Expat and non-resident
tax returns.
Including the SA109 residence pages HMRC's own free service can't file. Every treaty and foreign tax credit relief claimed, reviewed by a qualified UK accountant.
Most expat returns: £500 fixed. Simpler returns from £125.
The SA109 problem nobody warns expats about.
If you're claiming split-year treatment, non-residence, or the FIG regime, HMRC's free online service will not let you file the SA109 residence pages. Your options are paper by 31 October or commercial software by 31 January, and most expats find this out in January, after the paper deadline has gone. Record OS files the residence pages for you and shows every relief claimed, reviewed by one of our qualified UK accountants.
What makes an expat return different
An expat or non-resident return is not a normal Self Assessment with a few extra boxes. Residence has to be established, reliefs have to be claimed rather than applied automatically, and the pages that carry those claims can't be filed through HMRC's free online service. These are the parts that catch people out.
The Statutory Residence Test
Your UK residence status is decided by a test with three parts. The automatic overseas tests, which can settle you as non-resident outright. The automatic UK tests, which can settle you as UK resident. The first of these asks whether you spent 183 days or more in the UK. Only if neither is conclusive do you reach the sufficient ties test, which weighs your connections to the UK, such as family, accommodation, work and time spent here. Counting days alone gives people the wrong answer because the same number of days produces a different outcome depending on which part of the test you land in, how many ties you have, and your tax residence position in previous tax years.
Split-year treatment
If you arrive in or leave the UK part-way through a tax year, the year can sometimes be split so you're taxed as a UK resident for only part of it. If you fall within one of the eight defined cases, then this must be disclosed on the SA109 residence pages. This then impacts which of your income is reportable on your tax return and subject to UK tax.
The 4-year FIG regime
The foreign income and gains regime replaced the old non-domicile rules from 6 April 2025. It's available to people arriving in the UK after a qualifying period of non-residence, and it can exempt foreign income and gains for a limited number of years from the point they become UK resident. When that window ends, worldwide income and gains come fully into the UK net, so the year the regime runs out is usually the year the tax position changes most.
Foreign Tax Credit Relief vs treaty exemption
Paying tax abroad does not settle your UK position. If income is taxable in both countries you still report it here, then reduce the UK liability, either by claiming credit for the foreign tax paid or by relying on the treaty exemption, which may instead give one country the sole right to tax that income. Each has to be claimed and evidenced on the return.
Overseas Workday Relief
Overseas Workday Relief can take the earnings for duties performed outside the UK out of the UK charge for people who have recently become UK resident. It survives under the new regime but the eligibility conditions and the way it's claimed changed alongside the FIG rules, so relief you claimed in earlier years is not automatically available on the same basis now. It needs a workday record that stands up to scrutiny.
The personal allowance
Non-residents are not all entitled to a UK personal allowance. Entitlement depends on things like your nationality and residence and on whether a double taxation treaty with your country grants it. Assuming you get the allowance when you don't, or missing it when you're entitled, changes your liability directly.
The Non-Resident Landlord Scheme
If you kept a UK property after moving abroad, rent paid to you falls within the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme, and your letting agent or tenant may be required to deduct tax before paying you. You can apply to receive rent without that deduction, but you still have to report the rental profits, claim allowable expenses and pay any tax due through your return. Selling that property while non-resident brings its own separate UK reporting obligation.
The Temporary Repatriation Facility
If you previously claimed the remittance basis of taxation under the old non-domicile rules then there is a window of opportunity to designate for historic unremitted income and gains to be taxed at a lower rate. This is available from 6 April 2025 for three tax years under the Temporary Repatriation Facility (TRF). The rate of tax will be 12% in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 tax years and then increasing to 15% in the 2027/28 tax year, and therefore early consideration of the TRF is recommended for former remittance basis users.
Tax rules summarised for guidance. Your return is prepared and reviewed by one of our qualified UK accountants.
Five steps. Full visibility the whole way through.
Provide us your information, we guide you through the process
Record OS identifies every relief and deduction you're entitled to.
One of our qualified UK accountants reviews the return and everything it claims.
You see the full breakdown, what, why, and which documents, before you sign.
Sign up. We file at one fixed price, agreed up front.
How Record OS is different
Less work for you
Upload what you've got and we take it from there. Our technology checks your documents and tells us what's missing, so you're not digging through old emails for a P60 or typing numbers into boxes.
One price, agreed before we start
Three tiers, all published on the site. You pay for the one your return falls into and that's the figure. Nothing gets added later because the return turned out to be fiddlier than it looked.
A review that looks for money
Every return goes to one of our qualified UK accountants before it's filed. They're checking the numbers, and they're also hunting for reliefs you didn't know you could claim. That second bit is most of the value.
Someone to ask
Message or call whenever something's unclear. You'll speak to someone who actually works on tax returns.
You get the working out
Your return comes with a covering letter in plain English. It says what we claimed and why, points at the document behind each claim, and flags anything where the answer wasn't obvious. Keep it. If HMRC ever comes asking, it's the thing you'll want.
We'll tell you what to change
Filing is a record of what already happened. The more useful conversation is what to do before next April, and we'll have it with you while there's still time to act.
Every Self Assessment situation
Employment, self-employment, property, foreign income, capital gains, residence. Whatever your return needs, we file it. An extra page doesn't make you someone else's problem.
Transparent. Fixed.
One fee per filing.
Most expat and non-resident returns sit in the Specialist tier at £500. That is because they need a Statutory Residence Test determination, the SA109 residence pages, and a treaty or foreign tax credit position worked through, rather than a straightforward set of UK income figures. Simpler returns are cheaper, and the questionnaire tells you which tier you're in before you pay.
- Trusts, Settlements, and Estates
- Offshore funds & excess reportable income
- Temporary Repatriation Facility
- Expat, statutory residence & split-year
- Crypto, chargeable gains, complex investments
- Multiple self-employment (2+)
- Multiple properties (2+)
- Capital gains
- Foreign income and taxes
- VCT, EIS & SEIS investments
Not sure which price applies?
Book a free 15-minute call with one of our qualified UK accountants. We'll tell you which price applies and what we'll need. No UTR to hand? We can sort that on the call.
Rather just get going? Sign up free and do it at your own pace.
Before you ask
Yes. We handle Statutory Residence Test determination, split-year treatment (all eight cases), SA109 residence pages, Foreign Tax Credit Relief, double taxation treaty relief, Overseas Workday Relief, the 4-year FIG regime, the Temporary Repatriation Facility, the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme, and UK property disposals by non-residents.
Not with HMRC's free online service, which does not support the SA109. You either file on paper by 31 October or use commercial software by 31 January.
If your return is genuinely simple, HMRC's free service will file it. Expat and non-resident returns usually aren't. The free service doesn't support the SA109 residence pages, so you are into paper filing or commercial software either way. You're paying us to get the residence position right and to show you the working behind it.
Most services are one of two things. Either it's software and you fill it in, or it's an accountant and you email them your documents. We do both halves. The software handles the donkey work: reading your paperwork, spotting gaps, catching things that don't add up. Then one of our qualified UK accountants goes through it and signs it off. They decide the tax position, not the software.
Yes. Every return is prepared and signed off by our qualified UK accountants. The team includes ICAEW members and tax specialists with longstanding experience in roles at HMRC and top firms like BDO.
Yes. Message or call, and if something about your return needs talking through, we'll talk it through.
The filed return, and a covering letter that explains it in plain English: what we claimed, why, and which document each claim rests on. Where something was a judgement call, it says so and tells you how we called it.
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