United Kingdom Tax Residency (Statutory Residence Test)

Key parameters
Threshold	15, 45, 90, 120, 182 days
Period / Window	UK tax year (6 Apr – 5 Apr)
Counting	Nights (midnight rule)
Additional requirements	Previous 3 tax years, sufficient ties test

There is no single day limit under the SRT. Yours depends on your UK ties and on whether you were UK resident in any of the previous 3 tax years, and it can be as low as 15 days or as high as 182.

The SRT checks three things, in order, and stops at the first one that gives an answer.

1. Automatic overseas tests. Spend under 16 days in the UK if you were resident in any of the previous 3 tax years, or under 46 days if you were not, and you are non-resident regardless of your ties.
2. Automatic UK tests. Spend 183 days or more, or your only home is in the UK, or you work full-time in the UK, and you are resident regardless of your ties.
3. Sufficient ties test. If neither test settles it, your day count and your number of UK ties decide it together.

Between the automatic thresholds, your day count is combined with your UK ties — the fewer days you spend, the more ties it takes to make you resident.

• Family tie — your spouse, civil partner, live-in partner or child under 18 is UK resident.
• Accommodation tie — somewhere you can live in the UK is available to you for 91 continuous days or more and you spend at least one night there.
• Work tie — you do more than 3 hours of work in the UK on at least 40 days.
• 90-day tie — you spent more than 90 days in the UK in either of the previous 2 tax years.
• Country tie — the UK is where you spent the most midnights in the tax year.

Most people never need the third stage: either they clearly spend too little time in the UK to be resident, or they clearly spend enough (183+ days) to be resident automatically. The ties test exists for the middle ground, where a handful of connections to the UK can tip a moderate day count into residency.

• The deeming rule. If you have 3 or more UK ties, were resident in one of the previous 3 tax years, and spent more than 30 days in the UK without staying to midnight, every such day beyond the first 30 is added to your day count anyway.
• Split-year treatment. In the year you arrive in or leave the UK, the tax year can sometimes be split into a resident part and a non-resident part, so you are only taxed as a resident for part of the year.
• The FIG regime. Since April 2025, people who become UK resident after 10+ years outside the UK can claim relief on foreign income and gains for their first 4 years of residence — this replaced the old non-dom/remittance basis and sits alongside, not inside, the SRT.
• Accommodation you do not own still counts. A rented flat, a holiday home, or a room kept for you at a relative's house can create an accommodation tie if it is available long enough and you stay there.

Getting your residence status wrong exposes you to a penalty on top of the tax and interest owed, ranging from 30% for a careless mistake to 100% if it's deliberate and concealed. Because residency errors usually involve offshore income, His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) often applies its stricter Failure to Correct regime instead, with penalties starting at 100% of the unpaid tax and reaching 200% in the worst cases. Professional tax advice is strongly recommended in situations like this.

A recent leaver who kept a UK flat

You moved abroad last year but kept your London flat, and your partner still lives in the UK. You spend 70 days in the UK this tax year. A family tie, an accommodation tie and a 90-day tie give you 3 ties — enough to make you resident in the 46–90 day band.

A returning worker mid-year

You've lived abroad for five years and move back in October, spending 130 days in the UK and working there. Not resident in the previous 3 tax years, your 2 ties (work and accommodation) are enough at 121–182 days, so you are resident — split-year treatment may still cover the months before you arrived.

Working abroad with occasional UK trips

You work full-time overseas and visit the UK only 85 days a year, doing UK work on 12 of them. That satisfies the automatic overseas test for full-time overseas workers, so you are non-resident outright — your ties are never checked.

• HMRC — RDR3: Statutory Residence Test guidance note
• HMRC — Residence and FIG Regime Manual: Statutory Residence Test (RFIG20000)
• GOV.UK — Tax on foreign income: UK residence and tax
• Finance Act 2013, Schedule 45 — Statutory residence test