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What will happen if you do not pay your tax bill

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ByHM Revenue & Customscedar_mesa_06076d

How HMRC uses debt enforcement powers, debt collection agencies and what happens if you live abroad when you do not pay your tax bill.

Adapted edition

Management review
Document type
Reference Guide
Format
DOCX
Pages
10
Language
English
Version
1.0
Updated
2026-09-16
Category
Information security
Licence
Open Government Licence v3.0
Description

How HMRC uses debt enforcement powers, debt collection agencies and what happens if you live abroad when you do not pay your tax bill. Consult the original guidance for current legal and operational details.

Contents
  • Get help to work out debt repayments
  • If you are a resident outside the UK or have assets abroad
  • If you do not engage with HMRC or refuse to pay what you owe
  • Visiting you at your home or business address
  • HMRC and debt collection agencies
  • Debt collection agency phone calls
  • If you want someone to act on your behalf for more than 24 hours
  • Complain about a debt collection agency
  • What our tax debt enforcement powers are and when we use them
  • Taking your possessions to cover the debt
  • Fees in England and Wales
  • Fees in Northern Ireland
  • Possessions we will not take
  • Using a Summary Warrant to recover the debt (Scotland only)
  • Recovering the debt directly from your bank account
  • Recovering the debt through your tax code
Source and licence
What will happen if you do not pay your tax bill

HM Revenue & Customs

Original source OGL-UK-3.0

AttributionHM Revenue & Customs, ‘What will happen if you do not pay your tax bill’ (updated 4 September 2026), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

ChangesNeutral text-only adaptation from the official GOV.UK Content API body: headings, paragraphs, ordered and unordered list items and clickable source-link destinations in an appendix preserved. Images, logos, page design, accessible-format request widgets and linked attachments excluded; normalised whitespace, invisible format marks and typography.

Version history
  • v1.016/09/2026
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