.
- The 10-year prior non-residence test is absolute. A single UK-resident tax year inside the previous decade disqualifies you entirely. That includes a split year, or a year of accidental residence under the Statutory Residence Test.
- Claiming FIG costs you the income tax and CGT personal allowances, the Married Couple's Allowance and Marriage Allowance. For someone with modest foreign income, the claim can actually lose money. It needs to be modelled year by year, not claimed on reflex.
- Relieved FIG still counts toward adjusted net income. That drags in the High Income Child Benefit Charge and affects tax-free childcare entitlements.
- You must quantify and disclose the relieved amounts on the return. The old remittance basis let you keep offshore affairs opaque. FIG requires you to hand HMRC a full schedule of the very income you are not paying tax on.
- If you break residence mid-window and become non-resident, those years are simply lost. The remaining years survive, but the clock does not pause.