Tax residency 2026: how each country taxes you, and after how many days

Tax residency decides which country may tax your whole income, and it is settled country by country, by each country's own law. Most people have heard of a 183-day rule, yet none of the texts we read treats it as a worldwide rule, and several do not use it. Below 183 days you can still be resident: the UK can catch you from 16 days if you have enough ties, and Germany looks at a home you keep and use, whatever your days. Above 183 days you may not be resident either, if a treaty sends you elsewhere. So a useful answer needs three things: what the country taxes, what it counts, and which other ties it looks at. This site gives those three for each country, from the official text, with a counter set to that country's rule. Start with your country in the table, then read the page that goes with it.

Choose your country

This table holds every country whose rule we have read at an official source. Each name leads to its full page: how it taxes you, what you must respect, and its own counter.

Some countries you may be looking for are missing, including Italy. That is deliberate: we could not open or confirm the current official text, so we state nothing about them for now. For Belgium, Cyprus and Netherlands, the rule shown rests on the sheet the tax authority gave the OECD, not on the statute itself.

What each country actually taxes

Being resident usually means the country taxes your worldwide income. Being non-resident usually limits it to income from that country. GOV.UK says so plainly: if you are not UK resident, you do not pay UK tax on your foreign income. Thailand adds a nuance, since a resident pays on foreign income only for the part brought into Thailand. So the rate is only half of the question, and it matters only once you know what falls under it.

Here is the top rate on each scale we have read, and where it starts. A top rate is not your rate: these are rates on slices of income, before allowances and credits, and the country pages show the full scale.

The UAE is not in this table because it publishes no such scale in the texts we read. Its rule works differently: the Cabinet decision we read taxes a natural person under Corporate Tax only when business turnover goes over AED 1,000,000 in a calendar year, and it leaves wages and personal investments out of that test. Switzerland is not in it either: its last rate, 11.5%, applies to the whole income from CHF 794,000, which is not what a band rate means, and cantonal taxes come on top. The UAE page and the Switzerland page give the details of those two cases.

How the days are counted

This is where most self-made counts go wrong, because three settings change from one country to another, and a calendar with crosses does not show any of them.

What makes a day

In the UK, a day counts if you are there at the end of it. Fly in on Monday and out on Wednesday, and that is two days, not three. In the UAE a ministerial decision counts all days or parts of a day, however short. The IRS also counts any part of a day. Ireland counts presence at any time during the day, except airside transit. Czechia counts each started day. The same Monday to Wednesday trip is therefore three days in those four countries. Portugal adds a condition: a day, whole or partial, only counts if it includes a night there. A same-day return does not count, and our counter gives two days for that same trip, attaching each night to the day it starts on, because the text does not settle that point.

Which period

In our table, the calendar year applies to Canada, Cyprus, Czechia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Oman, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain and Thailand. The UK looks at its tax year, from 6 April to the next 5 April, and Australia at its income year, from 1 July to 30 June. Periods of 12 months, which can straddle two calendar years, apply to Georgia, Greece, Morocco, New Zealand, Portugal and United Arab Emirates: six months from July and three from January can be one period, even though neither calendar year looks heavy. Something else again, how long you stayed in a row, applies to Austria, Germany, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland.

What the threshold means

"More than 183" and "at least 183" differ on one day, and that day can be the one that matters. More than 183: Cyprus, Greece, Morocco, New Zealand, Oman, Poland, Portugal and Spain. At least 183: Canada, Czechia, Georgia, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom. In Thailand, section 41 of the Revenue Code says 180 days or more, and a general page from the authority says more than 180. The United States adds a weighted sum over three years, in which a year you barely remember still counts for a sixth of its days.

Why starting from your trips changes the answer

Most tables online ask you to read a threshold and compare it with a number you already have. That number is the problem. You know your flights, not your midnights, and few people can say on the spot how many days fell inside a UK tax year or inside their busiest 12 months. Enter the trips once and the same dates give the count each rule wants. Your count stops being a guess, and you see which trip tips the result.

The dataset does the rest. The table above comes from a single file where each rule keeps its threshold, window, counting method and source, and the counter reads that same file. No rule is typed twice, so the page and the calculator cannot disagree. Here is what it gives for a single unbroken stay of 183 days, starting on 1 January, or on 6 April for the UK:

The same stay, on the same dates, gives different results. Spain is still below because it wants more than 183. The UK counts one day fewer, as the departure day has no midnight, and Portugal does too, as that day has no night. And France gives no day verdict at all, whatever the total.

What you have to respect beyond days

Days are the visible part. The texts we read keep coming back to the same few things, and they are often harder to change than a flight.

A home, a family, a centre of interests

France looks at where your home or main place of stay is, at work that is not incidental, and at the centre of your economic interests. Spain presumes you are resident when your spouse and minor children live there, unless you prove otherwise. Portugal is satisfied by a dwelling that suggests habitual residence, even before the 183 days. Germany needs only a dwelling you keep and use. Having no days does not end those ties.

Leaving a country is a step of its own

Reaching a threshold abroad does not automatically end your old residence. Spain keeps its nationals who move to a listed tax haven on its rolls for that year and four more. Portugal has a similar rule for its nationals moving to listed regimes, and the UK has a temporary non-residence rule for people who were resident in four of the seven prior years and come back within five. Those are the rules to check before you book a move, not after.

Two countries at once

You can be resident of two countries under their own laws. If a tax treaty links them, its residence article settles the question in a fixed order: permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality, then agreement between the authorities. No treaty, no such order. Our guide on dual residency walks through it.

Papers and proof

Countries ask for proof in their own way. The UAE issues a tax residency certificate against an entry and exit report; the UK has form P85 for people leaving; the US has Form 8840 for a closer connection and Form 8843 for exempt individuals. In every case the proof rests on dates, which is why a record kept as you go is worth more than one rebuilt later from old boarding passes.

Three things to do this week

First, write down your country's window, because it may not be the one you think. A UK count that runs from January is wrong by construction. Second, look at the 12 months around a move, not only the calendar year: this is where a Portuguese or UAE count catches people out. Third, keep the evidence: stamps, boarding passes, leases. The Czech tax administration explicitly mentions bank statements, your own records, and travel and accommodation documents.

If you want that count kept for you all year, with a warning before a threshold, that is what the Taxlag app does. The calculators on this site stay free either way.

Where these rules stop

This site covers income tax residency for individuals. It does not cover social security, immigration status or inheritance, each with its own rules. The Schengen 90/180 count is a visa rule, and it has nothing to do with where you pay tax. Rules change, too: Ireland's Budget 2027 was announced in October 2026, and the Irish bands shown here are those Revenue publishes for 2026. If you are close to a threshold, or if money depends on the answer, ask a licensed adviser or the tax authority itself.