You spend years building a client list in the UK. Then you move – to Valencia, to Lisbon, to Dubai – and the work does not stop. The same clients send the same briefs. Only your address has changed. The first question almost everyone asks is whether you can still be self-employed in the UK while living abroad. The short answer is yes: HMRC does not close your sole trader business because you moved.
But four things change, and they change quietly – how you invoice, where you are tax resident, which country’s social security system you belong to, and how you file.
Your sole trader status doesn’t disappear when you move
Sole trader registration is attached to you, not to a UK postcode. Your Unique Taxpayer Reference stays the same, your trading history stays the same, and nobody at HMRC deregisters you when your correspondence address becomes foreign.
That surprises people, because so much else about moving abroad involves closing things down. In fact the day-to-day mechanics barely move: the same contracts, the same record-keeping obligations, the same invoices going out to the same people. What changes is the paperwork wrapped around them – starting with the document you send out every month.
What your invoices still need to show
A UK invoice from a sole trader has to carry a specific set of details, and none are waived because you are in another time zone. Each one needs a unique, sequential number; your own name and any trading name; an address where legal documents can be delivered to you; the client’s name and address; a clear description of the work; the date of supply and the date of the invoice; the amount due; and your payment terms.
The practical snag is the address line. It is perfectly acceptable for it to show a Spanish or Emirati address, but the rest of the document still has to read as a UK invoice, because it lands on the desk of a UK bookkeeper who queries anything unfamiliar before paying it. If you would rather not rebuild a template by hand every time your address or currency changes, a free invoice generator will lay the required fields out and produce a PDF you can send straight to the client.
Two things go wrong more often than anything else. Numbering slips, because someone overtypes an old template and two invoices end up sharing a number – which unravels a set of accounts a year later. And VAT gets guessed at. If you are not VAT-registered, VAT does not appear on the invoice at all, and it is worth saying so explicitly rather than leaving an ambiguous blank.
Telling HMRC you’ve left
Here is a detail most guides get wrong. Form P85 is the usual way to tell HMRC you are leaving the UK, but it is aimed at people who do not complete a Self Assessment return. As a sole trader, you do. HMRC therefore expects you to report your departure on the residence pages of your return, form SA109, rather than sending a P85.
Two other jobs are worth doing before you fly. Update your address with HMRC, because the letters that matter most still arrive on paper. And check you can still reach your Government Gateway account from abroad – specifically, which phone number your access codes go to. Recovering a locked account from overseas with a dead UK SIM is genuinely difficult. If you start trading while already abroad, you still register with HMRC, by 5 October following the end of the tax year in which you began.
Do you still count as a UK tax resident?
This is the question that actually determines your tax bill, and it is settled by the Statutory Residence Test rather than by how you feel about where you live.
The test runs in a fixed order. First the automatic overseas tests: broadly, you are non-resident if you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK during the tax year and were resident in at least one of the previous three, or fewer than 46 days if you were resident in none of them, or if you worked full-time abroad with limited UK days. If none apply, the automatic UK tests are checked – 183 days or more, your only home being in the UK, or full-time work here. If neither set settles it, you fall into the sufficient ties test, which weighs your UK days against ties such as family, available accommodation, work, and whether you spent more days in the UK than in any other single country.
Leaving part-way through a tax year need not mean being taxed as a UK resident for all of it: split-year treatment can divide the year into a UK part and an overseas part if your circumstances fit one of the defined cases. Note too that UK-source income can stay taxable here even once you are non-resident, and that where the same profits are in scope in two countries, the double taxation agreement decides which one taxes them first. For most freelancers that means the country of residence, unless you have a permanent establishment elsewhere. All of this turns on individual circumstances, so treat this article as general information rather than personal tax advice.
Are you allowed to work from where you’ve moved to?
Your UK self-employment says nothing whatsoever about your right to work in the country you moved to. This catches British freelancers out constantly, because before Brexit the question largely did not arise in Europe.
Entering as a tourist carries no right to work, even when every client is British and every payment lands in a UK account. Several countries now offer a route designed for your situation – Spain’s digital nomad visa, Portugal’s D8, the UAE’s virtual working residence permit – each with its own income thresholds, health cover requirements and limits on taking local clients.
Then comes the second registration nobody warns you about. Once you are tax resident somewhere, that country usually expects you to register locally as self-employed too: autónomo in Spain, recibos verdes in Portugal, auto-entrepreneur in France. You can be correctly registered in two countries at once, filing in both. These rules differ sharply and change often, so confirm your position with a local adviser before committing to the move.
National Insurance and social security
National Insurance is the part people most often get wrong, because it follows different logic from income tax.
Class 4 contributions are charged on your profits through Self Assessment. Class 2 now works differently: since April 2024 it is no longer a compulsory charge for most self-employed people, and those with profits above the relevant threshold are credited with a qualifying year without paying it. Once you are abroad, and possibly outside the UK system altogether, you can no longer assume a year of trading is a qualifying year. That matters because the full new State Pension needs 35 qualifying years, and you need at least 10 to receive anything.
Hence the appetite for voluntary contributions. The route is form CF83, submitted with leaflet NI38, asking HMRC for permission to pay National Insurance from overseas; whether you qualify for the cheaper Class 2 rate or only Class 3 depends on your record and what you are doing abroad. Separately, an A1 certificate confirms you remain in the UK system within the EU, EEA and Switzerland, and bilateral agreements do a similar job elsewhere through a certificate of coverage. Without one, both systems can bill you for the same work.
Filing Self Assessment from overseas
Your return does not get simpler abroad. It gets longer, because you add the SA109 residence pages to the SA100.
That one form causes disproportionate trouble, because HMRC’s own free online service does not support it. Your options are commercial filing software that includes the residence pages, a paper return, or an accountant filing on your behalf. People discover this in the third week of January with nothing in place, which is how non-residents end up needing a paper return after the paper deadline has gone.
The deadlines do not move because you live abroad: 31 October on paper, 31 January online, with the balancing payment due on 31 January and a possible payment on account on 31 July. Nor does the UK tax year bend to fit your new country’s – move somewhere running a calendar year and you will keep two sets of period-end figures. And if your records are now partly in another currency, convert to sterling on a consistent basis and note the rates you used.
Getting paid by UK clients from abroad
Invoicing is one problem; being paid is another, and the cost usually hides in the exchange rate rather than in a visible fee.
Decide early who carries the currency risk. Invoicing in sterling keeps things simple for your client and pushes the conversion, and its spread, onto you. Invoicing in your local currency does the reverse, and some UK clients will refuse outright. Either is defensible; what causes arguments is leaving it unsaid until the first payment arrives short. Put the invoicing currency in the contract, next to your payment terms.
Watch the smaller leaks too: intermediary bank charges that arrive already deducted, and providers whose transfer is free but whose exchange rate is not. On a monthly retainer, a couple of per cent lost on each conversion is a real pay cut across a year. And keep business money separate from personal money in whichever country you hold it – two countries means twice the scope for a muddled record, and you are the one who will reconstruct it at filing time.
Your checklist before you go
Update your address with HMRC, and confirm Government Gateway access works on a phone number you are keeping.
Report your departure on the SA109 residence pages if you file Self Assessment, rather than sending a P85.
Work through the Statutory Residence Test for the year you leave, and check whether split-year treatment applies.
Apply for an A1 certificate, or a certificate of coverage, if one is available for your destination.
Decide whether to pay voluntary National Insurance, and submit form CF83 if you will.
Check your right to work locally, and whether you must register there as self-employed.
Agree the invoicing currency in writing with every ongoing client before you move.
Line up filing software that supports SA109, well before January.
Frequently asked questions
Can I keep my UK UTR number if I move abroad?
Yes. Your Unique Taxpayer Reference is permanent and stays with you wherever you live; HMRC does not cancel or reissue it when you change address. Keep it somewhere you can reach from abroad, along with your Government Gateway details, because you need both to file and recovering them from overseas takes time.
Do I still have to file a UK Self Assessment return if I live overseas?
If you continue to trade as a UK-registered sole trader, or have other UK-source income such as rent, you will usually still need to file. Becoming non-resident changes what you report and adds the SA109 pages; it rarely removes the obligation. The deadlines are unchanged: 31 October on paper, 31 January online.
Does my invoice change if my address is now outside the UK?
The required contents do not change. You still need a unique invoice number, your name and an address for legal documents, the client’s details, a description of the work, supply and invoice dates, the amount and your payment terms. Only the address you print is different. If you are VAT-registered, check the place-of-supply position separately.
Do I charge UK VAT to UK clients when I live abroad?
If you are not VAT-registered, no VAT appears on your invoice, wherever you live. If you are registered, moving abroad can change where your services are treated as supplied, which affects whether you charge VAT or the customer accounts for it. That question deserves an accountant’s view before your next invoice.
Does HMRC know if you are working abroad?
Generally, yes. The UK exchanges financial account information automatically with more than a hundred jurisdictions under the Common Reporting Standard, and your UK-source income and filings are visible to HMRC in any case. Declaring your position properly is far cheaper than having it reconstructed for you afterwards.
Can I keep paying Class 2 National Insurance while I’m self-employed abroad?
Often, but not automatically. You apply on form CF83, submitted with leaflet NI38, and HMRC decides which class you may pay based on your record and your circumstances abroad. Do the arithmetic: voluntary contributions are cheap relative to the State Pension entitlement a qualifying year buys.
Do I need to register as self-employed in my new country as well?
Usually, once you become tax resident there. Most countries require resident freelancers to register for tax and social security – autónomo, recibos verdes, auto-entrepreneur and their equivalents – regardless of where the clients are. Being registered in the UK does not exempt you. Check with a local adviser before invoicing from your new address.
This article is general information about UK tax and social security for self-employed people living abroad. It is not personal tax advice, and the right answer depends on your own circumstances and destination country.
