There is no rule stopping a non-resident buying property in England — no permit, no minimum stay, no restriction on foreign ownership. What there is instead is a layered tax cost that most overseas buyers meet one piece at a time: a 2 percentage point stamp duty surcharge on top of everything else, income tax on the rents, capital gains tax on the sale reportable within 60 days, and an annual charge if the property is held through a company.
Stamp duty: the surcharge and what sits under it
Stamp duty land tax is an England and Northern Ireland tax. Scotland charges land and buildings transaction tax and Wales land transaction tax, each with its own rates and its own surcharge for additional dwellings, so nothing in this section transfers to a purchase in Edinburgh or Cardiff. Non-UK residents buying residential property in England or Northern Ireland pay rates 2 percentage points higher than UK residents. The surcharge applies to freehold and leasehold purchases of £40,000 or more where at least one buyer is non-resident, and it stacks on top of the standard rates and of the higher rates for additional dwellings — so an overseas buyer purchasing a second home meets both.
Residence for this purpose is not the statutory residence test used elsewhere. An individual is non-resident for the transaction if they were not present in the UK for at least 183 days during the 12 months before the purchase. For companies, corporation tax residence is the starting point but not the end of it: a company is non-resident for the surcharge if it is not UK resident for corporation tax at the effective date — and also where it is UK resident but is a close company under non-UK control and not within the excluded categories. A UK-incorporated, UK-resident company owned by an overseas family can therefore pay the surcharge, which is exactly the structure people set up believing it avoids one.
The refund is the part most buyers do not hear about. If you are present in the UK for at least 183 days in any continuous 365-day period falling within the two years around the transaction date, you can reclaim the 2% by amending the return — within two years of the effective date. Anyone relocating to the UK who buys before they arrive should diarise that deadline on completion day.
Rental income while you hold it
Rent from UK property is UK-source income and taxable here regardless of where the landlord lives, with the personal allowance available to many non-residents depending on nationality and treaty. Left alone, the letting agent or tenant must deduct basic rate tax from the rent and pay it to HMRC. Registering under the non-resident landlord scheme allows the rent to be received gross, with the tax settled through a self assessment return instead — which is almost always preferable for cash flow and accuracy.
The other rules apply as they do to resident landlords: finance costs on residential lettings relieved only as a 20% tax reducer rather than a deduction, allowable expenses on the usual "wholly and exclusively" basis, and the distinct treatment of furnished holiday lets now that the separate regime has gone.
Selling: 60 days, whether or not there is tax
Non-residents have been within the UK capital gains net on UK land since 2015 for residential property and 2019 for non-residential and indirect disposals. The compliance obligation is the part that produces penalties: a non-resident individual or trustee must report every disposal of UK property or land within 60 days of completion, through the CGT on UK property account — even where there is no tax to pay, and even where the disposal produced a loss. That obligation catches people who assume a nil liability means nothing to file. Non-resident companies are a different route: their gains on UK land fall within corporation tax and are returned on a CT600, not through the 60-day service, so applying the individual's process to a corporate owner produces the wrong filing.
Gains are computed with the benefit of rebasing, so only the growth since the property came within the charge is taxed: 5 April 2015 for residential property, 5 April 2019 for non-residential and for indirect disposals. Alternative computations — time apportionment, or the gain over the whole period — are available and sometimes better, and the choice is worth running rather than defaulting. The charge also reaches indirect disposals: selling shares in a company that derives at least 75% of its value from UK land, where you hold a 25% or greater interest.
Personal name, company, or trust?
The structuring question has a different answer than it did fifteen years ago. Holding UK residential property through a company brings the annual tax on enveloped dwellings into play for properties over £500,000, with reliefs for genuine commercial letting that must be claimed annually on an ATED return — a filing many owners miss precisely because the relief means no tax is due. Corporate ownership also attracts the higher SDLT rates and, in most cases, the flat punitive rate on high-value residential purchases.
Meanwhile the inheritance tax argument that once drove offshore structures has gone: UK residential property held through a non-UK company has been within the UK inheritance tax net since 2017, so the company no longer shelters it. For most individual buyers of a home or a small rental portfolio, direct personal ownership is now simpler and cheaper. Companies still make sense for genuinely commercial portfolios, where the finance cost restriction and the corporation tax rate change the arithmetic.
The sequence that avoids the expensive surprises
Establish residence status for the SDLT test before exchange, not after — the 183-day count is a matter of record and it decides a real sum. Register for the non-resident landlord scheme before the first rent is collected. Keep the acquisition documentation and any 2015 or 2019 valuation evidence, because rebasing without evidence becomes an argument years later. Diarise the 60-day reporting deadline at the point a sale is agreed. And check the treaty position in your home country, since UK tax paid is usually creditable but the mechanics vary.
Acumon advises overseas buyers and non-resident landlords through property tax and international tax work, handles SDLT and ATED filings, and prepares the 60-day returns — see also our guide to reporting capital gains on UK property. If a purchase is in progress, the surcharge and the refund window are the two numbers to settle before completion.