Newcomer Tax Regimes Compared: Special Residency Tax Schemes in 2026

A newcomer tax regime is a reduced-tax or exempt status that a country grants to people who move there and were not tax resident in recent years, used to attract skilled workers, retirees or capital. These regimes are not permanent fixtures: most run for a fixed number of years, most exclude people who already lived there, and several have been narrowed or replaced since 2023 as governments revised how generous the original versions were. Of the 53 jurisdictions Tax Atlas tracks, 18 currently publish an active one.

Newcomer tax regimes, compared

Country	Regime	What it does	Headline rate / cap	Duration
🇦🇺 Australia	Temporary Resident	Foreign income and most foreign gains exempt from Australian tax	0%	while on a temporary visa
🇨🇾 Cyprus	Non-Dom Regime	No Special Defence Contribution on dividends and interest for non-doms	0%	17 years
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic	Law 171-07 retiree / rentier regime	Foreign pension and rental income exempt, plus import duty relief	0%	indefinite
🇬🇪 Georgia	Small Business Status (1% regime)	1% tax on turnover up to 500,000 GEL/year, 3% on the excess	1%	indefinite
🇬🇮 Gibraltar	Category 2 Status	Tax charged only on a capped slice of income, so the annual bill is capped	Capped bill, not a %	indefinite
🇬🇷 Greece	50% Income Tax Reduction	Half of employment and business income exempt, effective top rate ~22%	22%	7 years
🇮🇩 Indonesia	4-year territorial election	Only Indonesian-source income taxed; foreign income exempt	0%	4 years
🇮🇪 Ireland	Remittance Basis	Non-domiciled residents pay no Irish tax on foreign income they do not bring into Ireland	0%	while non-domiciled
🇮🇲 Isle of Man	Tax Cap Election	Total income tax capped at £220,000 a year	£220,000/year flat cap	5 or 10 years
🇮🇹 Italy	Flat Tax for New Residents (HNWI)	€300,000/year lump sum covers all foreign income	€300,000/year flat fee	15 years
🇲🇹 Malta	Non-Domiciled Status	Foreign income taxed only if remitted to Malta; foreign capital gains not taxed	0%	indefinite
🇳🇱 Netherlands	30% Ruling (expat scheme)	30% of salary tax-free (27% from 2027), cutting the effective top rate to ~35%	35%	5 years
🇵🇹 Portugal	IFICI ("NHR 2.0")	20% flat on qualifying Portuguese employment or self-employment income	20%	10 years
🇪🇸 Spain	Beckham Law (Special Inbound Regime)	24% flat on Spanish salary up to €600,000, foreign income exempt	24%	6 years
🇨🇭 Switzerland	Lump-Sum Taxation	Taxed on living expenses instead of worldwide income and wealth	Deemed-expense base, not a %	indefinite
🇹🇭 Thailand	Long-Term Resident (LTR) Visa	17% flat on Thai employment income for highly-skilled LTR holders; foreign income exempt for wealthy categories	17%	10 years
🇬🇧 United Kingdom	Foreign Income & Gains (FIG) regime	0% UK tax on qualifying foreign income and gains	0%	4 years
🇺🇾 Uruguay	Tax Holiday — 10-Year Foreign-Income Exemption (2026 rules)	Foreign capital income exempt instead of taxed at 12%	0%	10 years

What "qualifying" usually means

Eligibility tests fall into three broad groups. Residency-break regimes (Portugal's IFICI, Spain's Beckham Law, Greece's and the Netherlands' schemes, the UK's FIG regime) require that the applicant was not tax resident in that country for a set number of prior years, then grant the reduced rate on qualifying income for a fixed window afterward. Non-domiciled regimes (Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, the UK's predecessor rules) tax foreign income only if and when it is remitted into the country, rather than on a worldwide basis. Capped or flat-fee regimes (Switzerland's cantonal lump-sum taxation, Gibraltar's Category 2 status, the Isle of Man's tax cap, Italy's flat tax for new residents) replace ordinary income tax with a fixed annual charge, usually aimed at high-net-worth individuals rather than salaried workers.

How long they last

Most run for a fixed term: 4 to 7 years is common (the Netherlands, UK, Indonesia, Spain, Greece), rising to 10 years (Portugal, Thailand, Uruguay) or more (Italy's 15 years, Cyprus's 17 years). A smaller group — Georgia, Ireland, Malta, Switzerland, Gibraltar and the Dominican Republic — last for as long as the person keeps the qualifying residency or non-domiciled status, rather than a fixed number of years.

Why these regimes keep changing

Portugal closed its original Non-Habitual Resident (NHR) regime to new applicants at the end of 2023 and replaced it with IFICI, a narrower 20% flat rate restricted to specific sectors such as research, higher education, healthcare and technology. The UK replaced its decades-old non-dom remittance basis with the current Foreign Income and Gains regime. The Netherlands' 30% ruling exemption is scheduled to fall to 27% from 2027. Figures above reflect each regime's 2026 rules as described on that country's own page; verify current eligibility windows and caps with a qualified adviser before relying on them, since most are revised in annual budgets.

See the easiest tax residency list for day-count thresholds on top of these regimes, the digital nomad visas and tax page for how immigration status and tax status interact, or the Pillar Two tracker for how the OECD's 15% global minimum tax affects corporate (not personal) structures in the same jurisdictions.