Moving across the Atlantic? The best planning happens before the flight.
The relocation year has the most moving parts and the most room to plan. Sell before or after? Exercise options now or later? Keep the ISA? Every answer changes once you land.
Some doors close on arrival day
Gains realised the day before you become resident can escape the new country entirely; the day after, they're taxed. Vesting equity, maturing bonds, property sales and pension contributions all reward being sequenced around the move date rather than after it.
A single pre-move call routinely saves multiples of its fee — it is the highest-leverage hour in cross-border tax.
- Pre-move review of assets, equity and pensions
- Split-year and dual-status year planning
- What to sell, keep or restructure before departure
- First-year filings in both countries, prepared together
The first year sets the pattern
Elections made on your first returns — FEIE or credits, treaty positions, entity classifications — echo for years. We file the first year with the next five in mind.
What we typically handle for you
- Pre-move review of assets, equity and pensions
- Sell / keep / restructure decisions before departure
- Move-date planning around both tax years
- Split-year and dual-status filings
- Payroll and withholding set-up on both sides
- Equity vesting and exercise timing
- First-year elections made with the next five in mind
- Both first-year returns, prepared together
The services that usually apply
Questions we get about this
It can matter a great deal, because the two tax years do not align and day counts drive both residence tests.
Where there is flexibility, moving a few weeks either side of a year end sometimes changes the whole first-year position.
Frequently worth modelling. Assets that are benign in one system can be penalised in the other, and disposing while still solely resident in the first is usually cleaner.
It is not automatic though - crystallising a gain has its own cost, so it is a comparison rather than a rule.
Keeping it makes you a landlord in both systems, with different profit calculations and a US depreciation obligation.
Selling before or after the move can produce materially different outcomes, particularly once currency movement is counted.
Before, wherever possible. The year you relocate carries the most planning opportunity and the most that can go wrong, and most of the options close once you have gone.
Timing a share sale, a pension withdrawal or a property disposal around the move date frequently changes the outcome substantially.
Exact travel dates, days present in each country, when a home was available to you, and when work actually started and stopped.
Both residence tests turn on those facts, and reconstructing them from memory a year later is far weaker than a contemporaneous note.
Usually yes. It is typically part-year residence in two countries, with income sourced either side of the move and one-time elections that set the pattern for later years.
Neither split-year treatment nor US dual-status applies automatically - both are claimed.
Related pages
- Who we help
High-net-worth individuals
Cross-border tax for high-net-worth individuals: multi-source income, estate exposure in two systems and coordinated planning.
- Pillar guide
Tax specialists for US and UK
What US and UK tax specialists handle that a general accountant does not: residence tests, treaty relief, FBAR, PFICs, pensions, property and catch-up filings.
- Who we help
Founders & equity holders
Founders and equity holders across the US and UK: options, QSBS, EIS/SEIS and exits taxed on both sides of the Atlantic.
- Pillar guide
Accountants for US and UK
How to choose accountants for US and UK tax: what each credential permits, how to verify it, what drives the fee, and when you do not need a specialist.
- Guide
Your first year abroad
First-year expat tax guide: residence tests, split-year treatment, first filings in both countries and the elections to get right.
- Service
Property & capital gains
Cross-border property and capital gains: selling a home, rental income, currency gains and the 60-day UK reporting deadline, handled on both returns.
Further reading
- One form tells HMRC you have gone. The rest of the year is the work.
The departure form is five minutes. The final year behind it involves two tax authorities, two calendars and a set of decisions best made before the removal van arrives.
- The repatriation year has more filings than the year you emigrated
Emigrating is one country's paperwork. Returning is two countries' paperwork plus a state you have not filed with for years, in a year when the reliefs you relied on stop working.
- The statutory residence test in the year you move
Arrival and departure years are where the test bites hardest, and where Americans get it wrong most often. Here is how the three stages actually run.
Last reviewed . Thresholds and rates change annually — check figures against the current tax year before relying on them.
Move coming up?
Most of the planning options close once you have gone. Tell us the dates and what you are holding.