What does claiming the FIG regime cost you?

For any tax year you claim the four-year FIG regime, you lose your income-tax personal allowance and your capital gains annual exempt amount for that whole year, you cannot use foreign losses, and you cannot claim foreign tax credit relief on the income or gains you are sheltering. The benefit is that the claimed foreign income and gains are then free of UK tax. Whether that is worth it depends on how much foreign income and gain you are sheltering versus how much UK income you have that now loses its allowances.

Can I claim FIG on some foreign income but not all of it?

Yes. The claim is made through Self Assessment and can be made selectively, source by source, because the allowances are lost for the year as a whole once you claim at all. In practice you claim on the largest foreign income and gains and may leave small foreign sources outside the claim. This calculator models an all-or-nothing claim as a first pass; a tailored claim can do slightly better.

Who is eligible for the FIG regime?

You must be UK resident and have been non-UK-resident for the ten consecutive tax years immediately before the year you return. If so, you can claim 100% relief on foreign income and gains for your first four years of UK residence. A split year of return still counts as one of the four qualifying years.

FIG Regime Calculator: Claim or Not?

A claim is a trade, not a freebie

The FIG headline - 100% relief on foreign income and gains for your first four UK years - sounds like an obvious yes. It often is. But HMRC makes you pay a toll for it: in any tax year you claim, you lose your income-tax personal allowance, lose your capital gains annual exempt amount, can't use foreign losses, and can't claim foreign tax credit relief on what you're sheltering. If you have a chunky UK salary that year, those lost allowances can cost more than the foreign tax you're avoiding.

This isn't a reason to skip FIG - it's a reason to do the arithmetic. Set your numbers below and the calculator runs both scenarios and tells you which year-by-year decision keeps more in your pocket. First check you're eligible at all with the UK Residence Test, and see where FIG sits in the wider plan in Bringing your money home.

Your better option this year

—

UK tax if you DON'T claim

£0

Worldwide, with foreign tax credit relief

UK tax if you DO claim

£0

Foreign sources free, allowances lost

Difference

£0

What the better choice saves you

// Your UK income (this tax year)

UK employment & pension income

UK-source income that's taxable however you choose. This is what loses its personal allowance if you claim FIG.

// Your foreign income & gains

Foreign income (interest, rent, pension)

Foreign dividends

Foreign capital gains

Gains you'd realise this year - e.g. rebasing or selling foreign investments inside the FIG window.

Foreign tax already paid on the above

Tax paid abroad on this foreign income and gains. In the no-claim scenario it's credited against your UK bill (foreign tax credit relief). Leave at 0 for a zero-tax Gulf source.

Set your numbers

Enter your UK income and your foreign income and gains. The calculator runs the full UK tax both ways - claiming the FIG relief and not claiming it - and shows which leaves you better off this year.

Claiming costs you / saves you

The trade

−
Personal allowance lost Extra UK tax because your allowance disappears.
£0
−
CGT exempt amount lost The GBP 3,000 capital gains allowance, gone for the year.
£0
+
Foreign tax sheltered UK tax on the foreign income and gains you no longer pay (net of the credit you'd have got anyway).
£0
=
Net effect of claiming Benefit minus the allowances you give up.
£0

Remember: claiming uses up one of your four FIG years, so a small net gain may not be worth "spending" a year you could save for a bigger event. The allowances are lost for the whole tax year, so claims are usually only worth it when the foreign income and gains are large relative to your UK income.

The cost side

What you give up when you claim

For every tax year you make a FIG claim, four things go - and they go for the whole year, not just the sheltered slice:

Your personal allowance (GBP 12,570). Every pound of UK income that used to be tax-free is now taxed from the first pound. On a higher-rate salary that's worth over GBP 5,000 of extra tax.
Your CGT annual exempt amount (GBP 3,000). Any UK gains you have that year lose their first GBP 3,000 of shelter too.
Foreign losses, which you can't set against anything for that year.
Foreign tax credit relief on the sheltered income and gains - because you're not paying UK tax on them, there's nothing to credit the foreign tax against. If you paid real tax abroad, claiming FIG can mean that foreign tax is simply lost.

The benefit side

What you save when you claim

Against that, the claimed foreign income and gains become completely free of UK tax. For someone coming back from a zero-tax Gulf posting with large embedded gains and no foreign tax paid, that's usually a landslide in favour of claiming: there's no foreign tax credit to lose, and the UK tax avoided on a big gain dwarfs a lost personal allowance. The decision gets genuinely close when your foreign income is modest, your UK salary is high, or you've already paid substantial foreign tax that you'd otherwise credit. That's exactly where running the numbers earns its keep.

One refinement: claims can be selective

This calculator models an all-or-nothing claim - shelter every foreign source, or none. In reality the allowances vanish the moment you claim anything, so once you've decided to claim it's normally right to shelter your largest foreign income and gains and you may leave tiny foreign sources outside. A tailored, source-by-source claim through Self Assessment can therefore do slightly better than the all-or-nothing figure here. Treat this tool as the strategic "is claiming worth it at all this year" answer, then let an adviser optimise the exact sources.

Frequently asked questions

What does claiming the FIG regime actually cost?

▼

For any year you claim, you lose your income-tax personal allowance and your CGT annual exempt amount for the whole year, you can't use foreign losses, and you can't claim foreign tax credit relief on the income and gains you're sheltering. The upside is that those claimed foreign sources become free of UK tax. Whether it's worth it depends on how big the foreign income and gains are versus how much UK income now loses its allowances.

Can I claim on some foreign sources but not others?

▼

Yes - the claim is made through Self Assessment and can be selective. Because the allowances are lost for the year once you claim at all, the usual approach is to shelter your largest foreign income and gains and possibly leave very small sources outside the claim. This calculator models the simpler all-or-nothing version as a strategic first pass.

Am I even eligible for FIG?

▼

You need to be UK resident and to have been non-UK-resident for the ten tax years before you returned. If so, you can claim for your first four years of UK residence, and a split year of return counts as one of them. Check your residence position with the UK Residence Test before relying on FIG.

Does claiming use up a FIG year even if the gain is small?

▼

Yes. You only get four FIG years, so a claim that saves a small amount may not be worth "spending" a year you could have saved for a much larger disposal. The calculator shows the net gain; whether to bank it now or hold the year for a bigger event is a planning judgement.

This is educational information and an illustrative model, not regulated financial or tax advice. It uses simplified 2026/27 UK assumptions (GBP 12,570 personal allowance with taper above GBP 100,000, GBP 37,700 basic-rate band, GBP 3,000 CGT annual exempt amount, GBP 500 dividend allowance, England/Northern Ireland income-tax bands of 20/40/45%, dividend rates of 10.75/35.75/39.35% as increased from 6 April 2026, and capital gains rates of 18/24%). It models an all-or-nothing FIG claim, treats foreign income as non-dividend income unless entered as foreign dividends, assumes no UK capital gains, and does not handle Scottish rates, foreign losses, the remittance of pre-6 April 2025 pools (the Temporary Repatriation Facility), or treaty-specific pension treatment. FIG and repatriation decisions are high-stakes and the claim is irrevocable for the year - take advice from a suitably qualified adviser before acting.