Moving Abroad from the UK: The Complete Financial Guide for Expats in Europe

You have decided to do it. Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, somewhere with better weather or a slower pace or family already settled. The visa is in motion, the flights are half-booked, a removals quote is sitting in your inbox. The part nobody quite plans for is what happens to your money the moment you stop being a UK resident.

Moving abroad from the UK quietly rearranges almost everything financial. Your bank account, your ISA, your pension, your tax status, your access to the NHS: each one shifts, and they do not all shift at the same time or in the same direction. Some changes happen automatically once HMRC knows you have gone. Others only happen if you trigger them, and if you do not, things break quietly in the background.

Most people emigrating from UK shores find out about the problems afterwards. The current account frozen mid-transaction. The ISA that will not take a transfer. The pension question nobody flagged. The tax bill that turns up a year later. Leaving the UK is the exciting bit. The admin behind it is not, which is exactly why it gets skipped.

This is the checklist we wish someone had handed us. It walks through the whole journey: what to sort before you leave, what changes once you are non-resident, the country-by-country quirks, and what to watch if you ever move back. It leans towards UK nationals heading to Europe, but much of it holds wherever you land.

A note before we start. Tax, pension and banking rules change often, and the right answer depends on your exact circumstances and your destination country. Everything below is general information, accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing in 2026, and none of it is financial, tax, legal or immigration advice. Confirm the current position with a qualified professional before you act on any of it.

Tell HMRC you are leaving: the P85

The most important pre-departure task is also the most forgettable. When you leave the UK to live abroad, you tell HMRC by completing form P85, the Leaving the UK form. It notifies them that you intend to become non-resident for tax, and it often triggers a refund for the tax year you go, because your tax-free personal allowance was set against a full year you will not finish working in the UK.

Skip it and HMRC carries on assuming you are here. They keep expecting self-assessment returns, they may keep taxing you as a resident on your worldwide income, and untangling that after the fact is far more painful than the form ever is. One caveat worth knowing: the P85 is not a residency certificate. It records your intention. It does not, by itself, confirm that you are non-resident.

That is decided by the Statutory Residence Test, in place since 2013. The popular belief that spending fewer than 183 days in the UK makes you non-resident is only part of the story. The test weighs your days against your ties to the UK: a home, a spouse, children, available accommodation, work. Someone who keeps a house and family here can stay UK-resident on far fewer days than they expect. Work out where you stand under the test before you assume you are off the hook.

There is also split-year treatment. In the tax year you actually leave, the year can be divided into a resident part and a non-resident part, so you are not taxed as a UK resident on your overseas income for the months after you go. You may still need to file a self-assessment return for the year of departure, and sometimes the year after. This is the UK expat tax return that catches people who assumed leaving meant the paperwork stopped.

What happens to your UK bank account

Here is the shock that lands hardest. Your UK bank may simply close your account. Most high-street and app-based banks are built for UK residents, and their terms quietly assume you live here. Update your address to a foreign one, or let it slip that you have moved, and the account can be restricted, frozen or closed. A UK expat bank account is not something most providers offer as standard, which is the root of the problem.

It varies by bank, and the picture shifts, so check directly. Barclays, for one, closes UK current accounts automatically once you are no longer resident. The app banks such as Monzo and Starling are designed around UK residency and may shut or limit an account once they know you live abroad. Some people try to keep an account open by hanging on to a UK address. It breaks the terms and conditions, and it can cause genuine trouble with tax reporting, because banks now share account information across borders under the Common Reporting Standard. A UK address on an account you no longer live at is not a clever workaround. It is a flag.

If you want a UK bank account for non residents, the products built for the job are the expat and international accounts. The HSBC Expat account is the best known, designed specifically for people living outside the UK, though it comes with eligibility hurdles: broadly, around £75,000 in savings or investments held with them, or a salary of roughly £120,000 paid into the account, or existing HSBC Premier status. NatWest International and Lloyds Bank International run comparable non-resident current accounts, often multi-currency, and again usually aimed at customers with a certain level of income or balances. These are the realistic UK expat banking options, rather than hoping your ordinary current account survives the move.

Why keep a UK account at all once you have gone? Because plenty of money still runs through the UK. A pension paid in sterling. Rent from a property you let out. Premium Bonds, dividends, the odd refund. A British expat bank account, expat or international, gives that money somewhere to land and a bridge while you settle in. Most expats keep one foot in the UK banking system on purpose.

Open a local bank account in your new country

On the other side of the move, you will need a local account for rent, utilities, a salary, the daily business of living somewhere. Most European countries want proof of address and proof of residency before they will open one, which sets up the classic catch-22: you need an address to get the account, and sometimes the account to secure the address.

The way round it is usually a digital account first. App-based banks that operate across the EU give you an IBAN and a card quickly, often before your local paperwork is finished, and you move to a traditional local bank once you are settled. Multi-currency accounts earn their keep here, because they let you hold both pounds and euros and shift between them cheaply, which matters enormously when your income and your outgoings sit in different currencies. Wise, Revolut and N26 are common starting points, while the established local banks vary by country, from Sabadell and CaixaBank in Spain to BNP Paribas and Boursorama in France. Overseas banking is rarely as smooth as the brochures suggest, so give yourself a few weeks of overlap.

What happens to your ISA

Your ISA does not vanish when you leave, which surprises people who assume it is tied to UK residency. The investments inside stay exactly where they are, and they keep their tax-free status within the wrapper as far as the UK is concerned. A stocks and shares ISA can stay invested. A cash ISA carries on earning interest. If you want a refresher on how ISAs sit alongside SIPPs and other tax-advantaged wrappers, that is worth a read before you go.

What you lose is the ability to feed it. Once you are non-resident, you cannot pay new money into an ISA or open a new one. No fresh contributions, no new subscriptions, for as long as you live abroad. Some providers go further and restrict trading or account access once they know you have moved, so ask yours how they treat non-residents before you leave rather than after.

There is a sharper catch on tax. The ISA's tax-free status is a UK invention, and your new country is under no obligation to recognise it. Spain, France, Portugal and the rest will generally tax the income and gains inside your ISA under their own rules, as though the wrapper were not there. The account that shelters you perfectly in the UK can become an ordinary taxable investment the day you become resident somewhere else.

What happens to your pension

Pensions are the most tangled part of the whole move, partly because there are several kinds and they behave differently, and partly because the rules have moved recently. Take them one at a time.

The UK State Pension. You keep everything you have built up through National Insurance, and it can be paid anywhere in the world, Europe included. The question that worries people is whether it still rises each year. For UK expats in the EU and the wider EEA, plus Switzerland, the answer is yes: under the post-Brexit social security arrangements the State Pension is uprated with the triple lock just as it would be at home, and the full new State Pension reached around £241 a week from April 2026. The frozen pension problem, where the amount sticks at the level it was when you left, applies to countries without a reciprocal agreement, such as Canada and Australia, not to the EU.

Filling the gaps. If your National Insurance record has holes, you can often pay voluntary contributions (Class 2 or Class 3) while living abroad to build your entitlement, and for many people the boost to the eventual pension dwarfs the cost. It is one of the few genuinely high-return moves in this whole guide. Check your record before you assume it is complete.

Workplace and personal pensions. A defined contribution pension (a workplace pot, a personal pension, a SIPP) stays with its UK provider when you move. You do not have to do anything with it, and you can leave it invested and draw it from age 55, rising to 57 from April 2028. The wrinkles are practical rather than dramatic: some providers are awkward about paying drawdown to a non-resident, some block new contributions, and a few charge more or narrow your investment choices once you are abroad.

Paying into a UK SIPP from abroad is possible in narrow cases, mainly if you still have UK relevant earnings, but the tax-relief position gets complicated fast and most expats stop contributing once they are non-resident. If drawdown is on your mind, the order in which you draw from different pots still matters, wherever you happen to live.

Transferring a pension overseas (QROPS). You can move a UK pension into a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme, or QROPS, based abroad. This was far more popular a decade ago, and the rules have tightened sharply since. One change is recent enough to trip up a lot of advice still floating around online: until 30 October 2024, transfers to a QROPS in the European Economic Area were generally free of the 25% Overseas Transfer Charge. That exemption has been removed. From that date, transferring to an EEA-based QROPS can trigger the 25% charge, and the main remaining way to avoid it is to be resident in the same country as the scheme you are transferring to.

Whether a transfer makes sense at all depends on the size of the pot, your tax position in both countries, and the fees, which can be steep. After the 2024 change, the case for moving an EEA pension is weaker than the older guidance suggests. This is firmly an area for regulated, paid advice, not a decision to take on the strength of a forum thread.

Final salary (defined benefit) pensions. Treat these with the most caution of all. A defined benefit pension is a guaranteed income for life, and transferring out means giving that up for a cash value, usually for good. The FCA requires advice from a regulated specialist for any transfer worth more than £30,000, and for good reason. For most people the right answer is to leave it untouched and draw it in retirement. The bar for moving a final salary pension should be very high.

UK tax after you leave

Once you are non-resident under the Statutory Residence Test, you generally stop paying UK income tax on most of your income. Generally, not entirely. The UK holds on to the right to tax certain UK-source income no matter where you live, and knowing which is which keeps your uk expat tax position clean.

• UK rental income stays taxable in the UK if you let out a property here. Under the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme your letting agent or tenant may have to withhold tax at source, unless you register with HMRC to receive the rent gross and declare it yourself.
• UK employment income remains taxable for any work physically carried out in the UK, even after you have moved.
• UK pension income is often taxable in the UK, though a double-taxation treaty may hand the taxing rights to your new country instead. It depends on the treaty and the type of pension.
• UK government and civil service pensions are usually taxable only in the UK under most treaties, wherever you happen to live.

What drops away is the rest. Overseas employment income, overseas investment income and most foreign earnings stop being UK-taxable once you are non-resident. UK dividends and interest are frequently not taxed in the UK for non-residents under the disregarded income rules, though once more a treaty can shift things. One quiet bonus: UK and EEA nationals generally keep their entitlement to the UK personal allowance, which can shelter a slice of any UK income you do still have, such as rent.

Capital gains tax and the five-year trap

You will see UK expat exit tax searched a great deal, so here is the honest answer. The UK does not levy a general exit or departure tax the way some countries do. There is no charge simply for leaving. But two rules behave a little like one, and both catch people out.

The first is temporary non-residence. If you were UK-resident for at least four of the seven tax years before you left, and you return within five complete tax years, gains you made while abroad on assets you already owned when you left can be taxed when you come back. The rule exists precisely to stop people nipping abroad for a couple of years to crystallise a big gain tax-free. To escape it cleanly, you need at least five complete tax years of non-residence.

The second is Non-Resident Capital Gains Tax on UK property. UK land and property stay within UK CGT regardless of where you live, and since April 2019 that covers all UK property, residential and commercial alike. A disposal has to be reported to HMRC within 60 days of completion, whether or not any tax is due. Leaving the country does not lift your UK flat out of UK capital gains tax.

For a genuinely permanent move of five years or more, CGT on most other assets falls away once you are non-resident, which is why some people time the sale of investments for after they have left and settled. The trap is reserved for the two- or three-year mover who sells up while abroad and then comes home.

Tax in your new country

Becoming non-resident in the UK is only half of it. You also become tax-resident somewhere else, usually after around 183 days in your new country, though each has its own test. And most European countries tax their residents on worldwide income, which means the income and gains you stopped declaring to HMRC you now declare locally instead.

What stops you being taxed twice on the same money is the network of Double Taxation Agreements. The UK has one with virtually every EU country, and the treaty decides which country gets to tax what. Rental income is generally taxed where the property sits. Employment income where the work is done. Pension income varies by treaty, sometimes taxed in the UK, sometimes in your country of residence. Where both countries have a claim, the treaty gives a credit so you are not charged in full twice.

The specifics differ enormously by destination, and the country notes further down cover Spain, Portugal, France and Germany in more detail. The single most valuable thing you can do is get local tax advice in the country you are moving to. A UK accountant knows UK rules. They will not know the Spanish wealth tax or the French social charges, and those are exactly the things that surprise people after they arrive.

Inheritance tax still follows you

This is another area where the advice floating around online may be out of date, because the ground moved in 2025. UK inheritance tax used to hang on domicile, a sticky legal concept that could keep your worldwide estate inside UK IHT for years after you physically left. From 6 April 2025 that approach was scrapped. IHT now turns on long-term residence.

Under the new system you are a long-term resident, with your worldwide estate within UK inheritance tax, if you have been UK-resident for at least 10 of the previous 20 tax years. Fall below that line and only your UK-situated assets are in scope. Domicile, and the old deemed-domicile test, no longer decide it.

Leaving does not switch this off overnight, though. When a long-term resident moves abroad, their worldwide estate stays within UK IHT for a tail of between three and ten years, depending on how long they were resident: three years for someone who was here for 10 to 13 of the last 20 tax years, rising by a year for each additional year of residence, up to a maximum of ten. Plan around that window rather than assuming the move was instant.

Your new country may tax inheritance too, and not the way the UK does. Spain and France both levy succession taxes that can fall on the person inheriting rather than the estate, sometimes alongside forced-heirship rules about who must inherit. Double-tax relief can soften the overlap, but the standard UK 40% rate above the nil-rate band still applies to whatever remains in scope. For anyone with meaningful assets, cross-border estate planning is not optional, and it is one of the clearest cases in this guide for paid, specialist advice.

NHS entitlement after you leave the UK

A question that comes up constantly: can UK expats use the NHS? Once you are no longer ordinarily resident in the UK, you lose entitlement to free non-emergency NHS care. NHS access is based on residence, not on your nationality or how many years of National Insurance you paid. You will still be treated in a genuine emergency while visiting, but routine care stops, which means you need proper cover wherever you now live.

• The S1 form is the big one for retirees. If you receive a UK State Pension, you (and often your dependants) can apply for an S1, which gives access to the state healthcare system in your EU or EEA country of residence, with the UK picking up the cost. You register it with the local authority (the INSS in Spain, CPAM in France) and can apply up to around 90 days before you move. For a British expat pensioner, NHS entitlement effectively transfers into the local system this way.
• The GHIC, the UK Global Health Insurance Card that replaced the old EHIC, covers necessary treatment during temporary visits to the EU. It is not a substitute for healthcare where you live. S1 holders are issued a GHIC for travel outside their country of residence.
• Local state healthcare is the route for working-age movers: register as a resident and contribute to the local social security system, usually through employment or self-employment, the same as any local would.
• Private health insurance is required outright for some visas, notably Spain's non-lucrative visa, and many expats hold a policy anyway for the speed and choice it buys while their state cover beds in.

Currency: pounds in, euros out, and the cost of moving between them

Live in Europe on UK income and you run into a problem every single month: money in pounds, life in euros, and a conversion sitting in between. A sterling pension, rent from a UK property, savings interest, all of it has to become euros before it pays for anything. Every conversion costs, and the worst place to do it is your UK bank's standard international transfer, where the fee is buried in a poor exchange rate and a foreign transaction can quietly lose you 3% to 5% before it arrives.

The fix is to take conversion out of the bank's hands. Specialist services such as Wise convert close to the mid-market rate with a small, visible fee, and Revolut is competitive for smaller amounts. For a one-off large transfer, say buying a property, a currency broker can offer a forward contract that locks in a rate for a future date, which removes the risk of the market moving against you between offer and completion. The gap between a good provider and a high-street bank on a property-sized transfer can run into thousands.

If your income is predictable, automate it. A scheduled transfer that moves a set amount of your sterling pension into euros each month spreads your exchange rate over the year and saves you watching the markets. The habit that costs you most is the opposite one: leaving it to your UK bank to convert whatever, whenever, at whatever rate it fancies.

Investing as a UK expat in Europe

Your ISA is frozen the moment you become non-resident, so the question of uk expat investment options becomes a real one. You can leave existing holdings where they are, but you need somewhere new to invest, and the choices are more restricted than they were at home.

Start with the platforms. Several big UK investment platforms, including Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and Vanguard's UK arm, restrict or close accounts for non-residents, so check where you stand before you go rather than discovering it locked afterwards. Interactive Brokers is generally the most expat-friendly of the large platforms, because it operates across many jurisdictions. You can also open an investment account locally in your new country, bearing in mind it will be taxed under local rules.

There is one trap that surprises almost every uk expat investing in Europe for the first time. As an EU resident you generally cannot buy US-domiciled ETFs, because they do not produce the disclosure document (a KID) that EU rules require for retail investors. The workaround is simple: buy the UCITS version of the fund instead, usually domiciled in Ireland, which tracks the same index and is built for European investors. The same restriction follows you whether you invest through a UK or an EU platform.

Whatever you hold, the gains and income are now taxable in your country of residence, not the UK, so keep clean records of what you bought, when, and for how much. Your local tax return will want them, and reconstructing years of trades after the fact is miserable. Good record-keeping is the unglamorous half of a UK expat investment account.

Keeping track of your money across two countries

Here is the quiet, ongoing headache nobody mentions in the relocation guides. After the move you hold UK accounts and European accounts, in at least two currencies, with a pension in one country and your daily spending in another. No single banking app shows you the whole thing, which is the same blind spot that your bank's own budgeting tools have even when you live in one place, only worse.

The manual answer is a spreadsheet listing every account, in every currency, updated once a month and converted into a single currency by hand. It works, and plenty of organised expats run their lives this way for years. It is also tedious, error-prone, and the first thing to slip when life gets busy.

Closing that gap is exactly what a multi-country finance app is for, and it is where Endute earns its place for people living across borders.

Every account and currency in one place. Endute connects to more than 18,000 banks, and supports over 150 currencies, converting every balance into a single reporting currency you choose. Your scattered accounts become one net worth figure instead of a dozen browser tabs.

Sterling income beside euro spending. Because multi-currency is built in rather than bolted on, your pound income and your euro outgoings sit on the same dashboard, and foreign-currency transactions are recorded in both the original currency and your reporting currency. The cross-border money you are constantly converting stops being a guessing game.

One picture across countries. A UK ISA you can no longer feed, a frozen workplace pension, a new local current account, a Spanish or French property: they roll into a single view of what you own and owe, wherever it physically sits. For an expat, that is the dashboard your banks will never build, because none of them can see the others.

Investments and reporting. Portfolio tracking with proper return calculations, dividend tracking, and reports that work across currencies mean you can keep the records your local tax return will demand, rather than scrambling for them in spring. The admin half of investing abroad gets a lot lighter.

Spain

Spain is the classic landing spot, home to the largest population of British residents anywhere in the EU. If you are not working, the non-lucrative visa is the usual route, and it requires private health insurance and proof that you can support yourself without a Spanish job. Once you are resident, your UK State Pension is uprated each year, and an S1 lets you into the Spanish state healthcare system if you draw that pension. Life as a uk expat in Spain is well-trodden, which helps.

Two Spanish quirks catch British arrivals out. The Modelo 720 requires residents to declare foreign assets worth more than €50,000, whether in bank accounts, investments or property, to the Spanish tax authorities each year. And the Beckham Law lets some qualifying new arrivals, mainly employees, pay a flat 24% rate on Spanish-source income for several years rather than the progressive rates. Spain also has a wealth tax that varies by region. Spanish tax is its own world, and local advice pays for itself quickly here.

Portugal

Portugal built its reputation on the Non-Habitual Resident regime, which handed new arrivals a decade of favourable tax treatment, including generous breaks on foreign pensions and income. That regime closed to new applicants from 2024. Anyone already registered keeps their benefits for the rest of their ten years, but new movers cannot join. It has been replaced by a much narrower scheme, the IFICI (sometimes branded NHR 2.0), aimed mainly at highly qualified roles in science, technology and innovation, offering a 20% flat rate on eligible Portuguese income. The broad pension and foreign-income exemptions that made the old NHR famous are not part of it. If you are moving to Portugal for the tax deal you read about a few years ago, check what actually applies now before you count on it.

Portugal still draws people for other reasons. There is no wealth tax, and no inheritance tax between close family members. The D7 visa, built around passive income such as pensions, remains a popular route for retirees, while the Golden Visa investment programme has been narrowed and reshaped more than once. As ever, a UK expat in Portugal should confirm the current rules rather than trust the version from an older guide.

France

France offers one of the best state healthcare systems in Europe once you are inside it, whether through an S1 as a pensioner or through local contributions as a worker. The tax side is heavier. Income is taxed on progressive rates, and investment income carries social charges of around 17.2%, though those covered by another country's health system, an S1 holder for instance, often pay a reduced rate. France also levies a wealth tax on real estate, the IFI, above €1.3 million of property. Under the UK-France treaty, most UK private pension income is generally taxable only in France once you are resident there, which can work out well or badly depending on your numbers. For a uk expat in France, the healthcare is the easy part and the tax is the homework.

Germany

Germany rewards organisation. The Anmeldung, registering your address, is mandatory within roughly two weeks of moving in, and a surprising amount hangs off it: your bank account, your tax ID, even a phone contract. Income tax is progressive and reaches 45% at the top, with a solidarity surcharge that now applies only to higher earners rather than to everyone. If you register as a member of a recognised church you also pay church tax, around 8 to 9% of your income tax, which catches people who tick the box on arrival without realising it carries a cost. Tenant protections are strong, so renting first rather than rushing to buy is usually the easier way in.

Returning to the UK: what to watch for

Plans change, and plenty of expats come home. The financial admin runs in reverse, with one rule worth flagging up front. If you return within five complete tax years, the temporary non-residence rule from earlier comes back to bite: gains you realised while abroad, on assets you held before you left, can be taxed in the UK in the year you return. People who moved away for two or three years, sold investments while gone, and then came back are exactly who this catches. The UK returning expat tax surprise is rarely the income tax. It is the capital gains.

The rest is mostly re-registration. Your ISA wakes up: once you are UK-resident again you can pay into it afresh, within the annual allowance. You re-enter the UK tax system under the Statutory Residence Test, with split-year treatment often applying to the year you arrive back. And you re-register with a GP to rejoin the NHS, which, being residence-based, resumes when you do.

Do not forget the accounts you built abroad. Some EU banks close or restrict accounts once you are no longer an EU resident, the mirror image of the problem you had on the way out, so give yourself an overlap before you cut anything off. And if you moved a pension into a QROPS, whether to bring it back is its own complicated question, and the same one as before: a conversation for a regulated adviser, not a quick decision. Understanding the expat returning to UK tax implications before you book the move is what keeps the homecoming from being an expensive one.

The short version

Moving abroad is the adventure. Managing money across two countries is the admin nobody warns you about. It is also almost entirely solvable, as long as you act before you go rather than after.

The non-negotiables are short. Tell HMRC with a P85. Sort your banking, expat or international, before you leave, because the ordinary account may not survive the move. Understand what happens to each pension, and put the QROPS and final-salary questions to someone regulated. Get local tax advice in the country you are actually moving to, not just a UK accountant. Arrange your healthcare: an S1 if you are a pensioner, local cover or insurance if you are not.

Almost every horror story, the frozen account, the missed deadline, the unexpected bill, traces back to the same thing: acting after the move instead of before it. A weekend of admin now is worth a year of untangling later. And if you are planning to retire abroad from the UK rather than just work there for a while, build the numbers properly before you commit, because the cost of living and the tax treatment can both look very different once you cross the Channel.

None of this replaces proper, regulated uk expat financial advice for the big decisions, and the larger your assets, the more a good cross-border adviser or uk expat financial advisor earns their fee. For the day-to-day picture, though, seeing every account and currency in one place is what keeps the whole move from feeling like guesswork. That clarity, the opposite of not really knowing where you stand, is what turns the admin from a worry into a routine.

Common questions about moving abroad from the UK

Can I keep my UK bank account when I move abroad?

Sometimes, but do not count on it. Many UK banks are built for residents, and some, such as Barclays, close current accounts automatically once you move abroad. The reliable options are the expat and international accounts, like HSBC Expat, NatWest International and Lloyds Bank International, which are designed for non-residents. Tell your bank you are moving rather than hiding it, because keeping a UK address on an account you no longer live at breaches the terms and can trigger tax-reporting problems.

What happens to my ISA if I leave the UK?

Your ISA stays open and stays invested, keeping its UK tax-free status, but you cannot add new money or open a new ISA while you are non-resident. The bigger catch is that your new country may not recognise the ISA wrapper and could tax the income and gains inside it under its own rules.

Do UK expats still pay UK tax?

On most income, no, once you are non-resident under the Statutory Residence Test. But the UK still taxes certain UK-source income, including rent from a UK property, UK employment income for work done here, and often UK pension income. A double-taxation treaty between the UK and your new country decides who taxes what, so you are not charged twice on the same money.

Can UK expats use the NHS?

Not for routine care once you are no longer ordinarily resident in the UK. You keep access to emergency treatment during visits, but day-to-day healthcare moves to your new country. UK State Pensioners can use an S1 form to access the local state system at the UK's expense, and a GHIC covers necessary treatment on temporary trips.

What is a QROPS pension transfer?

A QROPS, or Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme, is an overseas pension you can transfer a UK pension into. Since 30 October 2024, transfers to a QROPS in the EEA can attract a 25% Overseas Transfer Charge unless you live in the same country as the scheme, which has made the option far less attractive for most European moves. It is firmly a decision for a regulated adviser.

Do I get the UK State Pension if I live abroad?

Yes. You keep the State Pension you have built up through National Insurance, and it can be paid anywhere in the world. If you live in the EU, the EEA or Switzerland, it is also uprated each year with the triple lock, just as it would be in the UK. In a handful of countries with no reciprocal agreement, such as Canada and Australia, it is frozen at the level it was when you left.

What is the S1 form for healthcare abroad?

The S1 is a UK-issued certificate that lets certain people, mainly UK State Pensioners, access the state healthcare system in their EU or EEA country of residence, with the UK covering the cost. You apply around the time of your move and register it with the local health authority. It is one of the most valuable entitlements a British pensioner keeps after leaving the UK.

How do I tell HMRC I am leaving the UK?

You complete form P85, the Leaving the UK form, which tells HMRC you are becoming non-resident and often triggers a tax refund for the year you go. If you already file a self-assessment return, you may report your departure through that instead. Either way, telling HMRC is the step that stops them treating you as a UK resident long after you have gone.

This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, tax, legal or immigration advice. Tax rules, pension regulations, visa requirements and banking terms change frequently and vary by individual circumstances and by country, so everything here reflects our understanding at the time of writing and may since have changed. Always consult a qualified financial adviser, a tax professional and, where relevant, an immigration specialist before making decisions, especially when moving between countries. Endute is not a financial advisory service. For free, impartial guidance on UK money matters, MoneyHelper is a good starting point.