For a creator who travels, where you are taxed depends on tax residency, and for Americans on citizenship, not on where you film or which platform pays you. Australia applies the resides, domicile and 183-day tests set out on the ATO's tax residency page, the UK counts days and ties under its Statutory Residence Test, and US citizens are taxed on worldwide income wherever they live, with the IRS's foreign earned income exclusion open only to those who meet its residence or 330-day presence tests, and even then it does not reduce self-employment tax.
Residency is a tax test, not a visa status
The first mistake is assuming that leaving a country, or not holding its visa, ends your tax ties to it. The ATO says it does not use the same rules as the Department of Home Affairs, so you can be an Australian tax resident without citizenship or permanent residency, and it cites a 2013 legal decision showing that someone who fails to cut their connection with Australia is treated as a resident. New Zealand's IRD makes the same distinction on its page about creators' overseas income: tax residency differs from immigration status, and a resident only becomes non-resident after more than 325 days away in a 12-month period without a permanent place of abode in New Zealand.
So the question for a travelling creator is never “where am I today?” but “which countries can claim me as resident this year, and does a treaty settle any overlap?” This page stays on that compliance question; it does not suggest picking a country to reduce tax, and the answer for your year should come from the official tools below and an adviser who knows both countries involved.
Residency self-check table
Work through every country you have lived in or spent long periods in during the tax year. The middle column lists the facts each test looks at, so you know what to record before you need it.
| Test | Facts to record | Official tool or guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Australia: resides test | Physical presence, intention and purpose, family, business ties, where assets are kept, and social and living arrangements | ATO residency decision tools |
| Australia: domicile test | Whether your permanent home is still Australia, and evidence of a permanent place of abode overseas, such as a long lease or family moving with you | ATO residency examples |
| Australia: 183-day test | Days present in Australia in the income year, plus your usual place of abode and any intention to take up residence | ATO 183-day test |
| UK: automatic overseas tests | UK days, whether you were resident in any of the previous 3 tax years, and days with more than 3 hours of work in the UK | RDR3 section 2 |
| UK: automatic UK tests | Whether you reach 183 UK days, the homes you had in the UK and abroad and days spent in each, and any full-time UK work | RDR3 section 3 |
| UK: sufficient ties test | Family, accommodation, work and 90-day ties, plus a country tie if you were recently resident, set against your UK day count | RDR3 section 4 |
| US: citizens and resident aliens | Citizenship or green card status, foreign earned income, your tax home, and full days present abroad in any 12-month window | IRS FEIE tests |
| New Zealand: leaving residence | Days absent in each 12-month period and whether you keep a permanent place of abode in New Zealand | IRD overseas income |
The UK numbers need the most care. Under RDR3, you are automatically non-resident with fewer than 16 UK days if you were resident in one of the previous 3 tax years, or fewer than 46 if you were not, and automatically resident with 183 days or more. Between those points the ties decide it: someone resident in one of the previous 3 years needs at least 4 ties to be resident with 16 to 45 UK days, at least 3 with 46 to 90 days, at least 2 with 91 to 120 days and at least 1 above 120 days. The third overseas test, for full-time work abroad, needs fewer than 91 UK days, fewer than 31 days with more than 3 hours of UK work and no significant break, and RDR3 confirms it can apply to the self-employed.
Travel-day log template
Each test counts days and work in its own way, so keep one daily log detailed enough to answer all of them, and back it with evidence you will still have in a few years.
| Log field | What to write each day | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Date and country | Where you woke up and where you slept, including transit days | Every day-count test starts here |
| Hours worked | Filming, editing, posting and fan messaging time, not just shoots | The UK work tests count days with more than a few hours of work |
| Who the work was for | Your own channels, a brand campaign, or an event appearance and its location | Where services are performed affects tax and indirect tax treatment |
| Accommodation | Hotel, short let, rented apartment or a home you own or keep available | Home and accommodation ties appear in the Australian and UK tests |
| Family location | Where a partner and any children are living that month | Family ties weigh in both the resides test and the UK ties |
| Evidence | Boarding passes, booking confirmations, passport stamps or location exports | Authorities may ask you to prove the log |
US citizens abroad: what the exclusion does not do
The IRS page on US citizens and resident aliens abroad says the rules for filing and paying estimated tax are generally the same whether you live in the US or abroad, and that benefits like the exclusion and the foreign tax credit are only available if you file a return claiming them. Its exclusion page is clear about self-employment: the exclusion can apply to foreign earned self-employment income, but it reduces regular income tax, not self-employment tax. The same page requires a tax home in a foreign country, which you do not have if your abode stays in the US.
Self-employment tax is where the Social Security Administration's totalization agreements come in: these bilateral agreements exist to stop dual Social Security taxation of the same earnings and to fill gaps in benefit protection, so check whether the country you are living in has one. The IRS citizens-abroad page also flags that foreign financial accounts above the reporting threshold must be reported on an FBAR even if they earn nothing.
Treaties, credits and the year you leave
When two countries both tax the same income, relief usually comes from a double tax agreement or a credit. IRD's IS 21/08 explains that sometimes an agreement gives only one country the right to tax, and sometimes both tax it with a credit for the overseas tax that may be limited. Platform withholding sits on top of that: if a US platform pays you as a non-US creator, our W-8BEN field guide explains how a treaty claim changes the US tax taken from your earnings.
The change year needs its own care. The ATO's residency page says that if you stop being an Australian resident during the year you still answer yes to the residency question, get a pro-rata tax-free threshold, no longer return foreign-source income from the date you ceased, and have Australian interest, dividends and royalties taxed by withholding as a final tax. In the UK, RDR3 now includes a temporary non-residence section: if you return within 5 years, certain income and gains received while away can be taxed in the year you come back. For the home-country rules, see our overviews of Australian creator tax, UK creator tax and New Zealand creator tax.
Visas and permission to work are a separate question
Tax residency says nothing about whether you may work in a country. GOV.UK's Standard Visitor guidance, for example, allows stays of usually up to 6 months but says visitors cannot do paid or unpaid work for a UK company or as a self-employed person unless it is a permitted paid engagement, and cannot live in the UK through frequent or successive visits. New Zealand's IRD says on its overseas income page that a creator visiting for up to 275 days in any 18-month period may be a non-resident visitor, but only if they do not sell goods or services to people or businesses in New Zealand and their work does not require them to be there. Check the immigration authority of each country you plan to work from, and remember that a visa letting you stay is not a ruling on where you pay tax.
Social security and pensions while you travel
Contributions do not follow you automatically. UK creators who used to pay voluntary Class 2 National Insurance while abroad lost that option for most periods abroad from 6 April 2026, according to HMRC's policy paper, as our guide to National Insurance for self-employed creators explains with HMRC's transitional rules, and US citizens rely on totalization agreements to avoid paying into two systems. Before a long stay, record which country's social security system you are paying into and why.
Gaps and stale figures in official guidance
- Exclusion amounts. When checked, the IRS exclusion page listed annual maximums only up to 2023, so take the current year's figure from the current Form 2555 instructions rather than the summary page.
- Day counts in examples. IRD's web version of its touring musician example gives 185 days abroad, while the same example in IS 21/08 says 183. Both sit far below the 325-day test, but it is a reminder to rely on the rule, not on an example's arithmetic.
- Recent changes. HMRC added the temporary non-residence section to RDR3 on 11 June 2026, so older summaries of the test may be incomplete.
Limitations of this residency guide
Residency is decided year by year on facts that a summary cannot weigh: intentions, family arrangements, homes kept available and the precise day-counting rules of each country, including split-year treatment in the UK, which this page does not cover. It reflects ATO, HMRC, IRS, IRD, SSA and GOV.UK pages checked on 1 October 2026, covers four countries only, and is not legal, immigration or tax advice. Before a move or a long period abroad, get advice from a tax adviser in each country involved, and keep your travel-day log from the first day rather than rebuilding it at tax time; our guide to choosing a creator accountant covers what to ask a cross-border adviser.