The FIG regime is not the old non-dom system with a fresh label. It is a different basis for taxing internationally mobile people in the UK. From 6 April 2025, the remittance basis ended and the UK moved to a residence-based system instead. A lot of planning that once depended on domicile now depends on residence, timing, and whether you qualify for a short relief window at all.
The practical shift under the new non-dom rules is fairly straightforward. The old question was often whether foreign income and gains stayed outside the UK tax net unless remitted. Under the FIG regime, the question is whether you qualify for a limited period of relief at all.
If you do, you can claim relief on eligible foreign income and gains for up to four tax years. If you don’t, you move straight onto the arising basis for worldwide income and gains.
But, as with everything in life (and particularly finance), it’s a little more nuanced than that.
What The FIG Regime Actually Does
The new regime gives 100% relief on eligible foreign income and gains for people in their first four years of UK tax residence, provided they were non-UK resident for at least the previous 10 consecutive tax years.
It is not automatic.
Relief has to be claimed through Self Assessment, and it applies only to qualifying foreign income and gains arising on or after 6 April 2025.
That makes the FIG regime generous in one sense and much narrower in another.
Generous, because qualifying foreign income and gains can be brought to the UK without a tax charge if relief has been claimed. Narrower, because it is aimed at genuine new arrivals after a long period of non-UK residence, not people who have been dipping in and out of the UK and assuming the old non-dom logic still broadly protects them.
There is another catch. Claiming under the regime means giving up key allowances for that tax year, including the Income Tax personal allowance and the Capital Gains Tax annual exempt amount.
So this is not just a technical relief to tick on a form. It changes the tax shape of the year and needs weighing against the income and gains you are actually sheltering.
Who Actually Qualifies And Who Doesn’t
The people who benefit most are those arriving in the UK after a real break. If you have been non-UK resident for at least 10 consecutive tax years and are now within your first four UK-resident tax years, you may be able to claim the regime. If you returned sooner than that, or you are already beyond that four-year window, you are outside it.
That is why the non-dom regime changes are really residence changes in disguise. For many internationally mobile people, the decisive issue is no longer status in the old sense but whether the Statutory Residence Test puts them inside or outside UK residence for the years that matter.
Getting that wrong can distort the whole plan before you even reach the FIG question.
There is also no reward for wasting a year. If you leave the UK temporarily during the four-year period, you cannot claim for the non-resident year and you cannot roll that unused year forward. The relief runs within a fixed four-year window beginning when UK tax residence starts. That makes timing sharper than many people expect. A year of indecision can be a year gone.
What The New Rules Don’t Cover
One of the easiest mistakes is assuming the FIG regime covers all foreign income.
It does not.
Foreign employment income is not relieved under the FIG regime itself. Instead, Overseas Workday Relief sits alongside it, with its own conditions, elections, and limits. From 6 April 2025, that relief was reformed and broadly aligned with the new residence-based regime, including availability for up to four qualifying tax years and an annual cap of the lower of 30% of qualifying employment income or £300,000, subject to transitional rules.
This is especially relevant for people coming to the UK on international packages or hybrid roles. A person can hear ‘four years of foreign income and gains relief’ and assume their offshore earnings are covered in the same way. They’re not. Employment income needs its own analysis. In practice, that means the FIG regime often sits inside wider expat financial planning, not as a standalone fix.
Why Former Remittance Basis Users Need To Be Especially Careful
If you used the remittance basis before 6 April 2025, the old world has not disappeared neatly behind you. Before, foreign income and gains that arose while you were taxed on the remittance basis do not become clean just because the new regime exists. Those amounts can still be taxed when remitted under the old rules. Even people who now qualify for the FIG regime do not get retroactive protection for those earlier amounts.
The Temporary Repatriation Facility gives former remittance basis users a limited three-year window to bring in qualifying pre-6 April 2025 foreign income and gains at reduced rates: 12% for the first two years and 15% in the final year. That makes older offshore funds, legacy structures, and delayed remittances worth reviewing carefully, because the tax cost now depends on what is actually being remitted.
Trusts need a fresh look too. Outside the FIG regime, settlor-interested offshore trusts no longer preserve foreign income and gains in the way many people were used to, so structures that once deferred UK tax more effectively may no longer do so.
The Inheritance Tax Side Has Changed Too
While the FIG regime is about income and gains, it’s not the whole of your UK tax exposure.
As of 6 April 2025, the UK has also replaced the old domicile and deemed domicile rules for Inheritance Tax with long-term UK residence rules. If you are a long-term UK resident, your overseas assets may be within the UK Inheritance Tax net. Broadly, that status can arise if you have been UK resident for the previous 10 consecutive years or for 10 or more years out of the previous 20, and it can continue for years after leaving the UK.
That is a major reason this should not be treated as a neat tax break story. Someone may qualify for the four-year FIG relief on income and gains and still need serious work on trusts, succession, and tax efficiency more broadly. The residence picture that helps on one side can create exposure on another. The upshot is that things like double taxation relief are now interconnected with UK inheritance tax for non-residents, both of which affect inheritance trusts and other elements of your financial planning in a very real way.
What The FIG Regime Changes In Real Planning Terms
The old non-dom world encouraged a lot of people to think in terms of offshore versus onshore, remitting versus not remitting, and domicile versus deemed domicile. The new regime changes the rhythm. The planning questions now are more likely to be about arrival timing, how many clean non-resident years sit behind you, which income and gains qualify, whether an election is worth making once allowances are lost, and how long you are realistically going to stay.
That also makes return planning sharper. If someone leaves the UK and expects to come back, the timing of that return matters far more than it did under the old mental model. So do the temporary non-residence rules, because a short absence does not always produce the clean break people imagine. The risk is no longer just paying more tax than necessary. It is building a plan on assumptions the post-April 2025 rules do not actually support.
The Practical Point To Remember
The FIG regime is not a broad replacement for the old non-dom approach. It is a short, conditional relief that rewards the right residence history and leaves much less room for loose assumptions. That makes the real task less about learning a new label and more about stress-testing the structure you already have. If your planning once relied on remittance treatment, offshore protections, or keeping assets outside the UK by habit, this is the point to check which parts still work, which do not, and where timing now matters more than status.
If you want help reviewing what the new non-dom rules mean for your tax exposure, residency position, and long-term planning, get in touch and we’ll help you look at the structure, the timing, and the life around it before assumptions turn into tax.
