The UK Statutory Residence Test, explained

The Statutory Residence Test decides whether you are UK tax resident for a tax year, which runs from 6 April to 5 April. It is not a single day count but an ordered sequence of tests, and the ordering matters: the moment one test settles the question, the later tests are never reached.

The midnight test

A day counts as a UK day when you are in the UK at the end of it — present at midnight. Arrive at 09:00 and leave at 22:00 the same day, and that day does not count. This is the foundation every other number in the SRT is built on, and it is the single largest source of counting errors, since most people intuitively count any day they set foot in the country.

Transit days are excepted when you arrive and leave the next day without engaging in unrelated activities. Days you could not leave due to exceptional circumstances are disregarded up to 60 per tax year.

First: the automatic overseas tests

Your history sets your category. A leaver was UK-resident in any of the three prior tax years; an arriver was not. A leaver with at most 15 UK midnight days is automatically non-resident; for an arriver the allowance is 45 days. Working full-time overseas keeps you automatically non-resident up to 90 UK days, subject to conditions on hours and UK workdays.

Then: the automatic UK tests

Reaching 183 UK midnight days makes you automatically resident, regardless of anything else. So can having your only home in the UK, or working full-time in the UK — both tests turn on facts about homes and hours that no location ledger can observe, which is why Residay asks for them as attestations.

Finally: sufficient ties

If no automatic test settles the year, residence depends on how many UK ties you have against how many days you spent. The ties are: family (a UK-resident spouse, partner, or minor child), accommodation (a place to live available for a qualifying period), work (more than 40 UK workdays), the 90-day tie (exceeding that count in either of the two prior tax years), and — for leavers only — the country tie (the UK is where you were present at midnight most often). The more days, the fewer ties you can afford.

The deeming rule

For leavers and arrivers with three or more ties, a further trap: after 30 qualifying departure days — days you were in the UK but not at midnight — additional such days start counting as UK days despite the midnight test. Frequent same-day visits are not free once you are tied closely enough.

What Residay computes and what it asks

Midnight-day counts, category (leaver or arriver), the computed ties, and the deeming excess all come from the ledger and your residence history. The family, accommodation, work-hours, home-test, and full-time-work facts are attested through a short annual interview, each answer dated and reusable. Split-year cases are detected and flagged with guidance, not computed — partitioning a year is advice territory.

Planning notes

• The tax-year boundary (6 April) means a single trip can straddle two years of counting; check both windows when planning spring travel.
• If you are close to a ties band edge, the cheapest lever is usually a tie, not a day — dropping the accommodation tie can move the threshold an entire band.
• HMRC’s guidance (RDR3) governs the detail; the official source linked above is the binding reference.