Guidance

Newsletter 177 — January 2026

Published 29 January 2026

Non-UK resident pension scheme administrators

In pension schemes newsletter 174 — October 2025 we confirmed that with effect from 6 April 2026, all scheme administrators of registered pension schemes will be required to be UK resident.

If you are an existing non-UK pension scheme administrator, there are actions you must take before 6 April 2026 to remain compliant.

HMRC may take action against registered pension schemes which do not have a UK resident pension scheme administrator from 6 April 2026. 

Remove yourself as a pension scheme administrator from an ‘open’ scheme 

If there is another scheme administrator that is UK resident, attached to the pension scheme with a status of ‘open’, you should remove yourself as the scheme administrator of the pension scheme no later than 5 April 2026.

To remove yourself from the managing pension schemes service, the pension schemes online service, or both, refer to pension schemes newsletter 174 — October 2025.

On 6 April 2026, if:

• you have not removed yourself from the managing pension schemes service, the pension schemes online service, or both, HMRC will remove you from the schemes 
• a registered pension scheme only has a non-UK resident scheme administrator appointed on the managing pension schemes service, the pension schemes online service, or both, they will no longer be a pension scheme administrator but will retain the liabilities and obligations as if they were still the scheme administrator until such a time as a replacement (UK resident) pension scheme administrator is appointed

De-enrol yourself as a pension scheme administrator from the services 

If you’ve never been a scheme administrator of a pension scheme or you are no longer a scheme administrator of a pension scheme with a status of ‘open’, you must remove yourself from the managing pension schemes service, the pension schemes online service, or both, before 6 April 2026.

Instructions on how to de-enrol yourself from both services, are in pension schemes newsletter 174 — October 2025.

If on 6 April 2026, you’re a non-UK resident scheme administrator, not attached to a registered pension scheme, HMRC will de-enrol you from the services.  

Inheritance Tax for pensions 

As part of the reforms to Inheritance Tax, we are looking for users to participate in user research around the design of a new digital service that allows pension scheme administrators and pension scheme practitioners to report the details of an Inheritance Tax payment notice. 

We are inviting pension scheme administrators and pension scheme practitioners to take part in user research throughout January and beyond.  

By joining the research panel, you can:

• tell us what works well and what could be improved
• give us your thoughts and opinions on our proposed service

Your insights will be invaluable in helping us support you through the upcoming changes.  

Each research session will last around an hour. There’s no need to prepare anything in advance — all we ask is that you come ready to share your honest thoughts and experiences on the service design.  

Email pensionsuserresearchrecruitment@hmrc.gov.uk to sign up. 

Relief at source  

Notification of residency status report for 2026 to 2027 

You should now have received your January 2026 notification of residency status reports. 

You should have received an email and a reminder when your file was available for you to download. As explained in the email, you have 6 days (144 hours starting from when we made the report available to you) to download your file. 

Email reliefatsource.administration@hmrc.gov.uk and put ‘Relief at source — January 2026 residency report’ in the subject line if you: 

• do not receive your report and you submitted your annual return of information for the previous tax year 
• have questions about the data within your report 

If you did not receive a notification of residency status report 

If you did not receive a residency report you can check your members’ residency status for relief at source.

You can check the residency tax status for single or multiple members or default to the UK basic rate for your members. 

You should also use this service to check a member’s residency status if they: 

• do not appear on your notification of residency status report 
• are unmatched 

Use the rest of UK residency status if: 

• you cannot check a member’s status before you apply for relief at source for them 
• they do not appear on either the residency report or the look up service 

You must not apply a tax rate based on the member’s address. 

Once you have used a residency status to claim relief at source for a member, you must use this for the whole of the tax year, even if their residency status changes. 

Pension flexibility statistics 

HMRC can now give more information on the number of tax repayment claim forms processed for pension flexibility payments. 

From 1 October 2025 to 31 December 2025, we processed: 

• P55 — 8,488 forms 
• P53Z — 4,548 forms 
• P50Z — 616 forms 

Total value repaid: £46,258,175.80. 

The tax repayment figures for the period 1 January 2026 to 31 March 2026 will be published in Pensions schemes newsletter ― April 2026.