Full-time work abroad and the SRT: hours, leave and job gaps

Q: How does holiday affect the test?

Reasonable annual leave can come off the reference period. A leave day you’d otherwise have worked also counts like a work day for the significant break rule. HMRC doesn’t say how many days of leave is reasonable. It says it depends on your situation, including the work and the usual leave in that country.

The four conditions in one minute

All four must be met, over the whole tax year.[1] The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April.[20]

Enough hours overseas. HMRC calls this “sufficient hours”. It has a five-step sum, explained below.[1][2]
No significant break. No run of 31 days or more without a day of more than 3 hours’ overseas work. Leave days you’d otherwise have worked count as work days here.[1][7]
Fewer than 31 UK work days. These are days when you did more than 3 hours of work in the UK.[1]
Fewer than 91 UK days. These are all days spent in the UK, working or not.[1]

A few more points:

Order matters. HMRC looks at the automatic overseas tests first. If you meet one, you’re non-UK resident for that year, and no other part of the test is needed. The one exception is 183 days or more in the UK. That always means UK resident.[11]
Employees and self-employed. HMRC’s RDR3 notes say the test can apply to both.[17]
Not for everyone. RDR3 says it doesn’t apply to voluntary workers.[17] It also doesn’t apply to some transport workers. That’s if you have a job on a vehicle, aircraft or ship, and at least 6 of your work trips in the year start or end in the UK.[1]

Educational, not tax advice.

What counts as a work day

Most of these rules count days with more than 3 hours of work, in the UK or overseas.[1][7][8]

Where the work happens. HMRC says work usually counts where you actually do it, not where your employer is based. Work on a plane, ship or train to the UK counts as overseas work until you get off in the UK. On the way out, overseas work starts when you board.[9]

What counts as work. Work has its everyday meaning. HMRC includes some travel time and some job-related training. A voluntary post with no contract of service isn’t work.[8]

Short UK work days still matter for tax. HMRC says days with less than 3 hours of UK work are ignored for these Statutory Residence Test (SRT) counts. But they should still be included when working out your UK taxable income.[8]

How HMRC works out “enough hours”

HMRC sets out five steps. Here they are in plain English:[2]

Find your “disregarded days”. These are days when you did more than 3 hours of work in the UK, even if you also worked abroad that day.
Add up your overseas hours. Use the hours you actually worked overseas in the tax year, across all your jobs and any self-employed work. Not your contract hours. Leave out any hours worked on disregarded days. HMRC calls the total your “net overseas hours”.
Work out your “reference period”. Start with 365 days (366 if the year includes 29 February). Take away your disregarded days, allowed gaps between jobs, and certain leave and sick days. These are explained in the next two sections.
Divide the reference period by 7. If the answer isn’t a whole number, round it down. So 34.75 becomes 34. If it’s less than 1, round up to 1.
Divide your net overseas hours by the step 4 number. If the answer is 35 or more, HMRC treats you as working enough hours overseas.

Days that shrink the reference period

A smaller reference period means your hours are spread over fewer weeks. HMRC lets you take out:[4]

Sick days when you would have worked but couldn’t, because of illness or injury.[4]
Annual leave and parenting leave on days you would have worked, if the amount is reasonable. Parenting leave means maternity, paternity, adoption or parental leave.[4][5]
Weekends and other non-working days inside a block of leave. Only if there are at least 3 days in a row of annual, parenting or sick leave before them, and at least 3 after.[6]
Gaps between jobs, within limits. See the next section.[3]

What’s “reasonable” leave? HMRC doesn’t give a number. It says it depends on your situation, including the type of work and the usual leave in the country where you work. If you’re self-employed, compare it with the leave an employee doing similar work might expect.[5]

Two more details:[4]

A day with more than 3 hours of UK work is a disregarded day, even if you took half a day off. It can’t also count as leave.
If your leave days, added together, aren’t a whole number, round down to a whole number.

Gaps between jobs: the 15- and 30-day limits

If you change jobs, the gap between them can come off the reference period.[3]

It counts if:

you changed from one employment to another, with a gap in between, and
you did no work at all during the gap.

Limits:

Up to 15 days for any one gap.
If you had more than 2 employment periods in the year, 30 days in total.[21]
If a gap runs past the end of the tax year, only the days inside the year count.

Self-employed? HMRC says there’s no deduction for gaps between periods of self-employment.[3]

HMRC’s example: Jack had two gaps between jobs, one of 21 days and one of 5 days. He did no work in either. He can take off 15 days for the first gap and all 5 for the second. That’s 20 days in total.[3]

Putting it together: HMRC’s example

HMRC gives an example of MayLing. She worked for two employers in Italy in one tax year, with a 30-day break between the jobs. She had no disregarded days and spent no time in the UK. Her net overseas hours were 1,730.5.[3]

Step	MayLing’s figures
Start with	365 days
Minus disregarded days	0
Minus leave, sick and embedded days	31 (24 days of annual leave, 2 embedded days, 5 sick days)
Minus gap days	15 (her gap was 30 days, but only 15 can come off)
Reference period	319 days
Divide by 7	319 ÷ 7 = 45.57, rounded down to 45
Divide net overseas hours	1,730.5 ÷ 45 = 38.45
Result	35 or more, so she meets the sufficient hours test

HMRC says she still needs to check the other conditions. This is HMRC’s worked example, not a template for your own year.

The 31-day break rule

Separately, the test isn’t met if you have a “significant break” from overseas work.[1] That’s when at least 31 days go by and not one of them is:[7][22]

a day you worked more than 3 hours overseas, or
a day you would have worked more than 3 hours overseas, but didn’t because you were on annual, sick or parenting leave.

So a leave day you’d otherwise have worked counts like a work day here. It stops a run of days becoming a break.[7]

Days between jobs. HMRC’s break definition doesn’t mention them by name. But a day between jobs, with no work and no leave, isn’t either kind of day listed above. So on a plain reading of HMRC’s wording, it counts towards the 31 days. HMRC’s Alex example fits this reading:[1]

Alex’s overseas contract ended on 28 February 2017.
His next overseas job started on 7 April 2017.
HMRC says he did no overseas work from 1 March to 5 April 2017, a period of 36 days.
That’s a significant break, so he doesn’t meet this test. He needs to check the other automatic overseas tests.

(HMRC’s example uses 2017 dates.)

Watch out: HMRC doesn’t say whether gap days you take off your reference period still count towards a 31-day break. On a plain reading of its definition, they do.[7][22]

Don’t mix up the numbers

Number	What it means	HMRC page
More than 3 hours	What makes a day count as a work day for these rules	RFIG20740[8]
Fewer than 31	This test’s limit on UK work days in the year	RFIG20140[1]
40 or more	UK work days that give you a “work tie” in the sufficient ties test	RFIG20560[10]
Fewer than 91	This test’s limit on all UK days in the year, not just work days	RFIG20140[1]

On a plain reading, a day of exactly 3 hours isn’t “more than 3 hours”. HMRC doesn’t discuss that case directly. For more on the work tie, see UK work days and the SRT.

Counting UK days for this test

For the “fewer than 91” limit, a UK day is usually one where you’re in the UK at midnight. There are exceptions, such as some transit days.[16] Two twists apply to this test:

The deeming rule doesn’t apply. That’s the rule that can count some UK days without a midnight. HMRC says it doesn’t apply to this test’s day limit.[12][18]
Some exceptional-circumstances days can be left out of the 91-day count. The most that can be ignored is 60 days in a tax year. HMRC says the 60 is a limit, not an allowance.[13]

Exceptional circumstances can’t be used for the 31-day break, the 31 UK work days, or the gap limits.[14]

Starting or stopping work abroad mid-year?

If you start full-time work abroad partway through a tax year, HMRC may use the same hours sum for just part of the year. That’s split-year Case 1, and Case 6 does the same for the year you stop full-time work abroad.[23][24]

Each case has its own conditions. For an overview, see When your situation changes mid-year.

Records HMRC says to keep

HMRC lists records for people whose status depends on the full-time work tests. They include:[15]

How your work splits between the UK and overseas, especially days with more than 3 hours of work. This includes training, standby and travel.
What you did and for how long. A work diary, calendar or timesheet can show this.
Breaks from work, such as between jobs, and why.
Annual, sick or parenting leave.
Time spent visiting your children under 18 in the UK.
Employment contracts, and messages about changes such as ending early or extending.
Time you had to spend in the UK because of exceptional circumstances, and what you did to reduce it.

HMRC also says you’ll need records showing how many hours you worked on a given day.[8]

This information usually sits in different places: payroll, calendars, booking emails, leave requests. Months later, it’s hard to piece together. That’s down to how scattered the sources are, not to you. A dated log kept during the year means the sum can be checked rather than rebuilt.

A simple layout, offered as our suggestion rather than an HMRC form:

Field	What to put in it
Date	Each day of the tax year
Country at midnight	Where you were at the end of the day
Hours worked, and where	For example, “6 hours overseas” or “4 hours UK”
Leave	Annual, sick or parenting leave, if any
Job	Which employer or contract
Note	Anything unclear, such as work on a travel day

For more, see what records HMRC says to keep and why documentation matters.

Frequently asked questions

Does working remotely for an overseas employer count as working overseas?

Not by itself. HMRC says work usually counts where you actually do it, not where your employer is based. In HMRC’s example, Robert works for a French company but spends 2 days a month working in Glasgow. Those days are UK work.[9]

Do my contract hours count?

No. HMRC says to use the hours you actually worked overseas, not your contracted hours.[2]

How does holiday affect the test?

Reasonable annual leave can come off the reference period.[4] A leave day you’d otherwise have worked also counts like a work day for the significant break rule.[7] HMRC doesn’t say how many days of leave is reasonable. It says it depends on your situation, including the work and the usual leave in that country.[5]

What if there’s a long gap between two jobs?

Up to 15 days of a single gap can come off the reference period. If you had more than 2 employment periods, the total cap is 30 days.[3] Separately, 31 days in a row with no day of over 3 hours’ overseas work, and no leave day in place of one, is a significant break.[7] In HMRC’s Alex example, 36 days without overseas work between two jobs meant he didn’t meet the test.[1]

I’m self-employed. Does this test apply to me?

RDR3 says it can apply to both employees and the self-employed.[17] But HMRC says there’s no deduction for gaps between periods of self-employment.[3] Reasonable leave is compared with what an employee doing similar work might expect.[5]

Can I skip this test and use the sufficient ties test instead?

HMRC’s guidance says to look at the automatic overseas tests first. If you meet any of them, you’re non-UK resident and there’s no need to consider other parts of the test. The exception is 183 days or more in the UK.[11] HMRC’s guidance doesn’t describe a way to choose a different order.

If I spend fewer than 91 days in the UK, do I meet the test?

Not on its own. All four conditions must be met: enough overseas hours, no significant break, fewer than 31 UK work days and fewer than 91 UK days.[1]

Do I need to tell HMRC I’m working abroad full-time?

Yes, in some cases. GOV.UK says you must tell HMRC if you’re going to work abroad full-time for at least one full tax year. That includes working for a UK-based employer. How you tell them depends on whether you fill in a Self Assessment return, and on your employment status.[20]

Sources

Checked on 8 October 2026. GOV.UK shows the HMRC manual pages below as published 4 April 2025, with the manual last updated 3 July 2026. The manual’s update log for that date lists a change to RFIG20160 (gaps between employments). It makes clear the page covers both the overseas and the UK full-time work sums. It also lists changes to the Case 1 and Case 6 hours pages “to make guidance easier to follow”. RDR3 was last updated 11 June 2026. Those are page update dates, not a statement that the law changed on those dates.

Educational information, not tax advice. UK residence can turn on detailed facts and current law. If your position is close to a threshold or commercially significant, use current HMRC guidance and take advice from a qualified professional.