The FIG regime: four years without British tax on your Dutch income, if you claim it

Yes, the UK has a special regime for newcomers, and it is more favourable than most people think. Since 6 April 2025 the old non-dom regime no longer exists. In its place came the 4-year foreign income and gains regime: whoever did not live in the UK in the ten tax years before arriving can have foreign income and foreign gains relieved in their first four years as a British tax resident. For a Dutch emigrant that can cover interest on a Dutch savings account, dividends, the rent from a house kept in the Netherlands, a Dutch pension and the AOW. It is not free: whoever claims loses their tax-free allowance of £12,570. And it never happens automatically.

Do you qualify?

You are a qualifying new resident if you are a British tax resident under the Statutory Residence Test, and you are in one of your first four years as a resident after at least ten consecutive tax years in which you were not. Whoever never lived in the UK, or has been away for more than ten years, therefore meets the core of the condition.

Whether you are a British tax resident depends mainly on your days in the UK in the tax year, which runs from 6 April to 5 April. Whoever spends 183 days or more in the UK is resident, and so is whoever works full-time in the UK for a year. In the year of your move the tax year is usually split into a non-resident part and a resident part, the split-year treatment.

The four years run consecutively from the first year you are resident. A year you don't claim does not roll over. If you leave temporarily in the meantime and are not resident then, that year does not count, but you can still use the remaining years within the four after you return.

Which income does it cover?

Type of income	Under the FIG regime?
Interest on a foreign account	yes
Dividends from non-UK companies	yes
Profits from letting foreign property	yes
Profits from a business carried on wholly outside the UK	yes
Foreign pension	yes, except for a few disqualified types
Foreign social security benefits	yes
Foreign gains on selling assets	yes, through a separate claim
Pay for work in the UK	no
Pay for workdays outside the UK	no, but through Overseas Workday Relief

You choose each year which foreign income and which gains you claim for; it doesn't have to be everything. The disqualified pensions are narrow: pre-1973 pensions under the Overseas Pensions Act, and payments from a foreign pension scheme for which you previously got British tax relief or to which you transferred a British pension.

If you also work days outside the UK for your British employer, there is also Overseas Workday Relief: the part of your pay that belongs to those foreign workdays can stay untaxed, up to the lower of £300,000 or 30% of your employment income.

What does it cost you?

The claim costs you your tax-free allowance. Whoever makes one claim, for income, for gains or for Overseas Workday Relief, loses their Personal Allowance of £12,570 and the capital gains exemption for that year, including the allowances that belong to the other kind of income. If you have little foreign income and a British salary, you therefore pay more tax if you claim.

There is more that you lose. Losses on foreign property or foreign assets don't count in a year with a claim and cannot be carried forward. On income you leave relieved you can't get foreign tax credit relief. What your relieved income does give you: you may bring it to the UK whenever you like, without British tax. That is the big difference from the old non-dom regime.

How and when do you claim?

Only in your British tax return, Self Assessment, on the Residence and foreign income and gains pages (SA109) plus the page where the income belongs. Whoever doesn't file a return yet registers first. You have until a year after the normal filing date: for the 2025-2026 tax year the return was due by 31 January 2027, and the claim can be made until 31 January 2028.

Moment	Time limit
Condition beforehand	at least 10 consecutive tax years not a UK resident
Duration	at most 4 consecutive tax years from your first year as a resident
Claim	again each year, in your Self Assessment
Deadline for the claim	12 months after the normal filing date of 31 January
Overseas Workday Relief	up to £300,000 or 30% of your employment income, whichever is lower

What the regime does not settle is which country may tax. That is decided by the tax treaty between the Netherlands and the UK, covered in the article on AOW, healthcare and pension in England. The FIG regime is only about what the UK itself does with the part it may tax. So work it through with a tax adviser who knows both countries, before your first tax return.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey, step 3.3: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to England or go straight to step 3.3 in the open plan.