Uk capital gains tax : 5 calendar years or 5 complete tax years

[julischevalier]

I am new here and have found a lot of useful information on capital gains

One thing that jumps out is capital gains for assets owned before you moved abroad. The following page sets out what temporary tax residence means but it remains unclear if that is five full tax years or five calendar years

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-man...manual/cg26540

I moved abroad in June 2019 and my question is if I do sell an asset which I owned before and do not wish to pay Uk cgt what is the earliest date I can move back to the Uk?

Is it June 2024 which is five calendar years or is it five tax years which means 6 April 2020 would be the first year and the earliest departure 6 April 2025. That nine month difference is massive for me and would mean whether I decide to sell the asset or not

The best hmrc page I could find here but I could not make out whether five calendar or tax years. I have figured out everything else including paying cgt in Uk on gains made after 2015 tax changes. This question is about temporary non resident and the five calendar or full tax years

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-man...manual/cg26540

[pawncob]

Under the old rules, such an individual could leave the UK on or before 5 April in one year (so as to be non-resident from 6 April), stay outside the UK for 5 complete tax years (being both 5 tax years and 5 calendar years) and return to the UK on or after 6 April (so as to be tax resident from that point), and not fall foul of the temporary non-residence rules. In accordance with the new legislation, such an individual will still be temporarily non-resident as he will be non-tax resident (in accordance with the SRT) for precisely 5 tax years and not more. This appears to mean that such an individual would need to stay non-UK resident for 6 complete tax years.

https://www.mauriceturnorgardner.com/news-analysis/brief/2014/08/20/length-absence-required-achieve-non-uk-residence/

In relation to being temporarily non-resident or not, a residence period according to HMRC is either:

a full tax year;
the overseas part of a split year; or
the UK part of a split year.

[maths]

An individual is temporarily non-resident if the period of non-residency is 5 years (not tax years) or less.

The rules as to determining split tax years are important.

However, in principle you would not be temporarily non-resident if you left the UK June 2019 and returned June 2024 or later.