Guides
Expert insights for your next chapter
Clear, practical reading on the decisions that follow you across borders.
From moving country and managing money to property, tax, insurance and business — explore practical guides built around real cross-border decisions.
Featured
Start with the most useful guides
Mobility
How to prepare financially before moving abroad
A practical order for accounts, tax, insurance and documents before you leave.
7 min read
Mobility
Moving from the UK to the UAE
Your step-by-step guide to residency, banking, tax, investments, property and more.
8 min read
Banking
Can a non-UK resident open a UK bank account?
What non-residents are usually asked for, and why the answer differs by bank.
5 min read
Tax
What happens to your ISA when you move abroad?
How a UK ISA behaves when you stop being UK resident, in general terms.
6 min read
Property
Buying property in Spain as a UK resident
The checks, people and money questions that sit around a Spanish purchase.
7 min read
Insurance
International health insurance for expats
Learn how expats should compare international health insurance, including geography, underwriting, pre-existing conditions, hospital networks, claims and portability.
12 min read
Explore by topic
Guides for every stage of international life
Mobility
Mobility
Moving from the UK to the UAE
Your step-by-step guide to residency, banking, tax, investments, property and more.
8 min read
Mobility
How to prepare financially before moving abroad
A practical order for accounts, tax, insurance and documents before you leave.
7 min read
Mobility
What to do in the 90 days before an international move
A planning window for documents, accounts and cover. Ninety days is not a legal test.
5 min read
Mobility
How to track residency days when you live across countries
Why a personal day record helps, and why it does not decide tax residence.
5 min read
Mobility
What changes when you become non-resident?
The practical consequences people meet, without pretending one country’s rules are universal.
5 min read
Mobility
What should you check before working from another country?
Immigration, tax, employment and banking questions for remote work, before the laptop opens.
5 min read
Mobility
Moving with a family: schools, healthcare and banking
The household questions that sit beside your own visa, account and policy.
5 min read
Mobility
What documents should you prepare before relocating?
The file of identity, money and civil documents that is painful to assemble after you have left.
5 min read
Banking & Payments
Banking
Can a non-UK resident open a UK bank account?
What non-residents are usually asked for, and why the answer differs by bank.
5 min read
Banking
What to do with your bank accounts before moving abroad
Which accounts to ask about, what to keep paying, and what not to close on the way to the airport.
7 min read
Banking
How multi-currency accounts actually work
Holding more than one currency is not the same as avoiding a cost, or creating a tax outcome.
5 min read
Banking
How to compare the real cost of an international money transfer
Fee, exchange rate and what arrives. A low fee is not a low cost.
5 min read
Banking
What banks may ask when you move a large sum of money
Why a house sale, a bonus or a gift attracts questions, and which papers usually help.
5 min read
Banking
Source of funds: what documents may be needed?
A plain account of the papers that match salary, a sale, a gift, savings and a business.
5 min read
Banking
When should you use a bank, and when a money transfer provider?
A bank account and a transfer service solve different jobs. Price is only one of them.
5 min read
Banking
How to keep everyday FX costs in view when you move country
The usual places a move leaks money into exchange rates, and the questions that surface them.
5 min read
Wealth
Wealth
What happens to investment accounts when you change country?
Providers, wrappers and tax can each change when your residence does. They do not change together.
5 min read
Wealth
How to review a wealth manager before an international move
Questions about permission, custody, costs and who decides, before you assume the relationship travels.
5 min read
Wealth
What to check before transferring investments abroad
A transfer can be the right administration and the wrong tax result. Check both before you instruct it.
5 min read
Wealth
Pensions and moving abroad: questions to ask before you act
What to ask a scheme and an adviser. This is not a reason to transfer, and not a reason to leave a pension untouched forever.
5 min read
Wealth
How to think about currency risk in an international portfolio
The currency you measure, the currency you hold, and the currency you spend are three different risks.
5 min read
Wealth
Private banking and wealth management: what is the difference?
One phrase leans toward the bank. The other leans toward the portfolio. The contract tells you which you have.
5 min read
Wealth
Offshore investing: what the term actually means
A location is not a tax result. ‘Offshore’ describes where something is based, and very little else.
5 min read
Tax & Structuring
Tax
What happens to your ISA when you move abroad?
How a UK ISA behaves when you stop being UK resident, in general terms.
6 min read
Tax
What can change in your tax residence when you move abroad?
Days, a home, family and work can all matter. A flight does not settle which country taxes you.
5 min read
Tax
How double-tax treaties work in practice
Treaties allocate taxing rights and can reduce withholding. They do not abolish tax, and they do not apply themselves.
5 min read
Tax
What is source-based taxation?
Tax where income arises, which can follow you even after you have left.
5 min read
Tax
What records should you keep when you move country?
The statements, days and valuations that are cheap to save and miserable to rebuild.
5 min read
Tax
How to prepare for a cross-border tax review
What to put on the table before an adviser can tell you anything useful.
5 min read
Tax
Why incorporating a company is not the whole of company residence
Where a company is formed and where it is run can be different countries. Tax may follow either, or both.
5 min read
Tax
Trusts across borders: questions to ask before you rely on one
A trust is a relationship under a law. Another country may tax it, ignore it, or rewrite its effects.
5 min read
Tax
What needs reviewing in your estate planning after a move?
Wills, nominations, property and forced heirship. A move is a reason to ask, not a reason to redraft in a weekend.
5 min read
Property
Property
Buying property in Spain as a UK resident
The checks, people and money questions that sit around a Spanish purchase.
7 min read
Property
What to check before buying property overseas
Title, the people acting for you, the money and the use. The photograph is the smallest part.
5 min read
Property
How expat mortgages work
What lenders look at when the borrower, the income and the property are not in one country. No rates are stated.
5 min read
Property
Property deposits, FX and source of funds: what to plan
The money has to arrive, in the right name, with a story. The rate is only one part of that.
5 min read
Property
Buying a second home abroad: a financial checklist
Occupancy, tax, insurance and the cost of being away. A second home is not a smaller version of a first.
5 min read
Property
Personal or company ownership for a property abroad
Whose name is on the title changes control, lending, tax and succession. It is not a default ‘structure’.
5 min read
Property
What tax questions arise when you rent out property abroad?
Local tax, tax where you live, and the records. No rates, and no assumption that one country steps aside.
5 min read
Property
What to review before selling property in another country
Tax, the buyer’s checks, currency and where the proceeds go. A sale is a second cross-border transaction.
5 min read
Insurance
Insurance
International health insurance for expats
Learn how expats should compare international health insurance, including geography, underwriting, pre-existing conditions, hospital networks, claims and portability.
12 min read
Insurance
Travel insurance and international health insurance
One contract is built around a trip. The other is built around living. They are not substitutes.
5 min read
Insurance
What to review in life insurance before moving country
Beneficiaries, currency, ownership and whether the policy can continue. Do not cancel first.
5 min read
Insurance
How to think about insuring a second home or holiday property abroad
Occupancy, letting and local hazards. A home policy from where you live may be describing a different building.
5 min read
Insurance
What to ask before buying international health insurance
Geography, underwriting and hospital access, before the premium. No insurers are ranked.
5 min read
Insurance
How health insurance underwriting works
What insurers are doing when they ask about your history, and what this explanation will not predict.
5 min read
Insurance
Business insurance when a company works across borders
Entities, countries, people and contracts. A global policy is not a substitute for reading territory.
5 min read
Business
Business
How to approach a business bank account when directors live abroad
Banks look at where the company is run, not only where it was formed. Expect questions. Expect no guarantee.
5 min read
Business
What banks look at when onboarding an international company
Activity, owners, countries and the payments. The brand of the company is the least of it.
5 min read
Business
Paying international suppliers: what to check
Beneficiary details, the currency, who can take a fee, and the approval inside your own company.
5 min read
Business
When does a business need multi-currency banking?
When you receive and pay in more than one currency often enough that converting every time is the expensive habit.
5 min read
Business
Company formation and company tax residence
Forming a company is a registry step. Where it is taxed can follow management as well as incorporation.
5 min read
Business
Remote teams: banking, payroll and insurance questions
A person working in another country is an employment, tax and cover question, not only a laptop.
5 min read
Business
What to prepare before moving business capital internationally
A company payment across a border needs a purpose, an approval and a source. Size makes the questions louder.
5 min read
Latest
Latest guides and insights
Mobility
How to prepare financially before moving abroad
A practical order for accounts, tax, insurance and documents before you leave.
7 min read
Mobility
What to do in the 90 days before an international move
A planning window for documents, accounts and cover. Ninety days is not a legal test.
5 min read
Mobility
How to track residency days when you live across countries
Why a personal day record helps, and why it does not decide tax residence.
5 min read
Mobility
What changes when you become non-resident?
The practical consequences people meet, without pretending one country’s rules are universal.
5 min read
Mobility
What should you check before working from another country?
Immigration, tax, employment and banking questions for remote work, before the laptop opens.
5 min read
Mobility
Moving with a family: schools, healthcare and banking
The household questions that sit beside your own visa, account and policy.
5 min read
Mobility
What documents should you prepare before relocating?
The file of identity, money and civil documents that is painful to assemble after you have left.
5 min read
Banking
What to do with your bank accounts before moving abroad
Which accounts to ask about, what to keep paying, and what not to close on the way to the airport.
7 min read
Popular topics
Browse the questions people start with
Glossary
Cross-border terms, explained clearly
Short explanations of the terms that appear across banking, mobility, tax, wealth, property and insurance.
Residency & mobility
- Apostille
- A certificate, under an international convention, that confirms the origin of a public document so another country is more willing to accept it. Not every country participates, and not every document qualifies.
- Centre of vital interests
- A tie-breaker used in some tax treaties when two countries both treat you as resident. It looks at where your personal and economic life is closer. The outcome is fact-specific.
- Learn more → Double-tax treaties
- Certified translation
- A translation that a qualified person has attested, sometimes required before a foreign document will be accepted by a bank, court or registry.
- Citizenship
- Membership of a country, usually with a passport and political rights. It is acquired by birth, descent or a later process, and it is not the same as living there.
- Learn more → Citizenship
- Day-count test
- A rule that looks at how many days you spend in a country. Days are often only one part of a residence test. A personal count is a record, not a determination.
- Learn more → Tax residency
- Dependant
- A person, often a spouse or child, whose immigration, tax or insurance position is tied to someone else. Whether they may join you, or are covered, is a question for that visa, policy or tax rule.
- Digital nomad visa
- An immigration route aimed at people who work remotely for an employer or clients elsewhere. It is permission to be in that country. Tax, payroll and banking remain separate questions.
- Learn more → Digital nomads
- Domicile
- A legal idea, used differently in different countries, about where a person belongs for certain tax or succession questions. It is not a visa, and it is not always the same as tax residence.
- Dual citizenship
- Holding citizenship of more than one country at the same time. Whether that is allowed depends on the laws of each country involved.
- Learn more → Citizenship
- Habitual residence
- Where a person ordinarily lives, looking at the reality of their life rather than a single document. Courts and tax rules may use the phrase in different ways.
- Immigration residence
- Permission to live in a country under its immigration rules. A visa or residence permit can exist without making you tax resident, and the reverse can also be true.
- Learn more → Residency
- Local registration
- Signing on with a municipality, police or other local authority after you arrive. It can be separate from both the visa and the tax registration.
- Naturalisation
- The process of becoming a citizen of a country you were not a citizen of at birth. Residence, language and other conditions, where they exist, are set locally.
- Learn more → Citizenship
- Permanent residence
- A longer-term right to reside, short of citizenship. What it allows, and how it can be lost, depends on the country that granted it.
- Learn more → Residency
- Residence permit
- A document or status that allows a person to reside in a country for a stated purpose and period. The conditions, including work and family, sit in that permission.
- Learn more → Residency
- Tax residence
- The status used to determine which country may tax you as a resident. It is usually based on local rules such as days, home, family and work, and it is not the same as immigration residence.
- Learn more → Tax residency
- Visa
- Permission to enter or stay for a particular purpose, such as work, study, family or a visit. It does not, by itself, decide tax, banking or healthcare.
- Learn more → Visas
- Work permit
- Permission to take employment, sometimes issued separately from the right to reside. An employer, a sponsor or the individual may have to hold it, depending on the route.
Banking & payments
- AML
- Anti-money laundering: the rules and checks aimed at stopping criminal money moving through the financial system. They are why a large or unusual payment attracts questions.
- Beneficial owner
- The person who ultimately owns or controls an asset or a company, even if the name on the account is different.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Beneficiary
- The person or account that is meant to receive a payment. The name on the instruction should match the account the bank holds.
- Correspondent bank
- A bank that holds an account for another bank so payments can move between countries or currencies. It can appear on a transfer even when you did not choose it.
- Exchange-rate markup
- An amount added to a reference rate before you are shown a customer rate. A transfer with a low fee can still be expensive once the markup is included.
- Expat banking
- Everyday banking for someone who lives outside their home country: which accounts stay open, which can be opened, and which documents are asked for.
- Learn more → Expat banking
- FX spread
- The gap between the rate a provider buys a currency at and the rate it sells it at. Part of what you pay can sit in that gap rather than in a visible fee.
- Learn more → FX cost comparison
- IBAN
- An international format for a bank account number, used so a payment can be addressed to the right account. Having an IBAN does not tell you the fees or the exchange rate.
- Intermediary bank fee
- A charge taken by a bank in the middle of an international payment. It is not always shown in the quote you accepted.
- International bank account
- An account used when the customer, the income or the payments are not all in one country. What the bank will open depends on its own criteria.
- Learn more → International bank accounts
- KYC
- Know your customer: the identity and background checks a financial firm runs before it will open or keep an account. The documents vary by firm and by country.
- Local account details
- Account numbers that let someone pay you as if you held a domestic account in that country. They may be provided by your own bank or by a partner.
- Mid-market rate
- A reference exchange rate between the market buy and sell prices. The customer rate offered by a bank or provider may include a spread or markup.
- Learn more → FX cost comparison
- Multi-currency account
- An account that can hold balances in more than one currency, so money can be received or kept without being converted at once.
- Learn more → Multi-currency accounts
- Payment rail
- The system a payment travels on, such as a local scheme or an international message network. The rail can change the speed, the information required and the fees.
- Settlement
- The moment a payment or a currency exchange is actually completed, as distinct from the moment you instructed it.
- Source of funds
- The explanation, with documents, of where a particular payment came from — salary, a house sale, a dividend, a gift. It is about that money, not your whole life.
- Source of wealth
- The broader explanation of how you accumulated what you have, as distinct from the origin of one transfer. Banks ask for it more often when balances or payments are large.
- SWIFT / BIC
- A code that identifies a bank on the SWIFT messaging network. It helps route a payment. It is not, by itself, proof that the payment will be cheap or instant.
- Transfer limit
- A cap a provider places on how much you can send in a period, or in one payment. The figure, where one exists, is in that provider’s terms. This glossary states none.
- UBO
- Ultimate beneficial owner. Another way of naming the person at the end of an ownership chain. Firms ask for this when a company is the customer.
Wealth & investing
- Advisory management
- An arrangement in which the manager recommends, and you decide. The line between this and discretionary management is in the contract, not the brochure.
- Asset allocation
- How a portfolio is divided among types of investment. It is a design choice. It is not, by itself, a forecast of what you will earn.
- Base currency
- The currency a portfolio is measured in. A gain in that currency can hide a loss in the currency you spend.
- Beneficiary nomination
- A form that says who should receive a benefit if you die. It can sit apart from your will, and it should be re-read after a move, a marriage or a separation.
- Broker
- A firm that arranges deals in investments. Some also hold the assets. Some only execute. The label does not tell you whether advice is included.
- Currency risk
- The chance that a move in exchange rates changes what an investment or a payment is worth in the currency you use.
- Learn more → Cross-border investment
- Custodian
- The firm that safeguards the investments, as distinct from the person who advises on them. In a cross-border account, the custodian’s location can matter for tax reporting and for what happens if a firm fails.
- Defined benefit pension
- A pension that promises a benefit worked out from salary and service, rather than from an investment pot. Transferring one is a specialist decision.
- Learn more → Pensions
- Defined contribution pension
- A pension built from contributions and investment returns, with no promised income. What you can do with it after you move depends on the scheme and on both countries.
- Learn more → Pensions
- Discretionary management
- An arrangement in which the manager can buy and sell without asking you each time, inside an agreed mandate.
- Execution-only
- A service that carries out the deals you instruct, without advising you that they are suitable.
- Fund domicile
- The country whose law the fund is established under. It is not the same as where you live, or where the investments inside the fund are.
- Investment currency
- The currency a particular holding is priced in. It can differ from both your income and the portfolio’s base currency.
- Investment platform
- A service that holds and deals in investments for you, often online. What you can buy, and whether the firm will accept your country of residence, are separate questions.
- Learn more → Investment platforms
- Nominee account
- An arrangement in which investments are held in the name of a nominee, for the benefit of the client. You should still be able to see that you are the beneficial owner.
- Offshore investment
- A loose phrase for an investment held outside the investor’s home country, or in a fund based elsewhere. It is not a tax result, and it is not automatically advantageous.
- Learn more → Offshore investing
- Pension transfer
- Moving pension rights from one scheme to another. Across a border it can have tax and access consequences that are easy to underestimate. It is not a default step of a move.
- Learn more → Pensions
- Portfolio
- The collection of investments held for a person or a family. Currency, wrappers and which country taxes them can matter as much as the list of holdings.
- Tax wrapper
- A legal structure, such as an ISA or a pension, that changes how the investments inside it are taxed in the country that created the wrapper. Another country may not recognise it.
- Learn more → ISAs and moving abroad
- Wealth manager
- A person or firm that looks after a portfolio, sometimes with advice, sometimes with the authority to decide. The contract should say which.
- Learn more → Wealth management
Tax & structuring
- Beneficial ownership
- The person who enjoys or controls an asset, as distinct from the name on a register. Tax rules and bank checks both use the idea.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Beneficiary
- A person who may benefit from a trust, a pension or a life policy. The word is used in each of those contracts. The rights are not the same.
- Learn more → Trusts
- Capital gains
- Tax on the profit when an asset is sold or otherwise disposed of. Which country can tax the gain can depend on residence, on where the asset is, and on a treaty.
- Learn more → International taxation
- Company tax residence
- Where a company is treated as resident for tax, which may follow incorporation, management, or both. Incorporating in a country does not, by itself, settle the question.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Cost basis
- The figure a gain is measured from, often what you paid, sometimes adjusted. A move can raise the question of whether that figure is reset. The answer is local, and it should be documented.
- Domicile
- In some tax systems, a long-term connecting factor that can affect inheritance tax or overseas income. It is a technical status. A move does not automatically change it.
- Double-tax treaty
- An agreement between two countries that allocates taxing rights and can reduce the same income being fully taxed twice. Whether it applies depends on the income and on residence.
- Learn more → Double-tax treaties
- Estate
- What a person leaves, and the process of dealing with it. Property, accounts and policies in several countries can make it several estates in practice.
- Learn more → Estate planning
- Executor
- The person named to carry out a will. A different country may not automatically accept an executor appointed at home.
- Forced heirship
- Rules in some countries that reserve part of an estate for particular relatives, regardless of what a will says. Whether they apply is a local legal question.
- Learn more → Estate planning
- Foreign tax credit
- A way some countries reduce their own tax to reflect tax already paid elsewhere on the same income. The credit, the limit and the paperwork are local.
- Management and control
- Where the real decisions of a company are taken. Some countries use it, alongside or instead of the place of incorporation, to decide company residence.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Permanent establishment
- A tax concept that can arise when a business has sufficient activity or presence in another country. Whether one exists is fact-specific and may require professional advice.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Probate
- The process of proving a will and administering an estate. Assets in another country may need a local process as well.
- Learn more → Estate planning
- Protector
- A person given powers over a trust, such as a say in who the trustees are, without necessarily being a trustee or a beneficiary.
- Learn more → Trusts
- Settlor
- The person who creates a trust and puts assets into it. Their tax position can continue to matter after the trust exists.
- Learn more → Trusts
- Source-based taxation
- Tax charged by the country where income or a gain arises, even if you live somewhere else. Employment, rent and dividends are common examples.
- Learn more → International taxation
- Succession
- How assets, control and decision-making pass when someone dies or steps back. More than one country’s rules can apply to the same family.
- Learn more → Succession
- Tax residence
- The status used to determine which country may tax you as a resident. It is usually based on local rules such as days, home, family and work, and it is not the same as immigration residence.
- Learn more → Tax residency
- Trust
- An arrangement in which trustees hold assets for beneficiaries, under the terms of the trust. Another country may treat it differently, or not recognise it at all.
- Learn more → Trusts
- Trustee
- The person or company that holds and administers trust assets. Where the trustees live and meet can affect how the trust is taxed.
- Learn more → Trusts
- Withholding tax
- Tax taken from a payment before you receive it, often on dividends, interest or royalties crossing a border. A treaty may reduce it. It may not remove tax in your country of residence.
- Learn more → Double-tax treaties
- Worldwide income
- The idea that a country taxes its residents on income wherever it arises. Many residence systems work this way. Whether yours does is a local question.
Property
- Beneficial ownership
- Who really owns or controls the property when the name on the title is a person, a couple or a company. Lenders, lawyers and tax authorities may all ask.
- Learn more → Ownership structures
- Community fee
- Another name for the shared costs of a development. Arrears, and how decisions are voted, belong in the checks before you buy.
- Completion
- The point at which the purchase is finished and the price is paid, under that country’s process. It is not always the day you receive the keys.
- Completion funds
- The money that has to arrive, in the right name and currency, in time to complete. A rate on a website is not those funds.
- Learn more → Property finance
- Conveyancing
- The legal work of transferring a property. The steps, and who must do them, differ by country. A lawyer from home may not be qualified to do them.
- Freehold
- Ownership of the property and, usually, the land it stands on, for as long as the local law allows. The exact right is the one in that country’s register, not the English word.
- Learn more → Buying overseas
- Joint ownership
- Two or more people holding the property together. How they hold it can change who must sign, and what happens if one of them dies.
- Learn more → Ownership structures
- Land registry
- The public record of ownership in countries that keep one. A search shows who is registered and, often, which debts or restrictions are noted.
- Leasehold
- The right to use a property for a period of years under a lease. What you are buying is the remaining term and the conditions, not necessarily the building forever.
- Learn more → Buying overseas
- LTV
- Loan to value: the loan as a proportion of the property’s value. Lenders set their own ceilings. This glossary does not state one.
- Learn more → Expat mortgages
- Non-resident mortgage
- A loan secured on a property when the borrower does not live in that country, or does not earn there. Eligibility is the lender’s decision.
- Learn more → Expat mortgages
- Rebuild value
- What it might cost to reinstate a building, as distinct from what the property would sell for. Buildings insurance is often discussed against this figure, not the market price.
- Learn more → Property insurance
- Rental yield
- Rent as a proportion of the price, usually before costs, tax and empty periods. A brochure yield is not a forecast of what you will keep.
- Learn more → Property tax
- Reservation agreement
- A document that takes a property off the market, sometimes in exchange for a payment. It is not always the purchase contract, and the payment is not always refundable.
- Service charge
- A contribution towards the running of a building or estate, common in apartments. Ask what it covers, and whether special works are being discussed.
- Source-of-funds check
- The questions a lawyer or a bank asks about where the purchase money came from. Start the papers before the week of completion.
- Learn more → Property finance
- Title
- The legal right you are acquiring, and the record of it. Reading the register, where one exists, matters more than the floor plan in a listing.
- Learn more → Buying overseas
Insurance
- Annual limit
- The ceiling on what the policy will pay in a year, in the currency the contract names. A headline limit can still contain smaller caps.
- Area of cover
- The countries or regions where the policy applies. A wide description can still exclude places, or cover them only for emergencies.
- Learn more → International health insurance
- Beneficiary
- The person named to receive a payment under a life or other policy. The nomination can sit apart from a will, and a move is a reason to check it is still right.
- Learn more → Life insurance
- Claim
- A request that the insurer pay, judged against the wording. Notification, evidence and a decision are the usual shape. Nothing in a definition predicts the result.
- Co-insurance
- An arrangement in which you and the insurer each pay a proportion of a covered cost, after any deductible the policy applies.
- Co-payment
- A share of a cost you pay when you use a benefit, sometimes a fixed amount and sometimes a percentage. It can sit alongside a deductible.
- Deductible
- An amount you pay towards a claim before the insurer pays. How it is applied — per year, per claim, per person — is in the schedule. No figure is stated here.
- Direct billing
- An arrangement in which the insurer pays a hospital or repairer, rather than you paying and claiming the money back.
- Excess
- Another word for the part of a claim you bear yourself. Travel, property and health policies can each use it differently.
- Exclusion
- Something the policy sets outside cover: a condition, a country, an activity or a use. Two policies with similar headlines can exclude different things.
- Inpatient
- Treatment that involves admission to hospital, often including surgery and an overnight stay. It is a different benefit from care you receive and then leave.
- Medical evacuation
- Moving a person to treatment, often to a facility the insurer considers suitable. It is a benefit with conditions. It is not a guarantee that a particular journey will be arranged.
- Learn more → International health insurance
- Moratorium underwriting
- An approach in which recent conditions may sit outside cover for a time described in the policy, and then be reconsidered. The period, if any, is in that contract. This glossary does not state one.
- Learn more → How underwriting works
- Outpatient
- Care that does not require admission: a GP, a specialist, diagnostics, therapy, prescriptions. A plan can cover hospital treatment and still say little about this.
- Policyholder
- The person or organisation that owns the contract with the insurer. They are not always the person who is insured, and they are not always the beneficiary.
- Pre-authorisation
- Agreement from the insurer before a treatment or repair goes ahead. Emergencies may be described differently from planned care.
- Pre-existing condition
- A condition the policy defines by reference to earlier diagnosis, symptoms, treatment or medication. The definition in the contract matters more than a sales summary.
- Learn more → Health insurance for expats
- Provider network
- The hospitals, clinics or repairers the insurer has arrangements with. A large limit is less useful if the place you will actually use is outside it.
- Repatriation
- Bringing a person home, which in a policy may mean after treatment or, in some wordings, after death. Which country counts as home is in the contract.
- Learn more → Travel insurance
- Sub-limit
- A smaller cap that applies to one benefit, such as outpatient care, baggage or a particular treatment, inside a larger limit.
- Underwriting
- The process of deciding whether to offer cover and on what terms. It can look at health, occupation, property use or what a business does. The outcome is the insurer’s decision.
- Learn more → How underwriting works
Business
- API
- A connection that lets one system send instructions to another, for example a payment from accounting software. Access to it should be controlled like access to the bank.
- Batch payment
- Several payments sent together as one instruction. The checks on who approved the file matter as much as the checks on a single transfer.
- Beneficial owner
- The person who ultimately owns or controls a company, even if the shares are held through another entity. Banks and registries both ask who that person is.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Branch
- A presence of a company in another country that is not a separate company. Tax and registration can still apply to it.
- Director
- A person appointed to manage a company. Where they live, and where they take decisions, can matter for banking and for where the company is taxed.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Dual approval
- A control that requires two people to authorise a payment or a change. It is a common answer to the risk of a single compromised login.
- Employer of record
- A firm that employs a person locally on behalf of a company based somewhere else, and runs payroll for that employment. It does not, by itself, decide tax or immigration.
- Learn more → Employer of record
- Holding company
- A company whose main role is to own other companies or assets. Where it is managed can matter as much as where it was incorporated.
- Key person
- Someone whose absence would materially hurt a business. Insurance sometimes sits beside that risk. It does not replace a plan for who decides next.
- Learn more → Business insurance
- Maker-checker
- A version of dual control in which one person prepares a payment and another approves it. The two roles should not be the same person.
- Payroll
- The process of paying employees and dealing with the deductions that employment requires. A remote team can mean more than one country’s payroll.
- Permanent establishment
- A tax concept that can arise when a business has enough activity in another country to be taxed there on the profits of that presence. Whether one exists is fact-specific.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Professional indemnity
- Cover concerned with claims that professional work was wrong, late or incomplete. Client contracts often ask for it. Whether the policy meets the clause is a reading exercise.
- Learn more → Business insurance
- Registered office
- The official address of a company for legal documents. It is not necessarily where the business is run, or where tax residence sits.
- Shareholder
- An owner of shares in a company. Ownership, control and who benefits can be three different maps of the same firm.
- Subsidiary
- A company owned or controlled by another. It is a separate legal person. A policy or a bank account of the parent does not automatically include it.
- Learn more → Company structuring
- Trade finance
- Facilities that support buying, selling or shipping goods, such as a letter of credit. They are contracts with their own conditions. This glossary does not describe a particular product.
- Treasury
- How a company holds, moves and converts its money. It is an operating function, not a product.
- Webhook
- A message a system sends automatically when something happens, such as a payment arriving. It is a notification, not the payment itself.
- Working capital
- The money a business uses to operate between being paid and paying others. Currency and timing both sit inside it.
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- Tax & StructuringResidence, treaties, companies, trusts and estates.
- PropertyBuying, financing and owning a home abroad.
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- ToolsChecklists and calculators that do not replace advice.
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