An election on the SA109, not an automatic relief
The Temporary Repatriation Facility lets former remittance-basis users designate their pre-6 April 2025 unremitted foreign income and gains and pay a flat charge of 12% (2025/26 and 2026/27) or 15% (2027/28) instead of up to 45% on a normal remittance. But nothing happens by default. You designate through your Self Assessment return for the relevant year: the SA100 with the SA109 residence pages attached, where box 50 makes the election and boxes 51 and 52 carry the amounts designated, with the charge then paid as part of that year's tax. The first returns that can carry a designation are the 2025/26 returns due by 31 January 2027, and the filing deadline of 31 January following the tax year applies to each later year in the window. Our Temporary Repatriation Facility guide walks through the whole regime, including who qualifies.
The money can stay offshore
A point clients often miss: you do not have to bring the money to the UK during the window to lock in the rate. You can designate while the funds sit offshore, pay the charge through the return, and remit next year or after the facility has closed; once an amount is designated and charged it is settled for UK tax and can be transferred to the UK at any future time with no further tax. What the timing does control is the rate. The last tax year that qualifies for 12% is 2026/27, which ends on 5 April 2027, and designating £500,000 in 2026/27 costs £60,000 against £75,000 a year later at 15%. After 5 April 2028 the facility closes altogether and old money reverts to normal remittance taxation.
The funding trap and the paperwork
There is no exemption for money brought to the UK to pay the TRF charge. Pay it from undesignated pre-April 2025 foreign income and you have made an ordinary taxable remittance at up to 45%, triggering a full-rate bill in the act of claiming the discount. The two safe routes are paying from funds you have designated, or from clean capital. The other practical hurdle is records: you must identify exactly which historic income and gains you are designating, which in a mixed fund means untangling the layers before anything goes on the return, and then track the cleared funds separately so a later transfer is demonstrably tax-free. Note too that the SA109 cannot be filed through HMRC's free online service, so the return goes in via commercial software, an agent, or on paper, as our guide to why the SA109 cannot be filed online explains. Horizon handles TRF eligibility, mixed-fund analysis and the designation itself on a fixed fee agreed upfront, and with the 12% window closing on 5 April 2027 the modelling is worth doing this season rather than next.