Non-domiciled

A non-domiciled person – sometimes called a ‘non-dom’ – is a person who is living in the UK, but considers their permanent home to not be in the UK. Non-domiciled residents can benefit from certain tax advantages.

If you need to work out your domicile, it’s usually the country your dad considered his permanent home when you were born. However, be aware that this may have changed if you moved abroad and didn’t intend to return.

How do I know if I’ll pay UK tax as a non-domiciled person pre 2024/25?

As a non-dom pre 2024-25 tax year, you might not have needed to pay UK tax on your foreign income or gains. This was the case if one or both of the following applied to you:

1. Your foreign income and gains were less than £2,000 in the tax year
2. You didn’t bring them into the UK (e.g. transferring into a UK bank account)

If this applied to you, you didn’t need to do anything regarding UK tax.

What about post 2024/25?

Following the scandalous revelation that PM at the time Rishi Sunak’s wife held a non-domiciled status, making her exempt from millions of pounds in UK tax, the non-dom status came under fire. And in the 2024 spring statement, it was abolished starting 6th April 2025.

If your foreign income was more than £2,000

Again, pre-abolition, when you made more than £2,000, you had to report this income/gain to HMRC. This was done via a self assessment. You were then left with a choice. Either pay UK tax on this income, or claim the ‘remittance basis.’

The remittance basis is when you don’t pay UK taxes on earnings from abroad unless you transfer that money into a UK bank account. That means you choose be taxed only on whatever UK income and gains you make, and the foreign income and gains you bring back to the UK.

Although this was a tax advantage, it’s worth noting that if you decided to do this, you’d:

• Lose your tax-free allowances for Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax
• Have to pay an annual charge to maintain your non-domiciled status (starting at £30,000 for non-doms who had been here for at least 7 of the previous 9 tax years)

However, the benefit of these two options was that neither was set in stone. For example, one year it may have beed more tax-efficient for you to pay tax on your foreign income or gains. This was instead of claiming the remittance basis.