EU exit tax cheatsheet — eight jurisdictions compared

Most founders moving from Europe to Thailand or Paraguay don’t owe an exit tax. They worry about it for months before discovering they’re well under the threshold and the home authority just wants the paperwork filed — which is the whole picture for freelancers and solo operators. A small minority — shareholders with substantial holdings, founders who built and are about to sell — do owe one, and need a structured plan before the move date.

This is the one-page cheatsheet we use with members. Eight jurisdictions, the legal basis for each exit-tax regime, the thresholds that actually apply, and the form you file on the way out.

What is an exit tax — and who has one

An exit tax is a tax levied at the moment a person ceases to be a tax resident of a country, designed to capture unrealised gains that would otherwise escape the home tax base. Not every European country has one, and the ones that do almost always target shareholders with substantial holdings, not salaried or freelance income.

The eight European jurisdictions where CERØ runs exits, ranked by exit-tax severity for a founder with €5M in private company shares:

The pattern: the four most aggressive regimes (Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands) target shareholders. Salaried and freelance earners almost never trigger them. Portugal and Italy don’t levy a personal exit tax at all. The UK is procedurally light at the door but bites hard if the founder returns within five years.

Germany — the strictest of the eight

The §6 Wegzugsteuer is the most demanding regime in the table. Three conditions stack:

1. The taxpayer has held a direct or indirect shareholding of 1% or more in a corporation (German or foreign) at any time in the last five years — or, since 2025, fund units above the §19 InvStG thresholds.
2. The taxpayer has been unrestricted German tax resident for at least 7 of the last 12 years.
3. The taxpayer ceases that residency.

If all three are met, Germany deems a sale at the residency-end date. The unrealised gain — fair market value minus acquisition cost — is taxed under the Teileinkünfteverfahren (partial-income method): 60% of the gain is taxable at the holder’s personal income-tax rate (up to 45%) plus the solidarity surcharge, for an effective top rate of ~27%. For a founder with €5M in shares acquired at €100k, the deemed gain is €4.9M and the tax bill lands around €1.4M before instalment relief.

Since 2022 the deferral mechanism has gone. Pre-2022, moving to an EU/EEA jurisdiction permitted indefinite interest-free deferral. The ATAD-Umsetzungsgesetz killed that. Today the tax falls due one month after the assessment, and the only relief is seven equal annual instalments — interest-free, but normally granted only against acceptable security (a bank guarantee or insurance bond covering the tax liability). If the holder becomes German resident again within seven years without selling, the claim lapses. Moves to Thailand or Paraguay — both outside the EU/EEA — never qualified for the old indefinite deferral and now require the same instalment-or-security structure.

Selling down below 1% just before the move does not help: the five-year look-back still counts the old stake. What works is planning years ahead — any restructuring done with German tax counsel, well before the trigger, and the move timed for a year when the deemed gain is structurally lower. The detail matters; we co-build it with German tax counsel before the visa is filed.

Spain — the threshold rules out most

Article 95 bis of the Spanish IRPF Law applies a deemed-sale tax on unrealised gains when a long-term Spanish tax resident leaves the country and their share portfolio crosses one of two thresholds:

• Total market value of shareholdings > €4,000,000, or
• A holding of more than 25% of a company, your stake being worth > €1,000,000.

Plus the residency precondition: at least 10 of the previous 15 years as Spanish tax resident.

For most freelancers earning €60–200k a year from self-employed income, Article 95 bis does not apply. They have no qualifying shareholdings, or the shareholdings sit below the threshold. The census paperwork is what matters — Modelo 036/037 within a month for anyone who was registered as self-employed, Modelo 030 within three months for everyone else — and the substantive exit-tax bill is zero.

For a founder who built a Spanish company worth €2M and owns 100%, the Article 95 bis bill on a €1.9M deemed gain lands around €552k. The savings scale is progressive, so the charge has to be worked band by band rather than at a single headline rate — with the 30% band starting at €300,000, a gain this size comes out at roughly 29% effective. The full band-by-band breakdown shows the arithmetic. The mitigation strategy is the same shape as Germany: restructure before the move, sell or transfer below the 25% threshold, or relocate the operating entity to a non-Spanish structure 12+ months ahead of the residence change.

United Kingdom — no exit tax, but a five-year clawback

The UK is the outlier. There is no classical exit tax. The Statutory Residence Test (Finance Act 2013, Schedule 45) determines residency for each tax year, and the P85 form — or, for anyone filing Self Assessment, the SA109 residence pages — tells HMRC of the departure. So far, so light.

The bear trap is the temporary non-residence rules — for capital gains, §1M of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, which replaced §10A from 2019-20. If a UK tax resident who was resident in at least four of the previous seven tax years leaves, sells assets while non-resident, and then returns to UK residency after five years or less, the gains realised during the non-residence period are treated as arising in the period of return and taxed by HMRC at that point.

For a founder selling a UK company for £10M after departure, the question is whether the founder stays out for more than five years. If they return sooner, the gain is clawed back. If they stay out, the gain stays outside the UK tax net — unless most of the company’s value is UK land, which non-residents are taxed on anyway.

The procedural exit is faster than in Germany or Spain. The risk is the unspoken five-year horizon.

France — deferral if you stay close, security if you move far

Article 167 bis of the CGI taxes a deemed disposal of shares when someone who was French tax resident for at least six of the previous ten years emigrates and their household holds shares worth more than €800,000 or at least 50% of a company’s profits. For 2026 departures the rate is 31.4% (12.8% income tax + 18.6% social levies).

The key feature is the deferral. If the move is within the EU, or to a country with both an administrative-assistance and a tax-recovery agreement with France, the deferral is automatic. For departures since 1 January 2019, the charge is cancelled once the securities have been held 2 years (or 5 years if they were worth more than €2.57M) without being sold. Thailand and Paraguay are not on the tax office’s list, so the founder must request deferral at least 90 days before leaving, with guarantees and a tax representative in France.

Most CERØ French members fall under the 50% threshold (freelance, multi-shareholder startups), and the €800k threshold rarely fires alone. For larger cases, the deferral request is workable if it is filed in time, and the 2-year holding clock provides a clean horizon.

Netherlands — the conserverende aanslag

A 5%+ shareholding in a company triggers the Dutch conserverende aanslag at the moment of emigration. The unrealised gain is assessed but not collected immediately. The assessment is “preserved” — and for anyone leaving since 15 September 2015 it no longer lapses after ten years. If the shares are sold, or in some cases dividends are paid or capital reduced, the corresponding tax becomes due.

For founders moving to Thailand or Paraguay, the conserverende aanslag is workable provided the move date is chosen carefully and the holding is not the imminent exit. Like the UK temporary non-residence rules, the structure favours founders who can hold rather than sell.

Portugal and Italy — much lighter; Belgium now has an exit tax

Portugal has no personal exit tax. Italy has no personal exit tax (TUIR Art. 166 only catches businesses migrating their tax seat). Belgium is the change for 2026: its new capital-gains tax, in force 1 January 2026, includes a deemed-disposal exit tax on individuals who transfer their tax residence out of Belgium — unrealised gains accrued since 1 January 2026 are taxed as if realised, at the 10% standard rate on financial assets (with the reference “day zero” value fixed at 31 December 2025). Departures that ended Belgian residence before 1 May 2026, when the law entered into force, are outside the regime. Payment deferral is automatic when moving to an EU/EEA or treaty country offering information exchange and mutual recovery assistance — Thailand is on the official list — and the tax lapses after 24 months abroad if nothing is sold and the yearly attestations are filed; for other countries, such as Paraguay, deferral needs a request and a guarantee.

For founders moving from Portugal or Italy, the exit paperwork is the only substantive concern. Portugal: the residence-status change through the Portal das Finanças within 60 days. Italy: AIRE consular registration within 90 days, which is a duty in its own right but no longer settles tax residency. Belgian founders with financial assets should model the deemed-disposal charge before fixing the departure date; the departure is declared at the commune no later than the day before leaving.

The filing sequence that matters

The single most common mistake CERØ sees from members who attempted the exit alone is filing the home-country paperwork after the new tax residency is established. The home authority then has a gap — a period where the taxpayer was no longer paying home tax but the new tax residency had not been formally communicated. That gap is the audit trigger.

The correct sequence:

1. Day –30: Open the new tax residency (bank, visa, lease).
2. Day 0 (departure): File the home-country change-of-residence form before boarding the plane.
3. Day +60 to +90: New country issues the tax-residency certificate (Paraguay) or qualifies for the 180-day rule (Thailand).
4. Spring of year after departure: Final partial-year home-country return is filed, attaching the new-country tax-residency certificate as evidence.
5. Years 1–5 after departure: Maintain the documentary trail. Audits land at 3–5 years out.

The CERØ exit playbook builds this sequence around each member’s specific country and shareholding situation. The thresholds in this cheatsheet narrow the question — most readers will discover their exit-tax exposure is zero. For the minority where it is not, the planning happens before the move date, never after.

Where to go from here

Each jurisdiction in the table above has its own drilldown on the exit form, the timing and the traps specific to that authority:

If you are a freelancer or sole operator rather than a shareholder, the exit tax for freelancers guide covers why almost none of the above will apply to you.

If you want to put numbers on the upside before doing any of this, run the Thailand tax calculator.

If you want a 30-minute call to map your specific exit and confirm whether you fall under any of the exit-tax thresholds above, book the free diagnosis call. On that call we tell you exactly which forms apply to your situation and which don’t.