UK Statutory Residence Test

What this tool does and who it is for

The UK Statutory Residence Test (SRT), set out in Finance Act 2013, is the legal test that decides whether you are UK resident for tax purposes in a given tax year (6 April to 5 April). Your residence status is the foundation of almost everything else: whether the UK taxes your worldwide income and gains or only your UK-source income, whether you can claim full pension tax relief, and how double tax treaties apply. This tool takes the same three-stage test HMRC uses and turns it into a guided sequence of questions, giving you a clear resident or non-resident answer plus the specific rule that produced it.

It is built for internationally mobile people whose position is genuinely uncertain: those who have recently left the UK, those planning to return, cross-border workers, and anyone splitting their year between the UK and abroad. If you want the full narrative explanation rather than a quick answer, the complete UK SRT guide sits behind this tool, and you can run the equivalent check for other jurisdictions from the tax residency tests by country hub.

How the three-stage test works

The defining feature of the SRT is that the stages are applied strictly in order, and the automatic tests are decisive on their own. The tool follows exactly that sequence:

• Stage 1 — Automatic Overseas Tests. Meeting any one of these makes you non-resident, full stop. You are non-resident if you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK and were resident in one or more of the previous three tax years; or fewer than 46 days and were not resident in any of them; or you worked full-time overseas (broadly 35 hours a week on average, with no significant break of 31 days or more) while doing fewer than 31 UK workdays and spending fewer than 91 days in the UK.
• Stage 2 — Automatic UK Tests. Reached only if no overseas test is met. Meeting any one makes you resident: spending 183 days or more in the UK; having your only home in the UK for a qualifying period; or working full-time in the UK across a 365-day period with more than 75% of your workdays in the UK.
• Stage 3 — Sufficient Ties Test. Used only when none of the automatic tests settles the matter. Here your day count is read against the number of UK ties you hold, with the threshold varying by how many days you spent in the UK.

Arrivers, leavers and counting ties

The Sufficient Ties Test hinges on one question the tool asks early: were you UK resident in any of the three previous tax years? If so, you are a leaver; if not, an arriver. Leavers face lower tie thresholds, so the same day count can produce a different answer for two people, and leavers are the only ones to whom the country tie applies. The five possible ties are a family tie, an accommodation tie, a work tie (40 or more days of more than three hours’ work in the UK), a 90-day tie (more than 90 UK days in either of the two preceding years), and, for leavers only, a country tie. As a rough guide, the more days you spend in the UK, the fewer ties it takes to make you resident — a leaver on 121 to 182 days needs just one tie, while an arriver on 46 to 90 days needs all four. The tool shows you the exact threshold for your day count band once you have entered your days and prior-residence answer.

Key assumptions and limitations

To stay usable, the tool simplifies in ways worth knowing. It counts a UK day as one where you were present at midnight, and it does not attempt to apply the deeming rule for workdays, the detailed conditions around overseas homes, or the transit-passenger exception. It assesses the tax year as a whole, so it does not compute split-year treatment — which can tax the year of arrival or departure in two parts — nor the temporary non-residence rules that can claw back tax on certain income and gains if you return within five years. Up to 60 days lost to exceptional circumstances may be disregarded from your day count, but establishing that is fact-specific and outside the tool’s scope. Because day counts are the single most commonly challenged element of an SRT position, HMRC places the burden of proof on you: keep contemporaneous records of travel days, workdays and accommodation.

How to read your result — a worked example

Suppose you left the UK last year and spent 100 days here in the current tax year. You are a leaver, so the Automatic Overseas Tests do not apply (you are over 16 days), and you meet none of the Automatic UK Tests (under 183 days, no UK-only home, not working full-time in the UK). The test therefore falls to Stage 3. At 100 days a leaver becomes resident with two ties. If you have a UK home available and a partner still living in the UK — an accommodation tie and a family tie — you reach the threshold and the tool returns UK resident, citing the Sufficient Ties Test and showing two ties counted against a threshold of two. Drop one of those ties, and the same 100 days instead returns non-resident. The result panel spells out the basis, the ties counted, and the threshold, so you can see precisely which factor tipped the balance and which levers — days, workdays, ties — you could manage differently in future.

Why it matters and what to do next

Residence status drives real money. As a UK resident you are generally taxable on your worldwide income and gains, including overseas pension, rental and investment income, with treaty relief usually needing to be claimed rather than applied automatically. As a non-resident you are generally taxed only on UK-source income. Your status also affects pension tax relief and, separately, sits alongside the residence-based Inheritance Tax rules that have applied since 6 April 2025 — a position you can gauge with the UK domicile and long-term residence test. For what residence means for retirement income specifically, see how the SRT affects your pension and tax and how double taxation on UK pensions is relieved, or explore the wider UK Pensions hub. Because the SRT contains exceptions and anti-avoidance provisions this tool cannot fully capture, treat the result as a well-informed starting point and confirm any position you intend to rely on with a qualified tax adviser before acting.