April 2026 overseas scheme administrator rule change – is your scheme ready?

By Richard Pettit EPMI

13 Jan 2026 4 min read

As we’ve highlighted previously, with effect from 6 April 2026, the law is changing and it will be a requirement that a registered pension scheme’s scheme administrator is resident in the UK. Under the law as it currently stands, a pension scheme administrator can be resident of the UK, a member state of the EU or non-member EEA state. The April 2026 change was announced as part of the Autumn 2024 budget, and as the policy paper published then explained, the existing rules were put in place to address EU freedom of movement principles at the time.

A key point to understand is that in this context scheme administrator means the person who is the scheme administrator for tax purposes, rather than the person responsible for the day to day administration of the scheme. This Finance Act 2004 “scheme administrator” role is different to that of an in-house or third-party administrator appointed by trustees to act as the day-to-day administrator of a pension scheme.

The relevant legislation is found in s270 of the Finance Act 2004 and defines the scheme administrator of a pension scheme as the person(s) “appointed, in accordance with the rules of the pension scheme, to be responsible for the discharge of the functions conferred or imposed on the scheme administrator of the pension scheme by and under” Part 4 of the Finance Act 2004. In our experience, in a trust-based scheme, the scheme rules typically appoint the trustees to be the scheme administrator and while it is usually possible for trustees to delegate some of the practical aspects of this role, the default position under s272 FA04 is that the trustees are liable as scheme administrator. It is not unusual for schemes to have individual lay trustees who are overseas (i.e. non-UK) residents.

What action should schemes be taking?

If you have not already done so, a key first step is to identify who the scheme administrator is for Finance Act purposes. If you think they are, or could be considered, non-UK resident you should take action and seek advice as a matter of priority, given the impending change in the law, which comes into effect on 6 April 2026.

For schemes who identify that they have existing non-UK resident pension scheme administrators, HMRC’s recent newsletter (no 174) includes a helpful guide to next steps, which we have summarised in the table below:

Options	Actions
If the only pension scheme administrator is not UK-resident (this applies even if the individual or entity uses a UK mailing address – having a UK mailing address does not make them UK resident).	Appoint a UK-resident pension scheme administrator and add them to your scheme via HMRC’s online services no later than 5 April 2026. The non-UK resident can then be removed as a scheme administrator per the steps below.
If one scheme administrator is not UK-resident but others are.	Remove the non-UK resident pension scheme administrator via HMRC’s online services no later than 5 April 2026. Depending which online service the scheme uses, you may also need to email HMRC – see the newsletter for more details.
If a non-UK resident is listed as scheme administrator but they have never been, or are no longer, a scheme administrator for that scheme/	The non-UK resident should be removed via HMRC’s online services no later than 5 April 2026. Depending which online service the scheme uses, you may also need to email HMRC – see the newsletter for more details.

One further important point to note relates to practitioners appointed by the scheme administrator to act on their behalf for a pension scheme in relation to HMRC’s service – this could be a third party provider of pensions administration services, an accountant or a legal adviser. Such an appointment will automatically ceases when a scheme administrator is removed and therefore “to continue to be an authorised practitioner for the scheme, they will have to be appointed by a UK resident pension scheme administrator acting for the pension scheme”.

If you would like to discuss this topic further, please contact Richard Pettit or your usual contact in the Burges Salmon Pensions and Lifetime Savings team.

This blog post was written by Richard Pettit and Shakes Seebaluck.