What are the automatic overseas tests?

Where the tests sit in the SRT

The Statutory Residence Test is worked in a fixed order, and the automatic overseas tests are step one. If you meet any one of them for a tax year (6 April to 5 April) you are not UK resident for that year, and nothing later in the test — not the automatic UK tests, not your ties — can change that. Only if you fail all three do you move on to the automatic UK tests and then the sufficient ties test.

That ordering is why the tests matter so much to people leaving the UK: they are the only route to certain non-residence, and two of the three are pure day counts.

The three tests

First automatic overseas test — fewer than 16 days

You were UK resident in one or more of the three previous tax years and you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK in the year — at most 15. This is the test for recent leavers. It does not apply in the tax year in which you die.

Second automatic overseas test — fewer than 46 days

You were not UK resident in any of the three previous tax years and you spend fewer than 46 days in the UK in the year — at most 45. This is the test for long-term non-residents and for people who have never lived in the UK.

Third automatic overseas test — full-time work overseas

You work full-time overseas for the tax year, and all of the following hold:

1. 1You work sufficient hours overseas — on average at least 35 hours a week, assessed across the whole tax year using HMRC's step-by-step calculation, which strips out UK workdays, annual leave, sick leave and gaps between jobs before averaging.
2. 2There is no significant break from overseas work — no period of 31 days or more in which you do no more than three hours' overseas work on any day, unless every day of that period is annual, sick or parenting leave.
3. 3You spend fewer than 31 days in the UK on which you do more than three hours' work — at most 30 UK workdays.
4. 4You spend fewer than 91 days in the UK in the year — at most 90.

Your previous residence history is irrelevant to this test: a recent leaver and a lifelong expat use the same limits. The test is not available if you have a “relevant job” on board a vehicle, aircraft or ship and make six or more cross-border trips in the year that start or end in the UK — international transport workers are tested on ties like everyone else.

What counts as a UK day

The 16, 46 and 91 in these tests are all counts of UK days, and RDR3 defines that term precisely:

• The midnight rule. A day counts as a UK day if you are in the UK at the end of the day — at midnight. Arrive at 9pm and you have a UK day; leave at 11pm and that day is not one. Most other countries count any day on which you were present at all, so people arriving from those systems routinely over-count.
• The transit exception. A midnight spent in the UK does not count if you arrived as a passenger in transit, left the UK the next day, and did nothing between arrival and departure that was substantially unrelated to your passage through the UK. Sleeping in an airport hotel is fine; a dinner with clients is not.
• Exceptional circumstances. Up to 60 days in a tax year spent in the UK because of exceptional circumstances beyond your control — serious illness, a national emergency, a travel ban — can be disregarded, provided you intended to leave and did leave as soon as you could. The 60-day cap is absolute.
• The deeming rule. This works in the other direction: it adds days. If you have three or more UK ties, were UK resident in at least one of the three previous tax years, and have more than 30 “qualifying days” — days on which you were present in the UK but not at midnight — then every qualifying day beyond the 30th is treated as a UK day. The rule exists to catch people who commute in and out to avoid midnights. Deemed days are expressly excluded from the 91-day count for the third test, but they do count for the first and second tests and for the sufficient ties test.

UK workdays for the third test are counted on a different basis altogether: a day is a UK workday if you do more than three hours’ work in the UK on it, midnight or not. Time spent travelling counts as work if you work during the journey or the travel cost would be a deductible employment expense, and employer-provided training related to the job counts too. The two counts have to be tracked separately.

Examples

• Recent leaver, few visits. Priya moved to Singapore in 2024 and was UK resident in 2023–24. In 2025–26 she comes back for two weeks at Christmas — 14 midnights. She was resident in one of the previous three years and has fewer than 16 UK days, so she passes the first test and is automatically non-resident, whatever ties she kept.
• Recent leaver, one visit too many. Same facts, but Priya also flies in for a three-night wedding in June: 17 UK days. The first test fails. She now has to look at the third test (does she work full-time in Singapore?) and, if that also fails, the automatic UK tests and then the ties table — where as a Leaver with, say, a UK home and UK family she could be resident on as few as 16 days.
• Never resident, regular visitor. Marco lives in Milan and has never been UK resident. He spends 40 midnights in London in the year for work and leisure. Fewer than 46 days with no UK residence in the previous three years — the second test is met and he is non-resident.
• Full-time abroad, day trips home. Dan works 40 hours a week in Amsterdam and takes no breaks longer than his holidays. He spends 70 midnights in the UK and makes 25 day trips for meetings on which he works a full day. UK days 70 (under 91), UK workdays 25 (under 31): the third test is met. Had he made 31 day trips, the test would fail even though his midnight count never moved.

How they order against the automatic UK tests

People sometimes assume that the automatic UK tests — 183 days, your only home in the UK, full-time UK work — override everything. In fact the overseas tests are considered first, and if one is met the UK tests are never reached. That is deliberate: the overseas tests are drafted so that anyone who passes one could not in practice meet a UK test (you cannot spend 183 days in the UK and fewer than 91, and you cannot work full-time in both places at once), and it gives leavers a clean answer without having to argue about homes and ties.

The order of work is therefore:

1. 1Automatic overseas tests — any one met means non-resident. Stop.
2. 2Automatic UK tests — any one met means resident. Stop.
3. 3Sufficient ties test — resident or not depending on ties against day bands.

Bounded counts your UK midnights across the April-to-April tax year and shows where you stand against the 16, 46 and 91-day lines; the free UK SRT calculator walks all three steps from your trip dates. Whatever you conclude goes on the residence pages of your return — see what the SA109 form is.

Sources

• HMRC — RDR3: Statutory Residence Test (SRT)
• GOV.UK — Tax on foreign income: UK residence and tax