Holding onto US ETFs when moving from Switzerland to the UK?

Investing / Portfolios
1

Hi everyone,
I am a Swiss citizen and resident moving to the UK by the end of the year. I am new to investing and would like to by US ETFs on Interactive Brokers while I can to take advantage of the low TER.

I read that it’s theoretically possible to keep US ETFs while relocating to the EU/UK but would like to hear first hand experiences. Where you able to keep/sell US ETFs once in the UK without any administrative/tax issues? Would you recommend this strategy or should I rather choose UCITS ETFs for the sake of simplicity?

I precise that I will start with low amounts (10’000 CHF).

Thank you!

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I have not done this but a few things to note:

  1. yes you can keep US denominated ETFs, not sure about ability to buy it may be selling only depending on broker.

  2. check if the US etfs have UK tax reporting status, which some do, the UK does have some weird quirks where etfs need to report distributions beyond dividends as they are taxed.

  3. if you have small amounts only then consider putting in an ISA account, it’s a tax wrapper, so no dividend or capital gains tax and you can contribute GBP20k per year, but only ucits funds are eligible in that.

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You should probably sell everything before to reset your tax basis to 0. You could do that and then also just re-buy the US etfs again. Will save you a lot of tax if you accumulated a lot of capital gains.

You will probably be able to keep them, but not buy new ones.

But at 10K I probably wouldn’t even bother to optimize anything, keep it simple. Ucits probably best then.

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Agree on principle, and for completeness: rather hold/ transfer shares if you’re in the negative. Easy to forget in a near-permanent bull market that the market can go both ways.

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5

:+1:

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What is negative again?

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I think there is a disadvantage to US ETFs in the UK though. You can afaiu basically not be taxed for the first 4 years on foreign ETF (at the cost of giving up your personal allowance if it wasn’t gone already), which means you can’t get the withholding tax back for US ETFs. Hence for at least the ex-US part it might be worth considering UCITS ETFs.

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[edit: I can’t believe I didn’t see the reply above, explaining exactly this]

You’ll also be able to take advantage of the new FIG Regime, which I will be doing when returning to the UK in a few months

“As of April 6, 2025, the UK has replaced the non-domiciled “remittance basis” with a new 4-year Foreign Income and Gains (FIG) regime. New arrivals, or those returning after 10 years of non-residency, pay 0% UK tax on foreign income and gains for their first four tax years of residence, even if they bring the money to the UK.” i.e. no capital gains or dividend tax for 4 years (this obviously includes US and Irish ETFs, eg: VT and VWRL).

So on top of the above, you’ll also be able to reset your gains to 0 again at the end of the 4 years.

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Thanks all for the useful answers!