UK's Britannia Card: All about Nigel Farage's plans to charge rich expats £250,000 to give to the poor

Reform UK, Britain's right-wing populist political party, has announced a plan called the “Britannia Card,” which would grant wealthy foreigners and returning British citizens a 10-year residence permit and tax benefits in exchange for a one-time fee of £250,000. The proposal would reintroduce the controversial “non-dom” status, allowing cardholders to pay no UK tax on offshore income and avoid inheritance tax.

Reform UK’s party leader, Nigel Farage, announced the policy and said it would “encourage the return of wealth and talent to the United Kingdom” by offering a “stable, indefinite remittance-style regime” and a 20‑year inheritance tax shield. The scheme is aimed at making the UK attractive for wealthy individuals, he said.

How low-paid workers would benefit
Reform UK says the £250,000 paid by each cardholder would go directly to low-paid workers. According to the party, about 2.5 million low-paid Britons could receive a tax-free annual bonus of £600–£1,000, delivered automatically via HMRC. Under the plan, if 6,000 cards are issued, it would raise £1.5 billion, enough to give about 2.5 million workers a £600 annual bonus. At 10,000 cards issued, the fund would rise to £2.5 billion, yielding about £1,000 per worker.

Farage added that “our policy is simple — Britain must be a place where success is celebrated, not punished with excessive taxes, crippling energy costs, or punitive inheritance levies.” He said the scheme was “not a ‘ golden visa’ or a backdoor to citizenship” but “a one-time flat tax paid by newcomers in exchange for the certainty of a favorable tax status.”

Details and questions about enforcement
Individuals using the Britannia Card would remain liable for standard UK taxes on income, property, and spending sourced within the country. But their offshore income and gains would be protected from UK tax for the agreed status period. Reform has yet to define thresholds for qualifying “high-net-worth newcomers” or confirm how HMRC would implement and enforce the scheme.

Labour has criticized the plan. A party spokesperson said to The Guardian, “Nigel Farage can brand this whatever he wants – the reality is his first proper policy is a golden ticket for foreign billionaires to avoid the tax they owe in this country. As ever with Reform, the devil is in the detail. This giveaway would reduce revenues raised from the rich that would have to be made up elsewhere – through tax hikes on working families or through Farage’s promise to charge them to use the NHS.”

What now?
Reform UK has not yet published a legislative draft or confirmed details for enforcement. The proposal arrives after Labour ended the long-standing “non-dom” regime in April, and former Conservative Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced plans to remove it. Reform UK aims to appeal to working people with direct cash bonuses, saying this approach will dominate “red wall” economic debates. The party now leads in many national polls, including a recent Sky/YouGov tracker that put Reform at 34%, Labour at 25%, and the Conservatives at 15%.