watching the clock

SED Eligible Periods

Do your days at sea add up across tax years? Yes — and here’s exactly how the 365-day clock works.

“

I know an eligible period is a minimum of 365 days, but I’ve done two 8-month contracts across different tax years. Do the days accumulate from when I first started?

— Josh, cruise-ship performer
the key idea

It’s about cruises, not tax years

Great question — and the reassuring answer is yes, they can accumulate. Eligible periods relate to your individual cruises and the gaps between them, not to the 6 April – 5 April tax year. When you go on your first cruise, an eligible-days counter starts ticking.

keeping the clock running

Two rules that must stay true

Your counter keeps adding days as long as both of these hold:

  • Each time you return from a cruise: your total days cruising in the period are more than your total days in the UK in the period.
  • Each time you leave on a cruise: you’ve spent fewer than 183 days back in the UK.

Break either rule and the counter resets to zero, starting fresh on your next cruise.

the payoff

Cross 365 days and everything qualifies

If, on returning from a cruise, your eligible period has passed 365 days, then every trip within that period becomes SED-eligible. Even better — you can amend previous tax returns to claim it, which could mean a welcome rebate.

Our free SED Calculator does this maths for you — enter your cruise dates and it tells you whether your period qualifies.

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Cruise Ship Income & SED Foreign Income
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