Exceptional circumstances

The evacuation from Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Libya of UK citizens may have affected their UK residence status. HMRC have advised that ‘exceptional circumstances’ will apply only for the period individuals were advised by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) to leave the countries and the week thereafter.

This will allow taxpayers not to count periods of residence in the UK during the period in which the FCO advise citizens to leave the country in which they lived, and it will also allow them time to arrange a return trip when it is safe to do so.

A person will be able remain within the UK after that and still remain non-resident as long as he or she is within the 90 day limit. However, the individual would no longer be in the UK because of the exceptional circumstances of being advised to leave a country.

The guidance is in HMRC6, specifically at the bottom of page 7: ‘Days you have spent in the UK because of exceptional circumstances beyond your control may be disregarded. This does not apply if total days in the UK, including those due to exceptional circumstances, are equal to or exceed 183 days.’

Issue: 4297 / Categories: News , Residence & domicile