The UK Statutory Residence Test explained: the three-part ladder

How does the UK Statutory Residence Test work?

The SRT is a ladder of three tests, applied in order for each tax year (6 April to 5 April). If any automatic overseas test applies, you are non-resident, full stop. If none does but an automatic UK test applies, you are resident. Only if neither decides it do you reach the sufficient ties test, where the number of your UK ties sets how many days you can spend before becoming resident.

The test has been statutory since 6 April 2013 and is documented in HMRC's RDR3 guidance note. One definition drives everything: an "arriver" here means someone who was not UK resident in any of the three previous tax years, and a "leaver" means someone who was resident in at least one of them. The same day count produces different outcomes for the two groups at every rung of the ladder, which is the SRT's way of making it harder to leave than to visit.

What are the automatic overseas tests?

Three ways to be definitively non-resident. First: you were resident in one or more of the last three tax years and spend fewer than 16 days in the UK this year. Second: you were not resident in any of the last three years and spend fewer than 46 days. Third: you work full-time overseas with no significant breaks, spend fewer than 91 days in the UK, and have fewer than 31 UK workdays.

These are checked first, and passing any one of them ends the analysis before ties are even counted. That makes the 16-day and 45-day marks the only truly unconditional safe harbors in the system. A leaver with a house, a spouse and a business in the UK is still non-resident at 15 days.

What are the automatic UK tests?

The mirror image. You are automatically UK resident if you spend 183 days or more in the UK in the tax year, if your only home is in the UK (broadly, a UK home for more than 90 days that you use for at least 30, with no overseas home you meaningfully use), or if you work full-time in the UK. The 183-day test has no exceptions: no tie counting, no treaty arithmetic within the SRT itself.

Note what this means in reverse: staying under 183 days guarantees nothing. That is where the third rung takes over, and where most real cases are decided. Our general 183-day rule guide covers how unusual the UK's layered approach is compared with simple day-count countries.

What is the sufficient ties test?

A sliding scale: the more connections you keep to the UK, the fewer days you may spend there. The ties are a spouse or minor child in the UK (family), accommodation available for 91 or more continuous days that you use at least one night (accommodation), 40 or more days of more than 3 hours' work (work), 90 or more days spent in the UK in either of the two previous tax years (90-day), and, for leavers only, the UK being where you spent the most days that year (country).

Leavers can have five ties, arrivers at most four, and the bands come straight from HMRC's ties table:

Read the leaver column from the bottom up and the design is clear: someone who just left the UK with a home, family and old day counts behind them can trigger residency at 16 days. The ties themselves are also dynamic; spending 90-plus days this year plants a 90-day tie in each of the next two years.

How are days counted under the SRT?

By midnights. A day counts as a UK day if you are in the UK at the end of it, at midnight, so arriving at 23:00 starts your count that night, while a same-day round trip normally counts as zero. The main exception is the deeming rule: if you were UK resident in one of the three prior years and have at least 3 ties, same-day visits beyond 30 in a tax year start counting as UK days despite the missing midnights.

Both rules are in HMRC's manual: the midnight rule and the deeming rule. The midnight convention is generous to commuters and brutal to the delayed: a flight that pushes past 00:00 adds a day that no itinerary shows. There is also a narrow exceptional-circumstances carve-out, capped at 60 days a year, for events like serious illness, and a transit exemption for passing through without engaging in other activities.

Two worked examples with real dates

What this guide does not cover

Three big pieces, named so you know to look for them. Split year treatment can divide a single tax year into resident and non-resident parts when you move mid-year; the worked examples above assume full-year status. The full-time work tests, both overseas and UK, have their own definitions of "full-time" (an average 35-hour week) and "significant break" that reward careful reading. And double-tax treaties sit on top of the SRT entirely: being SRT-resident does not settle which country taxes what when another country also claims you. For those, start from RDR3 itself or a UK tax adviser.

What every branch of the test shares is an appetite for exact day evidence, down to the midnight. Staydays logs which country you are in each day automatically, using low-power background location, and keeps the history on your iPhone and private iCloud, so the day totals the SRT needs are already there when you or your accountant ask.