Get a US$300 international tax session free
Thirty minutes with an international tax specialist, a session that costs around US$300 elsewhere. Find out which residency rules will apply to you, what they change, and what you can still decide.
Most people plan the shipping container and leave the tax question until after they land. By then the decisions that mattered have already been made for you: when you break residency, which country your income is sourced in, what you sell before you go. A short conversation before the move is worth more than a long one after it.
How it works
One conversation, before the decisions are locked in
Tell us where you are a tax resident today, where you are heading, and roughly when you plan to move.
We match you with one of our international tax specialists, who works with people moving on your route.
You choose a time that works around your move. The session runs thirty minutes, costs you nothing and commits you to nothing.
Residency, decided on purpose
You rarely stop being a tax resident of one country and become one of another on the same day. Knowing which tests apply to you changes what you do in the months either side of the move.
Double-tax treaties, checked in advance
For most moves between major economies, a treaty already decides which country taxes what. Whether that treaty helps you depends on details worth checking before you count on it.
Timing that works in your favour
Selling a property, exercising options or taking a bonus can land differently on one side of the move than the other. Some of that timing is still yours to choose.
Find out what your move means for your tax position, before you make it.
Fill in the form
Two countries and a rough date. It takes under a minute.
Book a time that suits you
Pick a slot straight from the specialist's calendar.
Attend your international tax session
Thirty minutes on your situation, with a specialist.
Who you will be speaking to
Our tax specialists advise private clients on cross-border tax. They work with people moving in both directions on the routes we cover. So the conversation starts from your situation rather than a generic checklist.
Specialists in cross-border and expatriate tax
Independent of the relocation booking, with no obligation either way
The session is free; we never send you an invoice
Reviews
People who used the free session, in their own words.
Frequently asked questions
Later than most people expect, and the date is rarely the day your flight leaves. Countries look at how many days you spend there, where your permanent home is, where your family lives and where your economic interests sit. The UK applies a statutory residence test that weighs days against ties. Australia looks at domicile alongside a 183-day test. Several countries treat you as resident for the whole tax year in which you left unless split-year treatment applies. Almost every other question on this page follows from that date, which is why it is usually the first thing worth establishing.
You can be liable in both, which is not the same as paying twice on the same income. Double-tax treaties allocate taxing rights between countries and generally give one of them a credit for tax already paid to the other, or exempt the income altogether. Whether a treaty helps depends on the type of income, on tie-breaker rules that decide which country treats you as resident, and on whether a treaty is in force and unsuspended between your particular pair of countries. It is worth confirming before you rely on it rather than after the return is filed.
In some countries, yes. Canada treats emigration as a deemed disposition of most holdings, so you are taxed as though you sold at the moment you ceased residence, even though nothing changed hands. France applies an exit charge aimed at substantial shareholdings, and Korea has a departure tax on major shareholders. If you hold company shares, share options or investment property, when you leave can matter considerably more than what you eventually sell, because the charge attaches to the departure itself.
You keep filing with the IRS wherever you live, because the United States taxes on citizenship rather than residence. What changes is the relief available against that liability, principally the foreign earned income exclusion and foreign tax credits, and the reporting obligations that attach to foreign bank accounts and assets once you hold them. Green card holders are generally in the same position. Moving does not end the filing relationship, so the practical question is which reliefs fit your situation and what you now have to disclose.
There is rarely a single right answer, but the tax year boundary is usually the hinge, and the two countries involved often have different year ends. Selling a property, exercising share options or taking a bonus can land very differently depending on which side of your departure it falls and which country counted you as resident at the time. If any of those are on your horizon in the next year or so, the order in which they happen is worth planning before the moving date is fixed rather than after.
It depends on the scheme and on the treaty between the two countries. Some pensions stay taxable only in the country that granted the relief, others become taxable where you now live, and a few are taxable in both with a credit applied. Contributions are a separate question from withdrawals: continuing to contribute after you leave may no longer attract relief, and drawing early can be treated differently abroad than at home. Government and private schemes frequently follow different rules under the same treaty.
Rental income from property almost always remains taxable where the property sits, whatever your residence status, and you will usually keep filing a return there for it. What changes is how your new country treats that same income, whether it gives credit for the tax already paid, and sometimes the rate or the withholding applied to non-residents. Capital gains on an eventual sale are typically taxed by the country where the property is, and any main-residence relief you were counting on may narrow once you no longer live in it.
Usually, and it is frequently the step people miss. Several countries want a departure return or a change of status recorded in the year you go: France has a départ-year return, Italy requires AIRE registration for citizens living abroad, and others expect notification before residence is treated as ended. Registration is not always the same as ceasing to be resident, so filing the form does not automatically settle your status if your home and family ties remain. Doing it late can leave you treated as resident for longer than you intended.
Generally where you are physically working, once you are resident there, though your employer's country may also have a claim and payroll often continues to withhold as if nothing changed. Treaties usually assign employment income to the country where the work is performed, with limited exceptions for short stays. The practical problems tend to be administrative: your employer may not be registered to operate payroll where you now live, and social security contributions follow their own rules and their own agreements, separate from income tax.
Dividends, interest, royalties and contract income usually stay connected to their source, and the source country often applies withholding tax to non-residents at a rate a treaty may reduce. Your new country will generally tax the same income again as a resident and give credit for what was withheld, though the timing and the paperwork rarely line up neatly. If you keep invoicing former clients, whether that is treated as a business presence in the old country is a separate question worth settling early.
No, though the options narrow. Some things can still be corrected or elected after the fact, filings can be brought up to date, and treaty relief can often be claimed retrospectively within the relevant time limits. What is harder to undo is a transaction already completed on the wrong side of a residence date. If you have moved recently and not yet filed in either country, that first return is usually the moment where the most is still open to decide.
Nothing formal, and no documents are required to book. It helps to know roughly when you moved or plan to, what income you will still receive from the country you are leaving, whether you hold property, company shares or options you may sell, and whether you have a pension you are still contributing to. Thirty minutes goes further with those in mind. If you do not have them to hand, book anyway and bring the questions you do have.
