Domicile

In law, domicile means being a lawful permanent resident in a particular jurisdiction. Your domicile is often the determining factor for many legal aspects, including investing and taxation. Investment funds also have a domicile, and here this too affects the applicable legislation, including taxation.

Domicile of a person
Your domicile will impact which funds you can and should invest in. In most countries, your residency and domicile determine the applicable rules. The exceptions are Eritrea and the US, both of which tax their citizens irrespective of where they live.

You can remain domiciled in a jurisdiction even after leaving it, if you keep sufficient links with that jurisdiction or do not intend to leave permanently; for example, if you move to a different state or country but have not yet decided to remain there indefinitely.

Domicile from a US standpoint
The US uses the following attributes and terms to define domicile:
 * US citizens: either natural-born or naturalised.
 * US resident aliens: that is, green card holders.
 * US persons: US citizens, resident aliens and residents are known collectively as US persons.
 * Expatriate: the US Internal Revenue Services (IRS) code defines "expatriate" as someone who has given up US citizenship or long term permanent resident (green card) status. Take care not to confuse this with the more normal English meaning of the term "expatriate," which refers to a citizen of one country residing in another country. To avoid confusion, this page avoids the term "expatriate" and uses "US person living outside the US" or "US person living abroad" to mean US citizens and green card holders living in countries other than the US.
 * US nonresident aliens: persons who are not US citizens or US residents. If you are not a US citizen, you are considered a nonresident alien unless you meet one of two tests. You are a resident alien of the United States for tax purposes if you meet either the green card test or the substantial presence test for the calendar year (January 1-December 31). In short, if you are not a US citizen or green card holder and have not been in the US for 183 days (calculated over a 3 year period), you are a nonresident alien for US tax purposes.

Residence and domicile
If your country has a US income tax treaty, and you are a full 'tax resident' of that country, this is normally enough to let you use that income tax treaty with the US.

In contrast, to use a US estate tax treaty you generally have to be domiciled in a country. Domicile is where your permanent home is, and although it includes residence as one of its elements, residence alone in a country may not be enough to gain you coverage from a US estate tax treaty, so you need to be particularly careful here. A few US estate tax treaties also cover citizens even when perhaps not resident or domiciled in the treaty partner country, for example the UK.

Domicile of a fund
Just like a person, a fund or ETF has a domicile. This is the country in which the fund's holding company is legally incorporated, and typically where the administration and management of the fund itself takes place.

Despite funds investing in identical underlying assets, investors in varying personal tax circumstances will get different results depending on the domicile of the fund they choose to hold. Sometimes wildly different.

US domiciled funds
If you are a US resident, US citizen or green card holder investing in a US domiciled fund, the US will not withhold any tax on dividends, and you are responsible for your own tax payments to the US.

If you are a nonresident alien or non-US person investing in a US domiciled fund, the US will withhold up to 30% tax on dividends (the actual rate might be reduced by a tax treaty, typically to 15%), and could levy up to 40% estate tax of the balance on your death.

Ireland and Luxembourg domiciled UCITS funds
UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive) is an EU directive that regulates mutual funds and ETFs. It allows the funds to operate freely throughout the EU and UK on authorisation from a single member state. The UK left the EU in January 2020, but continues to participate in UCITS.

In addition every EU country has its own legislation and tax-treaties with other countries that govern the funds:
 * Ireland domiciled funds. Ireland treats Irish domiciled funds advantageously. There are no dividends taxes or capital gains tax on dividends of Ireland domiciled funds. In addition Ireland has beneficial tax-treaties, in particular with the US. This treaty lowers dividend taxation to 15%.
 * Luxembourg domiciled funds. Almost equally good, however dividends of US securities are subject to a US withholding tax of 30%. Prefer Ireland except where the fund holds only non-US stocks.
 * Other EU countries often have legislation or tax treaties that is negative for investors. For example, a country may levy a dividend withholding tax on the dividends distributed by the fund. This can lead to triple taxation: on payments made by assets the fund holds; on payments made by the fund to investors; and by the country of the investor.

Other fund domiciles
Many countries have funds that are domiciled locally, and with their own specific characteristics, for example Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong. Singapore, and the UK.

These funds are typically designed for residents of the country in which the fund or ETF is domiciled. If your country offers funds like these, it is usually worth investigating whether they are suitable for your circumstances. For example, they might hold special local tax advantages for you.

You should however still watch out for fund-level tax withholding. For example, funds domiciled in Hong Kong and Singapore have no access to US tax treaties, so these will be unattractive relative to Ireland domiciled equivalents where their holdings are US stocks.

Impact of domicile of a person on investing
Your domicile will impact which funds you can and should invest in. For more, see: Investing from outside of the US, and Nonresident alien investors and Ireland domiciled ETFs. Also, the country specific pages in Outline of non-US domiciles.

EU and UK residents
EU-wide investment legislation, and UK equivalent regulation, now creates significant hurdles for EU and UK investors who want to access to funds domiciled outside of the EU and UK, in particular US domiciled funds.

The UK left the EU in January 2020, but created its own 'UK PRIIPs' regime that is fully aligned with the EU PRIIPs, so PRIIPs restrictions continue to apply in the UK.

For more, see: EU investing. For information on choosing your EU residence country to optimise taxation, see: EU non-habitual residence.

Impact of US legislation on investing by non-US persons
US legislation impacts investing by non-US persons (known as nonresident aliens in US legislation). The US has harsh tax rules for US assets held by foreigners, some bordering on confiscatory. It taxes dividends paid by US stocks and US domiciled ETFs to foreigners at up to 30%, and may apply an estate tax of up to 40% on all US situated assets above a minimal $60,000 exemption. Be sure to understand how these tax rules will apply to you. If you need to avoid them, switch away from the usual US domiciled investments discussed among and used by US investors, and instead use equivalent investments domiciled in other countries, for example Ireland.

Taxation as a US person living abroad
Taxation as a US person living abroad involves special considerations for individual taxpayers. Uniquely among developed countries, the US taxes its citizens and permanent residents on their worldwide income whether they live in the US or outside. It has protectionist and draconian tax laws that dissuade US citizens and residents from holding non-US domiciled investments.

If you are a US citizen or resident alien, the rules for filing income, estate, and gift tax returns and paying estimated tax are generally the same whether you are in the United States or abroad. Your worldwide income is subject to US income tax, regardless of where you reside.

Among the tax issues confronting you are additional reporting requirements for foreign bank and investment accounts, along with a number of applicable exclusions, deductions, and tax credits. If you have a non-citizen spouse you face potential limitations on the inheritance and gifting of assets. And the US has some additional tax that it can apply to the assets of people who renounce or relinquish US citizenship, or abandon long-term US permanent residency.

Because of these, you must usually invest as if living in the US, and you effectively cannot use normal investments freely available to non-US persons living in the same country as you.

Choosing the domicile of the funds to invest in
As a non-US investor you can choose the domicile of your investment funds. Next to home country domiciled funds, the choice is often between US domiciled funds and Ireland domiciled funds.

An EU or UK investor may only have limited access to funds domiciled outside of the EU (see EU and UK residents above). Non-US investors can use the Nonresident alien's ETF domicile decision table to choose the domicile of their investment funds.

In contrast to the above, harsh US tax rules effectively restrict US citizens and other US persons to holding only US domiciled funds.

Tax legislation and tax treaties
Every country has its own tax legislation for individuals and funds. Domicile determines which country's tax legislation applies.

Countries agree on tax treaties that determine cross border tax. One of the topics often discussed in the tax treaties is avoidance of double taxation.

If you are a US citizen or other 'US person', and especially if you live outside the US, you need to be aware of the US 'saving clause' that appears in most US tax treaties. This clause denies most treaty benefits to US citizens and US green card holders. The 'saving clause' generally has only a handful of exceptions.

Tax treaties
The following is a (non-exhaustive) list of tax treaties in force in selected countries: