Change of country of residence/ increase % tax on trade with funds transfer

General Chat šŸ’¬
1

If I move from the UK to Spain and become a resident of Spain (and pay tax in Spain) do I need to close my account with FreeTrade?

Is there a way to transfer a stock from FreeTrade to an equivalent trading app in Spain, without first selling it and incurring capital gains?

Please correct me if Iā€™m wrong but it seems that Iā€™d pay an additional on the overall trade 7% tax if I do this.

Hereā€™s my working:

To make it simple I expect a 10x overall and that itā€™s at 5x now (so 2x to go) and a 20% capital gains rate.

Initial investment: Ā£100
Current value: Ā£500
After sale Ā£400 is taxable so -Ā£80 leaving Ā£420 to transfer to the other trading app.

If all goes to plan then this new investment will x2 to a value of Ā£840.
When I sell this Ā£420 will be taxable so - Ā£84 leaving Ā£756

With this approach Iā€™d pay 27% tax overall on the profit from this trade.

If however if Iā€™d been able to stay at FreeTrade and sold at the end Iā€™d only pay 20% tax.

Any feedback appreciated.

Thx!

Edit (17/11/23):
It seems FreeTrade and other brokers use something calledhttps://freetrade.io/transferring-to-other-providers the ā€˜Automate Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS)ā€™.

Some more info here: Transferring to other providers | Freetrade
Notably ā€œIf you want to transfer to another provider, you shouldnā€™t need to contact us. Your new provider will likely get in touch with us on your behalf.ā€

Note: I like FreeTrade as an app. When it finally gets registered in Spain iā€™ll probably use it again.

edit 2: 17/11/23
Not so easy:

  1. If you tell FreeTrade that youā€™re in the process of moving (to a country they are no active in) and ask for advice - you get given one month to withdraw all of your funds and close your account.
  2. According to the link i provided above stock transfers can take up to six weeks.
  3. The person advising me at tastytrade - a broker registered with the ā€œAutomate Customer Account Transfer Service (ACAT)ā€, FreeTrade is not registered with ā€˜ACATā€™.
2

Speak to Hargreaves Lansdown and see what the score is if you transferred the shares to them . Pretty sure their GIA account can be used by UK residents moving abroad ( anything in an ISA will need to be sold ) .

I assume even if you subsequently then wanted to transfer into a Spanish app theyā€™d be easier to deal with than Freetrade.

3

Following