Tax if you live abroad and sell your UK home
You may have to pay tax when you sell (or ‘dispose of’) your UK home if you’re not UK resident for tax purposes.
Even if you have no tax to pay, you must tell HMRC you’ve sold the property within 60 days of transferring ownership (conveyancing).
The rules are different if you’re UK resident and sell your home.
As a non-resident you only pay tax on any gain made since 5 April 2015. You may get some tax relief.
When you get tax relief
In most cases you don’t pay any tax for any tax years in which you, your spouse or civil partner spent at least 90 days in your UK home.
To qualify, you must nominate the home as your only or main home when you tell HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) you’ve sold it.
When you don’t get full relief
You may still owe some tax if you qualify for tax relief for a tax year, but in that year one or more of the following applies:
- you let part of your home out - this doesn’t include having a lodger
- you used part of it for business only
- the grounds of your home, including all buildings, were greater than 5,000 square metres (just over an acre) in total
You get full tax relief for the last 9 months you own your home if you qualify for tax relief for any period. This is called ‘the final period’.
If you’re disabled or in long-term residential care the final period is 36 months.
There are some exceptions when you don’t get full tax relief for the final period.
When you don’t get tax relief for the final period
You don’t get any relief for the final period for any part of your home that you never lived in because you let it out or used it for business.
You only get some tax relief for the final period if the grounds, including all the buildings, were greater than 5,000 square metres (just over an acre) in total.
You can work out how much tax relief you get.
Find out how to get help with working out your tax.
Work out your gain
When you know how much relief you get, you must work out your gain to know how much tax you owe.