The Statutory Residence Test, explained

Why does the Statutory Residence Test matter?

Because it is the only thing that decides whether the UK taxes your worldwide income — and most people get it wrong. The SRT is the UK's legal test for tax residence, in force since 6 April 2013 under Finance Act 2013, Schedule 45 (HMRC RDR3). Get on the right side of it and your foreign income and gains fall outside UK tax. Get it wrong and HMRC can tax everything.

Residence is the master switch. Once you are UK tax resident, the UK taxes your worldwide income — your overseas salary, your foreign rental, your investment gains, wherever they arise. Once you are non-resident, the UK taxes only your UK-source income. So before you worry about Dubai, dividends, your old flat or a refund, answer one question: for this tax year, does the SRT make you resident or not?

• It is the law, not a rule of thumb. Forget the 90-day rule — it doesn't exist. "90 days" appears inside the SRT as one of the five ties, but there is no standalone 90-day test that decides residence.
• It is decided separately for every tax year. The tax year runs 6 April to 5 April. You can be resident one year and non-resident the next. See the UK tax year explained.
• The numbers haven't moved. The SRT day thresholds and ties are set in primary legislation and are unchanged for 2026/27 (HMRC RFIG20520).

What order are the three tests applied in?

The SRT runs in a fixed sequence, and the first stage to give a definitive answer wins — you stop there (HMRC RDR3; RFIG20110). The order is load-bearing: the overseas tests come first, so if you qualify under one of them, you are non-resident and nothing else matters.

Most leavers are decided at stage 1 — under 16 days, or a clean overseas job. The ties test only bites for the in-between cases. Read the automatic stages in depth in the automatic overseas and UK residence tests.

What are the automatic overseas tests?

Three tests. Meet any one and you are non-resident for the tax year. These are how most leavers break UK residence (HMRC RFIG20120–20140).

Test 1 — the leaver's "very few days" test (fewer than 16 days)

You are non-resident if you were UK resident in 1 or more of the 3 tax years before the current year and you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK this tax year. The line is exact — 16 days or more fails, so 15 is in, 16 is out. And "days" means midnights (HMRC RFIG20120, RFIG20710).

Test 2 — the arriver's "few days" test (fewer than 46 days)

You are non-resident if you were not UK resident in any of the 3 tax years before the current year and you spend fewer than 46 days in the UK this tax year. 46 days or more fails this test (HMRC RFIG20130).

Test 3 — full-time work overseas

The clean-break route for people taking a genuine overseas job. You are non-resident if all of these hold: you work sufficient hours overseas (≈35 hrs/week average); there is no significant break (a gap of 31+ days with no >3-hour overseas workday); you spend fewer than 31 days on which you do more than 3 hours of UK work; and you spend fewer than 91 days in the UK (HMRC RFIG20140). The deeming rule does not apply to that "fewer than 91 days" count.

What are the automatic UK tests?

You only reach these if no automatic overseas test was met. Meet any one and you are UK resident (HMRC RDR3; RFIG20380).

• Test 1 — the 183-day test. Resident if you spend 183 days or more in the UK. A ceiling, not the whole test — plenty of people are resident on far fewer days because of their ties.
• Test 2 — the only-home test. Resident if you had a UK home for a 91-consecutive-day period (30 of those days in the year), were present in it on 30+ days, and had either no overseas home or an overseas home you used on fewer than 30 days (HMRC RFIG20360).
• Test 3 — full-time work in the UK. Resident if, over any 365-day period, you work sufficient hours in the UK (35 hrs/week average), more than 75% of your >3-hour workdays are in the UK, and at least one such UK workday falls in the year (HMRC RFIG20380).

What is the sufficient ties test, and what are the five ties?

This is the tiebreaker. If neither automatic stage decided your year, you count how many UK ties you have, then read your UK days against the tables below — the more days, the fewer ties it takes to make you resident (HMRC RFIG20500–20580). Four ties apply to everyone; the fifth — the country tie — applies to leavers only.

Leavers (UK resident in 1+ of the prior 3 years) have all five ties. Arrivers (not resident in any of the prior 3 years) have only four — no country tie (Finance Act 2013, Schedule 45, para 31). The full breakdown of each tie is in the sufficient ties test guide.

How many UK days can I have for each number of ties?

Read each as: given your UK days, you are resident if you have at least the stated number of ties. Fewer ties than the threshold for your band, and you are non-resident (HMRC RFIG20520).

Leavers can be resident on just one tie once they pass 120 days. If you have left but still spend four or five months a year here, a single tie — say, an available UK flat — is enough to pull you back into residence. Check your residence status to see where your own days and ties land you.

What counts as a "day spent in the UK"? (the midnight rule)

A day counts if you are present in the UK at the end of the day — at midnight. So count nights, not days (HMRC RFIG20710). A day you fly in for a morning meeting and leave the same evening is generally not counted. Two exceptions sit alongside it:

• Transit days don't count — if you arrive as a passenger in transit, leave the next day, and do nothing substantially unrelated to your passage in between (a hotel and a meal are fine; seeing friends or working are not) (HMRC RFIG20730).
• Exceptional circumstances can be ignored — up to 60 days. Days you'd not otherwise have spent here, due to circumstances beyond your control, may be ignored for some counts — but it's a limit, not an allowance, and doesn't apply to every part of the test (HMRC RFIG22220).

What is the deeming rule?

The deeming rule stops frequent day-trippers gaming the midnight rule. A "qualifying day" is a day you were present in the UK but not at midnight. The rule applies only if all three hold: you were UK resident in 1+ of the 3 previous years; you have 3 or more UK ties; and you have more than 30 qualifying days. The first 30 are free; every qualifying day after the 30th is treated as a UK day (HMRC RFIG20720).

What are "sufficient hours overseas" and a "significant break"?

Sufficient hours overseas — the 35-hours-a-week average. HMRC's five-step calculation: count days of >3 hours' UK work (disregarded days); total net overseas hours excluding those days; take 365 minus disregarded days and certain gaps (the reference period); divide by 7, rounding down; divide net overseas hours by that figure. 35 or more means sufficient hours (HMRC RFIG20150).

Significant break — the 31-day killer. A period of 31+ days during which not one day is a >3-hour overseas workday (ignoring annual, sick or parenting leave) disqualifies the full-time-work-overseas test (HMRC RFIG20760).

Worked examples

Example 1 — the contractor who kept a UK flat

Priya left in May 2025 to freelance from Lisbon, with no overseas employment contract. In 2026/27 she spends 80 UK days. She's a leaver. She kept her London flat (accommodation tie), did >3 hours of UK work on 45 days (work tie), and was over 90 UK days in 2025/26 (90-day tie) — three ties. No overseas test is met; no automatic UK test is met; 80 days sits in the 46–90 band, where a leaver is resident with 3+ ties. Result: UK resident for 2026/27. Drop one tie, or cut days into the 16–45 band, and the answer flips.

Example 2 — the clean-break employee

Theo takes a full-time job in Singapore from 1 June 2026, a steady 40-hour week. In 2026/27 he spends 70 UK days, doing >3 hours of UK work on 12. He never has a 31-day gap without an overseas workday. Automatic overseas test 3 is met: sufficient hours, no significant break, <31 UK workdays, <91 UK days. Result: non-resident for 2026/27 — the test stops at stage 1, ties never counted. Split-year treatment (Case 1) may also apply.

Common questions