Capital Gains Tax rates and allowances

You’ll get an annual tax-free allowance, known as the annual exempt amount (AEA), if you’re liable to Capital Gains Tax every tax year unless you’re non-domiciled in the UK and have claimed the remittance basis of taxation on your foreign income and gains.

You only pay Capital Gains Tax if your overall gains for the tax year (after deducting any losses and applying any reliefs) are above the annual exempt amount.

There’s one annual exempt amount for:

A lower rate of annual exempt amount applies for most other trustees.

Non-residents who dispose of a UK residential property are liable to Capital Gains Tax and, in most cases, can claim the annual exempt amount in the same way as UK residents. This is not available to companies who dispose of a UK residential property, as they may be able to claim other allowances.

You can use your annual exempt amount against the gains charged at the highest rates to reduce the amount of tax you owe.

If you’re acting as an executor or personal representative for a deceased person’s estate, you may get the full annual exempt amount during the administration period.

The administration period is the time it takes to settle the deceased person’s affairs, from the day after the death until the date everything has been passed on to beneficiaries.

You’re entitled to the annual exempt amount for the tax year in which the death occurred and the following 2 tax years. This means one annual exempt amount against gains in each of those years. After that there’s no tax-free allowance against gains during the administration period.

Find out more about dealing with the estate of someone who’s died.

If you’re acting as a trustee for a disabled person use the ‘Individuals, personal representatives and trustees for disabled people’ rates shown in the annual exempt amount table.

For Capital Gains Tax purposes, a disabled person is a person who has mental health problems, or gets the middle or higher rate of Attendance Allowance or Disability Living Allowance.

Find out more about Capital Gains Tax and trusts.

You will not get the annual exempt amount if you’re non-domiciled in the UK and you’ve claimed the remittance basis of taxation on your foreign income and gains.

You may be non-domiciled in the UK if you were born in another country and intend to return there, for example.

You may have claimed the remittance basis if you have income and gains from abroad and have decided that it’s beneficial to be taxed on the foreign income and gains that you bring into the UK, rather than on all income and gains that arise.

Issues of domicile and tax on foreign gains are complicated. A lot depends on the facts of each case.

To find out more read Residence, domicile and the remittance basis: RDR1, and contact HMRC if you have any questions.

The Capital Gains Tax rate you use depends on the total amount of your taxable income, so work that out first.

The following Capital Gains Tax rates apply:

The following Capital Gains Tax rates apply: