Almost everything on this site is about buying. This page is about the other end, because the moment that catches overseas owners out is the one nobody told them existed. There are no figures on this page, and that is deliberate.
None of this is a calculation and none of it replaces an accountant. It is the shape of the thing, so that you know there is something to ask about and roughly when to ask it.
Buyers often assume a tax on selling UK property is something UK residents deal with. It is not. Disposing of UK residential property brings a non-resident within the scope of UK capital gains tax, whatever your own country does about the same sale.
That does not mean paying twice. Your country may give relief for tax paid here, or the two systems may interact in some other way. What it does mean is that the UK side exists and does not go away because you are elsewhere.
This is the part that costs people money. A disposal has to be reported to HMRC on its own timetable, measured in weeks after completion rather than at the end of a tax year, and separately from any annual return you may or may not file.
We are not going to print the current period here, because a stale number on a tax page is worse than no number. Ask your accountant for the deadline that applies on your completion date, and ask before completion rather than after.
Costs of buying and selling, certain improvement works, and the way the starting value is established can all change the figure. For property held from before the non-resident rules applied, the calculation may not start from the original purchase price at all.
Every one of those adjustments needs evidence you either kept or did not. This is the strongest practical argument for talking to an accountant when you buy rather than when you sell.
The gain is measured in pounds. A sale that looks like a loss in your own currency can still be a sterling gain, and a sterling gain can be a real loss to you once the exchange rate is applied at both ends.
Neither is unusual for an overseas owner and neither is a reason to avoid buying. It is a reason to keep the transfer records, and to be clear which currency any number you are quoted is in.
We are not tax advisers and this site says so on eighteen pages. That line is worth nothing if the page about tax quietly ignores it, so this one carries no percentage, no allowance, no deadline in days and no example calculation. Not because those are secret, but because a figure printed here becomes wrong the moment it changes, and you would have no way of knowing which.
What we can do is tell you the question exists, introduce you to an accountant who works with overseas owners, and make sure the paperwork you will need years from now is kept from the start. The answer itself belongs to someone qualified to give it and accountable for it.
Everything on the buying side is knowable now, which is the opposite of this page.
The records that make a future disposal straightforward are the ones kept from day one. We will introduce you to someone who can tell you which they are.
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