RDRM11780 - Residence: The SRT: Days spent in the UK: Workers with relevant jobs

If an individual has a job aboard a vehicle, aircraft or ship, they might have a ‘relevant job’. If so, some parts of the statutory residence test will apply slightly differently to them.

An individual will have a relevant job if they meet both Conditions A and B:

Condition A

  • they hold an employment where their role consists of duties which are performed on board a vehicle, aircraft or ship while it is travelling, or
  • they carry on a trade and the activities of that trade or the services they provide are on board a vehicle, aircraft or ship while it is travelling, and they are present in person on that vehicle, aircraft or ship.

AND

Condition B

  • substantially all of the trips made in performing those duties or carrying out those activities are cross-border trips. That is, that involve crossing an international boundary at sea, in the air or on land.

Example 1

Angela is a self-employed consultant whose job is to carry out safety assessments on international aircraft at Manchester airport. She does not travel with the aircraft in order to do her work. As the services Angela provides are not undertaken while the aircraft is making a cross-border trip, she does not have a relevant job.

Examples of relevant jobs may include pilots, airline cabin crew, cross-channel ferry staff, mariners, fishermen and lorry drivers, where substantially all of the journeys are cross-border trips. Although each case will turn on its own facts, an individual is likely to be considered to have a relevant job if 80% or more of their journeys involve cross-border trips.

In deciding whether or not an individual falls within one of the categories of relevant job, duties or activities of a purely incidental nature can be ignored. For instance, where a pilot whose job consists of making long haul international flights; attends a meeting in the UK to hear an announcement about the airline’s restructuring, the duties spent at the meeting are incidental to the duties of flying the plane, and so can be ignored.

Example 2

Preeya is a member of a cabin crew on board flights between London and Geneva for a short-haul airline. For 1 monthduring the year she changes her shifts and works on UK domestic flights. However, substantially all of the trips she makes in the performance of her duties are cross-border ones, Preeya does have a relevant job.

An individual will not have a relevant job simply because they occasionally work during a journey from 1 country to another; for example, if they catch up on business emails during a flight from their base in 1 country to visit a client in another country.