Non-dom status is gone. In its place is a four-year exemption for genuinely new UK residents, and nothing for anyone already here. Here's what that actually changes for UK nomads.

Key Numbers to Know (2026)

• Non-dom status
  Detail: Abolished from April 2025

• FIG regime (Foreign Income and Gains)
  Detail: 4-year exemption for genuinely new UK residents

• Statutory Residence Test (SRT)
  Detail: In force since 2013 — automatic residence, automatic non-residence, and sufficient ties tests

• Split-year treatment
  Detail: Available in specific circumstances

• Temporary non-residence rules
  Detail: 5-year "sticky" period for certain income and gains

• Non-resident CGT on UK property
  Detail: Applies

• Non-resident CGT on non-UK assets
  Detail: Generally does not apply

• Tax treaty network
  Detail: Extensive

What Actually Ended

The old UK non-dom regime let residents domiciled abroad pay UK tax only on UK income plus whatever foreign income they actually brought into the country — the remittance basis. From April 2025, that's gone. In its place is a narrower Foreign Income and Gains (FIG) regime: a four-year exemption for people newly resident in the UK who haven't been UK tax resident in any of the previous ten years. Existing long-term non-doms lost their status outright, with various transitional provisions softening the landing.

Take Priya: nine years in Dubai, then a new job takes her to London in 2026. Under the FIG regime, her foreign income and gains are exempt from UK tax for her first four years of UK residence — a real benefit, even if a temporary one. From year five, it's taxed like everyone else's.

If you're weighing a UK return, that four-year window is the actual offer on the table now — not the indefinite remittance-basis arrangement it replaced. If you're already UK resident, there's no non-dom option left; standard worldwide tax rates apply, full stop. And if you're planning a UK departure, the calculus has shifted too: the main reason to stay and preserve non-dom status no longer exists.

Leaving the UK: The Statutory Residence Test

To become UK non-resident, you need to satisfy one of the automatic non-residence tests, or fail all of the automatic residence tests and show insufficient UK ties. In plain terms: leave decisively and stay well under the day limits, and the test can clear you without weighing anything else.

The automatic non-residence routes: fewer than 16 days in the UK if you were previously resident, fewer than 46 days if you weren't, or working full-time overseas under strict conditions. Short of that, the "sufficient ties" test looks at family ties, accommodation ties, work ties, ties from recent UK presence (the "90-day tie"), and — for those who've already left — a country tie based on where you spend the most days. For most nomads leaving the UK, getting this test right, deliberately, is the difference between a clean exit and a lingering claim.

Split-Year and the Sticky Rule

Leave or arrive partway through a tax year, and split-year treatment may apply: cases include starting full-time work overseas, accompanying a partner abroad, or ceasing to have a home in the UK, among others. It lets you be taxed as resident for part of the year and non-resident for the rest, which can meaningfully reduce the bill in a transition year.

The temporary non-residence rule is the one that catches short-term departures. If you're UK non-resident for under five full tax years, and you'd been resident in four or more of the seven years before that, certain income — particularly capital gains and dividends from UK closely-held companies — becomes taxable in the year you return. It exists specifically to stop people leaving for a year to realize gains tax-free and coming straight back.

What Actually Works Now

If you're planning a genuine multi-year departure, get the SRT compliance right and you can leave the UK tax net cleanly: that's still the most reliable route out. If you're establishing new tax residency somewhere else entirely (the UAE, Cyprus, and Malta are common choices), that removes the residency conflict outright rather than leaving it half-resolved. If you're newly arriving in the UK, the FIG regime is worth using properly for its four years, even though it's not the indefinite arrangement non-dom used to be. And if you're timing an asset sale — shares, a business, anything with a large capital gain attached — the timing relative to your UK residency status matters enormously and is worth planning months in advance, not the week before completion.

What doesn't work anymore: claiming non-dom status as a new resident, because the regime is gone. A short "gap year" departure specifically to realize gains tax-free, because the temporary non-residence rule exists precisely to catch that. And assuming fewer than 90 days automatically means non-resident — the SRT is more layered than that, and treating it as a simple day count is exactly how people get caught.

Before You Decide Either Way

Weighing a UK return under the new FIG regime, or a UK exit now that non-dom is gone? Tell us which, and we'll tell you the one SRT test that actually decides it for your situation.

General information current as of 2026, not personal tax advice. UK residency and non-dom rules have moved fast and may move again — check your position with a UK-qualified adviser before you act on any of this.