Latest / IMI Podcasts / 17 Countries with Exit Taxes in 2026 (Up to 42%)

Transcript

17 Countries with Exit Taxes in 2026 (Up to 42%) · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: 17 countries now charge you a tax on your way out.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Belgium joined the list in January 2026, and at the top end, Denmark takes 42% of gains you never sold.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: One of these countries could even bill people who left 20 years ago.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We'll cover all 17 in this video, what each one charges, and the single variable you can control.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Every exit tax rests on the same mechanic.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: On the day you cease to be a tax resident, the government treats you as having sold everything you own, calculates the profit you would have made, and taxes it.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: You sold nothing and received no cash, yet the bill arrives anyway.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Belgium's regime is only eight months old and rules like these shift constantly.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Members of our private community, IMI sovereigns, get the policy changes we can't publish openly in our quarterly private briefings.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Link and a nice discount are in the description.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now the trigger.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Buying a golden visa does not set off an exit tax, and neither does collecting a second passport.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: The charge fires when your old tax residency ends, and that timing decides everything.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because once residency ends, the valuation locks and restructuring afterward changes nothing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Tax residency is also decided by far more than day counts.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Centre of vital interests, a permanent home available to you, habitual abode and formal ties can all leave you resident long after you have physically left.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: The assumption that counting to 183 settles the question is the most expensive mistake in this field.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The pain concentrates in liquidity.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: A founder who owns illiquid private company shares can face a seven-figure assessment with nothing sold and no cash to settle it.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Which country you are leaving decides how bad that gets, and one country on this list never lets you leave at all.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: The United States taxes its citizens wherever they live.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So an American in Dubai files with the IRS for as long as they are a citizen.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Relocation changes nothing about the bill.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: The American Exit Charge fires on renunciation or when a long-term resident abandons a green card they have had for eight of the last 15 years.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Both routes reach only covered expatriates, and you become one by failing any of three tests: a net worth of$2 million or more, an average annual tax liability above$211,000, or a failure to certify five years of full tax compliance on Form 8854.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: That third test has nothing to do with wealth.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: A single unfiled return in the look back period hands a middle-income American the same treatment as a billionaire.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: For 2026, the first$910,000 of net unrealized gain is excluded.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Retirement accounts fare worse than that suggests because the IRS deems an IRA fully distributed the day before expatriation, producing ordinary income tax on the entire balance.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The charge also outlives you.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Americans who later receive a gift or inheritance from a covered expatriate pay a 40% transfer tax above the annual exclusion.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So a parent who renounces can cost a child close to half of what they leave behind.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Every other country on this list waits for you to leave.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Seven of them apply no minimum at all.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Austria taxes unrealised gains on financial assets at 27.5% with no flaw, so one appreciated share creates a liability.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Move within the EU or the European Economic Area, the EEA, and you can ask for the tax to be assessed without being collected until you sell.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Move anywhere else and payment falls due immediately.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: That deferral just grew teeth and will come back to Austria near the end of this video, because a 2026 deadline now reaches people who left as far back as 2005.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Belgium is the newest entrant and the cheapest at 10%.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Only gains accrued from January 1st, 2026 count.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Listed securities were rebased to their last closing price of 2025, and the charge is cancelled outright if you sell nothing within 24 months of departure, or if you return inside that window.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Finders should read the 10% carefully, because a stake of 20% or more falls on a separate track, and internal capital gains face 33%.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Canada deems you to have disposed of most worldwide assets at fair market value.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Add half of any gain to your income and taxes it at your marginal rate.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Form T1244 postpones payment, though deferred federal tax above$16,500 Canadian dollars requires security.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Return and reestablish residency, and you can unwind the whole deemed disposition.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Australia reaches higher on rates by taxing the deemed gain at your marginal rate, and its deferral election is all or nothing.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Any asset you defer becomes taxable, Australian property.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So Australia retains the right to tax it whenever you eventually sell.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: South Africa caps out at an effective 18% for individuals and excludes local immovable property, which it taxes whether you live there or not.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Israel has tax departures for years and almost nobody outside Israel knows it.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Assets are deemed sold one day before residency ends with no threshold, and payment can be postponed until you sell.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Practitioners describe the change as difficult to enforce once you are gone.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Treat that leniency as temporary because reform proposals have targeted the gap repeatedly.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: New Zealand belongs here with a caveat.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: The country has no general capital gains tax, and its exit charges reaches only migrants who elected the revenue account method for unlisted foreign shares.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sell within three years of leaving and the tax applies.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sell later and New Zealand disregards it.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Where New Zealand is heading is a bigger story, and it arrives later in this video.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: These six gate the charge behind a value threshold from 100,000 Danish krona to 4 million euros, which is the whole distance between a regime that catches an ordinary saver and one that reaches only the wealthy.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Denmark sets the lowest entry point in the world.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone taxable there for seven of the preceding ten years who owns shares worth 100,000 krona is in scope.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Gains face 27% up to 79,400 krona and 42% above it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's 42% is the ceiling from this video's title, and it can reach a Dane with a modest brokerage account.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Norway administers the toughest collection regime in Europe.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: An allowance of 3 million Norwegian krona shields the first slice of gain, and the excess faces an effective rate near 37.84%.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Since the 2025 budget, departing taxpayers choose between paying in full on day one, 12 interest free annual instalments, or a lump sum with interest after a 12-year deferral.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: 70% of any dividend you receive abroad must go toward the outstanding bill, which killed the old strategy of stripping value out through distributions and selling the emptied shell.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Return within 12 years and the tax is cancelled.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Die abroad during the deferral and heirs living abroad inherit the bill.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Japan catches expatriates who never imagined they were exposed.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: The tax applies at 100 million yen in financial assets after more than five years of residency within the preceding ten.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: At 15.315%, visa category decides whether the clock advances at all.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Foreign nationals on Table I work visas are generally excluded from the count, while permanent residents and spouses of Japanese nationals are not.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Long-term expatriates who upgraded to permanent residency without checking the tax consequences are the group this regime hits hardest.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Cash, bank deposits, property and cryptocurrency fall outside both the threshold test and the taxable base.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Poland charges 19% above 4 million Polish zlotti in aggregate value, and its regime has a date with the Court of Justice of the European Union, which is now considering whether the tax violates free movement law.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: A ruling against Warsaw would reverberate across this entire list.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: France applies its charge to six of 10-year residents with securities above 800,000 euros at a combined 31.4%.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Patience pays here.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: For departures since 2019, owning your securities for two years without selling cancels the tax outright below€2.57 million in taxable value and five years above it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Spain reaches 10 of 15-year residents with shares above 4 million euros or a 25% stake worth over 1 million euros at rates from 19% to 30%.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: A separate trap catches Spanish nationals and nobody else.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Move to a jurisdiction Spain classifies as a tax haven, and Spain treats you as a tax resident for the departure year plus the four that follow.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: The last three regimes look past your portfolio and go after company ownership.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So a diversified investor walks out untouched while a founder pays.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Germany's Vegschude Steuer reaches anyone with at least 1% of a company after seven of the last 12 years of unlimited German tax liability at an effective rate near 28.5%.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Germany is the outlier on payment terms, offering the same seven annual instalments wherever you go, so a founder moving to Dubai gets the schedule a founder moving to Lisbon gets.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Since January 2025, the rules also reach investment fund units, wherever the investor owned at least 1% of a fund's units or the acquisition cost reaches€500,000 applied fund by fund.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Netherlands taxes stakes of 5% or more at 24.5% on the first€68,843 of gain and 31% above it, with automatic interest free deferral for EU and EEA movers until they sell.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: South Korea's charges reaches departing residents with large stakes enlisted companies after five years' residence within 10 on domestic stocks only at 20% to 25%.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: That narrow scope ends in January 2027 when foreign stocks enter the base with no large stake condition attached.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: A Korean resident of five years with an ordinary portfolio of US equities who owes nothing today will land inside the regime.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Deferral is the only place your destination changes anything, and it changes a great deal.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Move within the EU or EEA, and most European regimes grant automatic or near automatic deferral, a legacy of the free movement case law that constrains what member states can charge at the border.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Move to Dubai, Singapore or the Caribbean, and the terms harden.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Austria demands immediate payment with no installment option.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Belgium requires a formal request plus posted security.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: France makes deferral discretionary and can ask for guarantees.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the classic investment migration play, a European exit into a territorial or low tax jurisdiction, is precisely the move most likely to trigger immediate payment of deferral.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Several of the 17 sell residency, so an investor can purchase a future exit tax alongside the permit.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: The United States EB5 program requires$800,000 in a targeted employment area and delivers a green card.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Retain that card for eight for the following 15 years, and abandoning it triggers the covered expatriate regime we covered earlier.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Quebec's investor program puts you inside Canada's departure law.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Japan's active investor visa puts you inside a regime that starts billing at 100 million yen.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: South Korea's investor visa leads to residency, and five years is the qualifying period the Korean charge uses.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Germany's self-employment visa puts a founder inside the VEGStugsteuer.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: These programs can be the right choice, provided you price the exit alongside the entry.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Program rules and tax rules move on different calendars and both change without warning.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: The IMI Daily newsletter tracks them as they hit the government gazettes.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's IMIDaily.com slash newsletter.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: New Zealand is the likeliest country to widen next.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: The 2026 budget proposed extending the revenue account method to every New Zealand tax resident with draft legislation expected around September 2026.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: If it passes, the New Zealand exit charge stops being a footnote and becomes a general rule.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: The United Kingdom is the case that will not go away.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: The former Chancellor weighed a 20% settling up charge on embedded gains, a measure the Times reported could raise around£2 billion a year, then abandoned it in November 2025 after roughly 150 business leaders objected.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: The idea has resurfaced repeatedly since, and Brexit removed the free movement rules that constrain every European regime on this list.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So nothing limits what Britain could charge.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Korea's expansion arrives in January 2027, and the Austrian deadline we flagged earlier arrives first.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Austria attached a proof obligation to every deferral it has granted since 2005, and anyone with deferred income above 100,000 euros must file by December 31, 2026.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Silence counts as a sale, which converts a dormant liability into a live one overnight.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: The exit tax is calculated on unrealized gains, so it grows every year you wait.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the bill you would pay today is the smallest bill you will ever pay.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Everything useful happens before residency ends, asset restructuring, gifting, disposals timed across tax years, and the choice of which residency to surrender first.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: But simply acquiring a passport solves none of it.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: An investor can own a golden visa, a second citizenship, and a tax residency certificate from a territorial jurisdiction, and owe a full deemed disposal to the country, they never formally left.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Seventeen countries now price your departure.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: The thresholds are trending down, not up, and the one variable you control is when you go.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: An exit tax is a government pricing your departure.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is also only one of six ways a government can stop you from leaving, and this entire video covered just that one.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: The other five are in the video on your screen now.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribe with notifications so you can catch these rule changes before they catch you.