FIG Regime Deadlines by Arrival Year: Every Date That Matters

The arithmetic has two moving parts. First, your four-year window is fixed by your first UK-resident tax year after at least 10 consecutive non-resident years, judged under the Statutory Residence Test; HMRC's manual (RFIG44000, GOV.UK) confirms the window is that first year plus the three tax years immediately following it. Second, the regime only exists from 6 April 2025, so under the transitional rule (GOV.UK guidance) people already partway through their window on that date can claim from 2025/26 for whatever remains, and nothing earlier.

Two reading notes. The filing deadline shown is the normal online Self Assessment deadline of 31 January following the end of the tax year; paper returns are due earlier, on 31 October. And a split year of arrival counts as a full year of the window: HMRC's manual is explicit that a year in which split-year treatment applies is a full year of UK residence for these purposes, so arriving in February still burns a whole year of the four.

If your first UK-resident year was 2023/24, your window is 2023/24 to 2026/27. The first two years fell before the regime existed and can never be claimed. You could claim for 2025/26, you can claim for 2026/27, and then it is over: from 6 April 2027 your foreign income and gains are fully within UK tax on the arising basis, subject only to treaty relief and foreign tax credits.

The point most people miss is that the relief follows when income arises, not when you file. HMRC's helpsheet (HS266, GOV.UK) confirms relief applies to qualifying foreign income arising, and gains accruing, in a year for which you claim. So for a 2023/24 arriver, only money that arises on or before 5 April 2027 can ever be sheltered: a dividend voted in May 2027 or a disposal completed a week after the year end gets no relief at all.

That turns the remainder of 2026/27 into a timing exercise. If you control when foreign dividends, bond maturities, fund distributions or a planned disposal arise, accelerating them to before 5 April 2027 brings them inside your final claimable year; letting them drift into 2027/28 hands the same money to UK tax at full rates. This is exactly the modelling we run for clients in their final year, on a fixed fee agreed upfront.

Each claimable year carries two separate dates. The tax year itself ends on 5 April, and only income and gains arising by then qualify. The claim is then made through Self Assessment: the return is due by 31 October on paper or 31 January online, and HS266 confirms the FIG claim itself can be made or amended up to the anniversary of that 31 January date, twelve months after the normal filing deadline. For 2026/27 that means the return is due 31 January 2028 and the claim can be corrected up to 31 January 2029.

The amendment window is a safety net, not a strategy. It cannot conjure relief for money that arose after the year ended, and it cannot revive a year whose anniversary deadline has passed: once 31 January 2028 goes by, a 2025/26 claim that was never made is gone permanently.

A final-year claim is priced the same as any other. Claiming for a year costs you that year's Personal Allowance of £12,570 and the £3,000 Capital Gains Tax annual exempt amount in full, even if you claim on income only or on a single source. The claim is made on the SA109, with an X in box 28 for foreign income and box 29 for foreign gains, and every relieved amount must be quantified source by source on the supplementary pages; HMRC treats an unquantified claim as invalid. It is never automatic, so "exempt" never means "leave it off the return".

Run the numbers before the final year closes, because a claim can still be a net loss: a UK salary with a few thousand pounds of foreign interest gives up more in Personal Allowance than the relief saves, while a large foreign dividend or gain arising before 5 April saves multiples of the allowances forfeited. Our SA109 walkthrough covers the boxes, the disclosure standard and the records HMRC expects for each account.

The FIG regime has no carry back and no carry forward. Each claim stands alone for its own tax year, the four-year clock runs from your first resident year whether you claim or not, and HMRC's guidance is explicit that unused years cannot be rolled over. Skipping 2025/26 does not add a year at the end; it just means one claimable year produced nothing.

The same applies mid-window. If you leave temporarily and are non-resident for a year inside the four, you cannot claim for that year, but the window does not pause: you can claim again on return only for whatever years of the original four remain. Once your window closes, no later return or amendment reaches back into it beyond the anniversary deadlines in the table above: the regime is use-it-or-lose-it, year by year.

If you were taxed on the old remittance basis before 6 April 2025, a second calendar matters: the Temporary Repatriation Facility for pre-6 April 2025 foreign income and gains. It is a fixed three-year window covering 2025/26, 2026/27 and 2027/28 (RDRM71000, GOV.UK), with the charge set at 12% of designated qualifying overseas capital for 2025/26 and 2026/27 and 15% for 2027/28 (RDRM73400, GOV.UK).

Note the echo between the two calendars: 5 April 2027 is both the last day of the final claimable FIG year for 2023/24 arrivers and the last day of the 12% TRF window. After 5 April 2028 the facility is gone entirely and historic foreign income brought to the UK reverts to normal rates of up to 45%. FIG shelters new money arising in the window; the TRF settles old money at a flat rate; plenty of people need both in the same return.

One standing caveat for American readers. A FIG claim relieves UK tax and nothing else: the United States taxes its citizens on worldwide income wherever they live, so income sheltered from UK tax under FIG remains fully reportable and potentially taxable on your US return, and a year with no UK tax on a source usually means no foreign tax credit against the US bill on it. The deadlines on this page are the UK half of the picture only. We handle the UK side and coordinate the US filings with our US partners, Enrolled Agents and CPAs, so the two returns tell one consistent story.