The date is confirmed: Wednesday 28 October 2026
On 31 July 2026 the Chancellor wrote to the Treasury Select Committee confirming that "The Budget will be held on 28 October 2026" (GOV.UK). So the timetable is fixed: roughly two months of speculation, one afternoon of documents, then the detail in the Finance Bill that follows.
For anyone with a foot outside the UK, that timetable matters more than the rumours. Some of the most consequential changes for leavers in years are already legislated and arrive on their own schedule whatever the speech says. Others are pure conjecture that has been recycled through several Budget cycles. This page keeps the two piles separate, and we update it when the facts change.
Already law: what happens to leavers regardless of the Budget
Start with the certainties. Each of the following is legislated or formally announced government policy, verified on GOV.UK, and none of it depends on 28 October.
| Change | Status | Key date | Who it affects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Income tax thresholds and the £325,000 IHT nil rate band frozen | Extended at Budget 2025 to April 2031 | Running now to April 2031 | Everyone with UK income or a UK-relevant estate, resident or not |
| Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, wave 2 | Legislated; wave 1 live since 6 April 2026 at £50,000 | 6 April 2027 for qualifying income over £30,000 | Sole traders and landlords, including non-resident landlords with UK property income |
| Temporary Repatriation Facility 12% rate ends | Legislated; 15% applies for 2027/28, then the facility closes | 12% covers designations for 2025/26 and 2026/27 only | Former remittance basis users with pre-6 April 2025 foreign income and gains |
| FIG regime four-year cliffs | Legislated; the window is four consecutive years from first residence and cannot be extended | 2023/24 arrivers' final claimable year is 2026/27 | New and returning UK residents after 10 years of non-residence |
| Unused pension pots brought into IHT | Announced at Budget 2025 | 6 April 2027 | Anyone with UK pension savings, including expats still in scope for IHT |
| Business Asset Disposal Relief rate rises to 18% | In force | Disposals from 6 April 2026 | Business owners selling before or after a move abroad |
The freezes are the quiet one. Budget 2025 held income tax thresholds for a further three years from April 2028 and inheritance tax thresholds for a further year, both to April 2031 (Budget 2025, GOV.UK). A frozen £325,000 nil rate band is not neutral for expats: since 6 April 2025 inheritance tax has followed residence, not domicile, so a long-term UK resident, meaning someone resident for at least 10 of the last 20 tax years, stays in scope for worldwide-asset IHT for between 3 and 10 years after leaving (GOV.UK). Our guide to residence-based IHT covers the tail in detail; the point here is that leaving the UK does not switch the freeze off.
Making Tax Digital's second wave is equally indifferent to the Budget. From 6 April 2027, anyone whose qualifying income from self-employment and property exceeded £30,000 in 2025/26 must keep digital records and file quarterly updates, and HMRC's guidance is explicit that the rules cover UK self-employment and property income even where the taxpayer is resident or domiciled outside the UK (GOV.UK). The £50,000 wave has been live since April 2026 and a £20,000 wave follows in April 2028. If you rent out your old home from abroad, our MTD for non-resident landlords guide is the practical walkthrough.
The Temporary Repatriation Facility is the deadline with real money on it. The TRF charge is 12% of qualifying overseas capital designated for 2025/26 or 2026/27, rising to 15% for 2027/28, after which the three-year facility ends (RDRM73400, HMRC; RDRM71000, HMRC). The 2026/27 tax year ends on 5 April 2027, so that is the last year a designation can attract the 12% rate rather than 15%. Former remittance basis users planning to leave, or already gone, should read our TRF guide now rather than in March.
Finally the FIG regime's arithmetic, which matters to returners as much as leavers. The regime gives up to four consecutive years of relief from your first year of UK residence after 10 years abroad, and GOV.UK is blunt that you cannot roll unused years forward (GOV.UK). Someone first resident in 2023/24 reaches the end of the window in 2026/27; a 2024/25 arriver finishes in 2027/28. If you are timing a return to the UK around a future departure, the FIG regime guide sets out the cliffs year by year.
The rumour file: four categories, all clearly speculation
Now the unconfirmed pile. Everything in this section is speculation. None of it appears in legislation, none of it has been announced by the government, and history says most pre-Budget predictions do not happen. We include only themes actually published by professional firms in this Budget cycle, with no invented rates, thresholds or dates of our own.
Exit charges. The idea that most directly targets leavers is a capital gains tax charge on people who cease to be UK resident. Charles Russell Speechlys notes there have been calls to apply a CGT exit charge for people becoming non-resident, while treating it as exactly that, a call rather than a policy (Charles Russell Speechlys, Autumn Budget 2026 commentary). The current law is the opposite: becoming non-resident does not itself crystallise gains, though UK land always remains chargeable and the temporary non-residence rules can tax gains realised abroad if you return within five years. Those calls have so far produced no draft legislation, and we will state plainly on this page if that changes on 28 October.
Capital gains tax more broadly. The same commentary canvasses incremental rate rises or alignment with income tax bands, removal of the tax-free uplift on death, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated forgoes roughly £1.5 billion, further restriction of Business Asset Disposal Relief, and even a cap on private residence relief for high-value homes. All are proposals in circulation, not policy. BDO's prediction round-up observes that talk of equalising CGT with income tax has quietened, and that large rate rises can reduce revenue because people simply hold assets (BDO Autumn Budget 2026 predictions). What is fact: the main CGT rates today are 18% and 24% (GOV.UK), and BADR disposals are taxed at 18% from 6 April 2026.
Inheritance tax. BDO's commentary floats ideas as far-reaching as a flat 10% charge on assets held at death to fund social care, while doubting the politics of touching IHT again so soon after the April 2026 reliefs reforms. Nothing is announced. The confirmed IHT pipeline is what we listed above: the freeze to 2031, agricultural and business property relief changes from April 2026, and pensions into estates from April 2027.
Pension tax relief. This is a perennial pre-Budget theme. BDO's round-up mentions ideas such as a small percentage charge on pension fund management fees, describing that as a relatively simple option for a brave Chancellor, which is a fair measure of how politically sensitive even small pension changes are. Again, speculation only. The announced pension change that leavers should actually plan around is the confirmed one: unused pots inside the IHT net from 6 April 2027 (Budget 2025, GOV.UK), which our pensions and IHT guide covers in full.
What to do before 28 October, and what is panic
A useful test for any pre-Budget move: would it still make sense if the Budget contained nothing relevant at all? If yes, do it, because most of the real deadlines are running anyway. If the move only makes sense on the assumption that a specific rumour comes true, it is a gamble dressed as planning.
| Worth doing before Budget day | The panic version to avoid |
|---|---|
| Pin down your residence facts: day counts, ties and split year dates under the SRT, documented now | Moving abroad earlier than planned just because of the Budget; a rushed departure does not by itself make you non-resident, the SRT decides that over the whole year |
| Designate TRF money for 2026/27 while the 12% rate still applies | Remitting untracked offshore mixed funds in a hurry without designating first |
| Complete disposals you had already decided to make, so a known 18% or 24% rate applies | Selling assets you intended to keep for years purely to beat a rumoured rate rise |
| Review pension death benefit nominations and your IHT exposure ahead of the April 2027 change | Rushing an overseas pension transfer, which has its own tax consequences and is hard to unwind |
| Bring outstanding returns and the 60-day property reports up to date | Making large gifts solely to front-run rumoured IHT changes, forgetting the seven-year clock and CGT on the gift itself |
The first row is the highest value. Almost every measure that could target leavers, confirmed or rumoured, turns on whether and when you are UK resident, so an evidenced position under the Statutory Residence Test and a clear split year date is the foundation for reacting to whatever is announced. It is also work that keeps its value in the certain world: the P85, the final return and the residence pages need the same facts.
On disposals, keep the sequencing honest. If you were selling anyway, completing before Budget day means you know your rate; the current main rates are 18% and 24% (GOV.UK). Recent practice has often been to announce and then start changes the following April, as with the BADR rise announced at Budget 2025 and effective from 6 April 2026, but there is no rule requiring that, so certainty only exists for completed disposals. What we would not do is manufacture a disposal that has no purpose beyond the rumour: transaction costs, the loss of future growth and the tax actually triggered are real, while the rumoured change may never happen. UK residential property sales also still need a 60-day CGT report whether or not the Budget changes anything.
On gifts and pensions, the irreversibility is the warning. A gift made in September cannot be unmade in November when the rumoured measure fails to appear, and it starts the seven-year clock with a possible CGT bill of its own. A pension moved offshore in a hurry is the same but with more zeros; our guide to leaving a UK pension versus transferring explains why that decision should never be made against a Budget countdown.
How Horizon monitors the Budget for leavers
This page is maintained as a living document. Between now and 28 October we track the government's own publications rather than the rumour mill, and on Budget day we read the actual documents, the red book, the policy costings and the draft legislation, because the detail that decides a leaver's position is always in the fine print, not the speech. The page is then updated to state what was announced, what starts when, and which of the rumour categories above became real, if any.
For clients, that reading happens against your file: your departure date, your assets, your FIG or TRF position, your pension. If you are planning a UK exit this year or next, start with our complete leaving the UK guide, then talk to us before you act on anything in the speculation pile. Fees are fixed and agreed upfront: personal tax returns from £350, non-resident and expat returns from £550, and complex returns from £750. Book a free 30-minute clarity call or read about our expat tax adviser service, and we will tell you which of the certainties above touches you, and which rumours you can safely ignore.
