Non-Resident Landlord Tax Return 2025/26: Filing UK Rent From Abroad, Step by Step

Because UK rental income is taxed in the UK wherever you live. HMRC's own manual says Income Tax remains chargeable on UK rental income even where the landlord is non-resident, and no double taxation convention transfers that right to another country. Moving abroad changes the collection route, not the charge.

NRL1 approval causes most of the confusion. When HMRC approves an application to receive rent without tax deducted, it tells your letting agent or tenant to stop deducting, and you declare the income on your Self Assessment return instead. HMRC is explicit that approval does not grant exemption from UK tax: any liability is dealt with under Self Assessment. GOV.UK puts it simply: you need to declare your rental income on a return unless HMRC tells you not to.

The same applies where tax is still being deducted. The deduction is a collection mechanism worked out without your full picture, so the return is where your real liability for the year is calculated and the tax already taken is credited.

Two definitions sit side by side here. HMRC classes anyone who lives abroad for 6 months or more a year as a non-resident landlord, even if they are UK resident for tax purposes. Your residence for the return itself is decided by the Statutory Residence Test. You can be UK resident but have a usual place of abode outside the UK, so settle your residence position before you start filling in boxes. If you left the UK part way through 2025/26, read our split-year treatment guide as well.

You need a Unique Taxpayer Reference before anything can be filed. If you had never sent a return before, or registered but did not need to send one for 2024/25, HMRC had to be told by 5 October 2026 that you need a 2025/26 return. That date has passed. Register now anyway, because the consequences of waiting only grow.

• Telling HMRC after 5 October 2026 could lead to a penalty. A failure to notify penalty may arise if you register after 5 October and do not pay all of your tax bill by 31 January, and it is based on the amount still unpaid.
• If you register late, HMRC's letter gives you a filing deadline of 3 months from its date; the tax is still due by 31 January 2027.
• You cannot register online if you do not live in the UK and are not self-employed. The route is form SA1, printed and posted to the address on the form.
• After postal registration the UTR usually arrives by post in 15 working days, or 21 days if you are abroad, and it can take longer in busy periods.

An agent can register you on the same SA1, and the form accepts a postal address outside the UK. Once you are registered, you authorise the agent online through HMRC's Online Agent Authorisation or on paper form 64-8. Registration comes first: HMRC says you must register for Self Assessment before you authorise an agent. Whoever files, you stay legally responsible for your own tax and must check and confirm the return before it is submitted.

Three parts, in most cases. GOV.UK says a non-resident landlord completes the residence section (form SA109 if sent by post) and the property section (form SA105), alongside the SA100 main return.

Leave the SA106 Foreign pages out. The 2025/26 SA106 notes say that if you are resident abroad and complete the SA109, you should not complete the Foreign pages. That follows from the basic rule: non-residents do not pay UK tax on foreign income. Your UK rent is the UK income, and it belongs on the SA105.

The 2025/26 SA109 has a new title, "Residence and foreign income and gains (FIG) regime etc (2026)". The SA109 form 2026 is the right one for a 2025/26 return. Our answer on which SA109 form to use explains the naming.

Enter the gross figure, not what reached your bank account. The 2025/26 UK property notes say a non-resident landlord puts the total rental income, without tax taken off, in box 20 of the SA105, and the total tax taken off in box 21. If your agent paid you a net amount, add back both the tax deducted and any expenses the agent paid out of the rent to reach box 20, then claim those expenses in the expenses boxes.

Expenses follow the same rules as for a UK-resident landlord. You are taxed on profit, and you can deduct costs incurred wholly and exclusively for the letting. Living abroad does not narrow the list. The common ones are:

• Letting agent and management fees, including any fee for operating the scheme on your behalf
• Repairs and maintenance that restore the property (improvements are capital, not running costs)
• Buildings and contents insurance for the let property
• Ground rent, service charges, and council tax or utility bills you paid during void periods
• Accountancy fees for preparing the rental figures and the return
• Replacing domestic items such as free-standing white goods, sofas and beds under replacement of domestic items relief

Start from your agent's annual statement, then add the costs you paid yourself. Keep invoices and bank records for every claim: HMRC is unlikely to visit a property owned from abroad, so the paperwork is your evidence if the return is ever queried.

Small lettings have a shortcut. The property allowance is a tax exemption of up to £1,000 a year for individuals with income from land or property. If you are within it and want to reclaim tax deducted under the scheme, the 2025/26 SA105 notes direct a non-resident landlord to fill in box 1, box 2 if it applies, and box 21.

Mortgage interest is not deducted from your rental profit. For 2025/26, residential finance costs go in SA105 box 44, where they are used to calculate a reduction in your Income Tax rather than being taken off the rent. The rule applies to every individual residential landlord, resident or not.

The reduction is at the basic rate, 20%, and is given on the lowest of three figures: your finance costs, your property profit for the year, or your adjusted total income above the Personal Allowance. It cannot be used to create a tax refund. Any finance cost that cannot be used in the year carries forward to later years, so record it even in a year where it makes no difference.

Keep the interest out of the expenses boxes. Our overseas rental income guide applies the same reducer to foreign lets.

Without NRL1 approval, your letting agent or tenant deducts basic rate tax from the rent, after any expenses they paid, and gives you a certificate at the end of the tax year showing how much was deducted. A letting agent must operate the scheme whatever the rent, unless HMRC has said in writing that you can be paid gross. A tenant paying you directly deducts only where the rent is more than £100 a week.

The certificate is form NRL6, and agents and tenants must give it to you each year by 5 July. For 2025/26, that was 5 July 2026. If you have not received it, chase it now, because it is the evidence for box 21.

On your return for the year to 5 April, you set the tax shown on the NRL6 against your overall UK tax liability for the same year. HMRC's own notes warn that the certificate figure may not match your actual liability on the rental profits. That gap is the point of filing. The deduction ignores your Personal Allowance and the finance cost reduction, so for many landlords the return produces a repayment. For some, with other UK income, it produces more to pay.

If NRL1 approval was granted part way through 2025/26, you may have an NRL6 covering only part of the year. Approval usually takes effect from the first day of the quarter in which HMRC received the application, so expect deductions up to that point and gross rent afterwards. Our answer on what form NRL1 is covers the application.

The allowance is claimed, not given. A non-UK resident must claim the Personal Allowance at the end of each tax year in which they have UK income, and the SA109 is the page used to claim personal allowances as a non-UK resident.

You qualify if you are a British citizen, a citizen of a European Economic Area country, or worked for the UK government at any time in the tax year. You may also qualify under the double taxation agreement between the UK and your country of residence.

If you do not qualify, two things follow. Your rental profit is taxed from the first pound, and GOV.UK says you cannot ask for a refund of scheme tax if you are not eligible for a Personal Allowance. If you do qualify and your profit is modest, the allowance often covers most or all of it, which is exactly why the 20% deducted at source over-collects. Our short answer on whether non-resident landlords get the Personal Allowance sets out the routes, including form R43 for landlords who are not required to file a return.

You cannot use HMRC's online services if you are non-resident. GOV.UK gives three routes instead: send the return by post, use commercial software, or get help from a professional. The 2025/26 SA109 notes say the same thing from the other side: to submit the residence pages online you need commercial software or an agent.

A paper 2025/26 return must reach HMRC by 11:59pm on 31 October 2026. After that date a paper return is late the moment it arrives, even though the online window is still open, so if you will miss 31 October, file online through software that supports the SA109 or through an agent by 31 January 2027. You cannot file the main return online and post the SA109 separately, because the return goes in as one submission. Our guide on why the SA109 cannot be filed through HMRC online covers the three routes in detail.

Your country of residence will usually tax the same rent too. Most treaties give the UK the first right to tax UK property income and require your home country to relieve the double charge, usually by credit or exemption. File the UK return first, then use it as evidence for the claim abroad. Our double tax relief guide explains the mechanics.

One date carries most of the weight. Both the online return and the tax for 2025/26 are due by 11:59pm on 31 January 2027.

Coding out only helps if you already pay tax through PAYE, for example on a UK company pension, and owe less than £3,000. You cannot make a part payment to get under that threshold.

Payments on account surprise landlords in their first year with a real tax bill. Each one is half of the tax owed for the previous year. They are not required if last year's tax was less than £1,000, or if you paid more than 80% of last year's tax outside Self Assessment, for example through PAYE.

When you pay from abroad, the reference is your 10-digit UTR followed by the letter K. HMRC warns that overseas payments may take longer than usual, so send the money days early, not on 31 January.

Late filing costs an initial £100, then £10 a day once the return is 3 months late (up to £900), then 5% of the tax due or £300, whichever is greater, at 6 months and again at 12 months. Late payment brings penalties of 5% of the unpaid tax at 30 days, 6 months and 12 months, plus interest, which HMRC sets at Bank of England base rate plus 4%. A penalty can be appealed if you have a reasonable excuse, but being abroad is not a plan. Our expat Self Assessment guide covers deadlines and penalties for filers abroad.

Making Tax Digital does not change the 2025/26 return. A normal Self Assessment return is still due for the year before you start MTD. What 2025/26 does decide is your start date: anyone with qualifying income over £30,000 in 2025/26 must use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax from 6 April 2027. Qualifying income is gross rent before expenses, and for jointly owned property only your share counts.

Non-residents have a deferral, with conditions. If your 2024/25 return included the SA109, you are exempt for 2026/27, but must use MTD from 2027/28 if your 2025/26 qualifying income is above £30,000. If your 2024/25 return did not include the SA109 but you reasonably expect your 2025/26 or 2026/27 return to, you must apply for the exemption. It is not automatic. Our MTD guide for non-resident landlords covers the quarterly cycle.

If earlier years were never declared, the 2025/26 return does not fix them. HMRC's Let Property Campaign is a standing disclosure route for individual landlords of residential property, and it expressly covers people living abroad for six months or more who let UK property. You notify HMRC, then disclose, make a formal offer and pay within 90 days of HMRC's acknowledgement. How many years go in depends on behaviour: up to 4 with reasonable care, 6 if careless, and up to 20 for failure to notify. An unprompted disclosure with full cooperation usually lands penalties at the bottom of the statutory range. If you filed 2024/25 but got the rental figures wrong, you can usually amend that return until 31 January 2027 instead. Our Let Property Campaign guide walks through both.

Selling is a separate return. Non-residents must report a disposal of UK property or land within 60 days of completion, and pay any tax due on UK residential property in the same window, for completions on or after 27 October 2021. The duty applies even where there is no tax to pay or you made a loss, and a late return costs £100 automatically. If you already file Self Assessment, the sale also goes on the Capital Gains section of your return, unless the property was your main home and qualifies for Private Residence Relief. See our 60-day CGT worked examples.

We file the whole return as your authorised agent with HMRC, SA109 included, so the 31 January online deadline stays open to you wherever you live. That covers the SA105 property pages, the NRL6 credit, the non-resident Personal Allowance claim, split-year claims for the year you left, NRL1 applications for the years ahead, and the separate 60-day CGT return when you sell.

The fee is fixed. A Non-Resident and Expat Tax Return is £550. That is the total, agreed before we start, and we do not bill by the hour. Returns with multiple income streams, investments, trusts or complex structures start at £750, and the exact fixed fee is confirmed before any work begins.

The process is short. A free 30-minute clarity call, a fixed quote and engagement, then identity and address checks, which anti-money-laundering rules require before any work starts. You upload documents to a secure client portal. We prepare the return, you review and approve it, and we file it and confirm what to pay and when. Everything runs remotely, with direct access to the adviser.

Horizon is founder-led by Jordan Onraet-Wells, a Chartered Tax Adviser with over 10 years of experience, including 7 at a Big Four firm. The practice is based in London, works with clients across six continents, is AML-supervised and is rated 5.0 on Google from 19 reviews. Where your country of residence needs its own filing, we lead on the UK position and coordinate vetted specialists there; we do not file other countries' returns.

If 2025/26 is not yet filed, book a free 30-minute clarity call now. The online deadline is 31 January 2027, and overseas registration and payments take longer than you expect. Our non-resident landlord tax return service sets out what is included.