Bed and spouse: transferring shares to your spouse for CGT

By Jason Bull, a part-time trader who writes about UK capital gains tax for people doing their own returns. 5 October 20268 min readTax planning

Yes. Shares you give your spouse or civil partner move at no gain and no loss, so nothing is taxed when they change hands. Your spouse is treated as having paid "an amount equal to the total of your costs". They may have to pay tax on the gain when they sell, not you.

You are taxed as separate individuals, so the two of you have two £3,000 allowances and two basic rate bands. Moving shares before a sale lets one gain use both.

The rule covers a married couple or civil partners who are living together. HMRC treat a couple in two homes as still living together if the marriage or civil partnership has not broken down.

Your pool cost goes with the shares

Say you hold 1,000 shares in one company, bought over several years for £12,000. They sit in your Section 104 holding, where each share has "the same average cost": £12. The price today is £30, so the holding is worth £30,000. The gain on it is £18,000.

You give your spouse 500 of them. The transfer is a disposal from your pool, so it takes the same fraction of the pool's cost. Half of £12,000 is £6,000. You keep 500 shares at £6,000. Your spouse's 500 shares cost £6,000 too, because that deemed price is their cost of acquisition.

If your spouse already holds the same shares, the 500 join their own pool at £6,000 and change its average. The rise from £12 to £30 moves across untaxed and becomes part of your spouse's gain.

Giving your spouse 500 shares first cuts the tax on selling all 1,000 from £3,600 to £2,580.

One allowance or two in 2026/27

You earn £70,000. After the £12,570 personal allowance, your taxable income is £57,430. That is above the £37,700 basic rate band, so your gains are taxed at 24%. Your spouse earns £45,270, so their taxable income is £32,700. That leaves £5,000 of their band unused. Neither of you has other gains in the year, and dealing costs are left out.

2026/27, price £30	You sell all 1,000 (£)	Give 500: you sell 500 (£)	Give 500: spouse sells 500 (£)
Proceeds	30,000	15,000	15,000
Cost from the pool	12,000	6,000	6,000
Gain	18,000	9,000	9,000
Annual exempt amount	3,000	3,000	3,000
Taxed at 18%	0	0	5,000
Taxed at 24%	15,000	6,000	1,000
Tax	3,600	1,440	1,140
Tax for the two of you	3,600	2,580

Source: gov.uk, Capital Gains Tax allowances; gov.uk, Capital Gains Tax rates; HS284 (2026); TCGA 1992 s58.

Selling all 1,000 yourself uses one allowance and costs £3,600. Give your spouse 500 first, and each of you makes a £9,000 gain. Your spouse's £6,000 above the allowance is added to their taxable income. The first £5,000 fits in their unused band at 18%, and the last £1,000 is taxed at 24%. Together you pay £2,580, which is £1,020 less.

The saving is £720 from the second allowance (£3,000 at 24%) and £300 from the unused band (£5,000 at 18% instead of 24%). Moving more than 500 shares saves nothing more here. Once your spouse's gain passes £8,000, they pay 24% on the rest too.

Your spouse owes £1,140, so they have to report the gain. When you have to report a gain has the dates. To use this year's allowances, both sales have to fall in the tax year ending 5 April 2027. Seven capital gains jobs to do before 5 April has the rest of that list.

Moving the shares

Ask your broker whether it can move the shares into an account in your spouse's own name without selling. In our view, that is the clearest evidence of the gift. No stamp duty is due: gov.uk says there is none if you are "given shares for nothing".

A sale in your account followed by a purchase in your spouse's is not a transfer. You are chargeable when you dispose of an asset held in your name, so that gain is yours. Your spouse's shares then cost what they paid.

A MoneySavingExpert forum member asked on 22 January 2025 whether they could "just document that I'm transferring 50% to my spouse". The tax normally falls on the beneficial owner. For shares in your name, HMRC's helpsheet HS281 lists what to consider in deciding which of you pays. It looks at any formal declaration of beneficial ownership and at who paid for the shares. It also asks whether they were a gift, and who received the sale proceeds.

In practice, the proceeds are the part you control. When your spouse sells, the money should go to their account and stay theirs.

The transfer gives no gain and is left out of the £50,000 proceeds test for the capital gains pages. In our reading, it cannot on its own put either of you over a reporting limit.

Bed and spouse, and the 30-day rule

"Bed and spouse" is used for two moves. One is the transfer above: you give the shares and your spouse sells. The other is a sale and a rebuy: you sell, and your spouse buys the same shares in their own account.

The 30-day rule matches your sale with shares that "the person making it acquires" in the 30 days after. HMRC's manual puts it as shares "acquired by the same person in the same capacity". Your spouse is a different person, so their purchase is not matched to your sale.

The gain on your sale is still yours, taxed at your rate in the year you sell. The household keeps the holding, at a higher cost for the next sale. The rebuy costs dealing charges, plus 0.5% stamp duty reserve tax on UK shares. A loss on your sale is not allowable if it comes from arrangements with a main purpose "to secure a tax advantage". Our bed and ISA post sets out HMRC's examples of where that line falls for a spouse.

In our reading, the 30-day rule also catches a gift followed by a rebuy. The gift is still a disposal by you under section 58. Buy the same shares within 30 days and section 106A matches the gift to that purchase instead of your pool. Your spouse's cost then becomes what you paid. If you want your own holding back after a transfer, wait more than 30 days before you buy.

Separated couples and unmarried partners

Since 6 April 2023 the rule carries on after you separate, to "the last day of the third tax year after the tax year" you stopped living together. A court order for the divorce, dissolution or separation ends it sooner if it comes first. Stop living together on 10 May 2026, and the window runs to 5 April 2030.

A transfer made under "a formal divorce or separation agreement or court order" is at no gain, no loss with no time limit. Under section 58(1D), this applies once the marriage or civil partnership is ending or has ended.

gov.uk's summary page still says the rule does not apply if "you separated and did not live together at all in that tax year". That was the old rule. Before 6 April 2023 a separating couple could transfer at no gain, no loss only "for the remainder of that year".

A partner who is not your spouse or civil partner is outside section 58. A gift to them is a disposal at market value, the value on the date of the gift. What CGT you owe when you give shares away works through a gift like this with numbers.

Living with you does not make them a connected person. So the restriction on a loss from a gift to a connected person does not reach them.

Before you move anything, take the pool figures for the holding from your broker export. Write down the date, the number of shares and the cost going across. Give your spouse a copy, because gov.uk says they "should keep a record of what you paid for the asset".

TaxBull's capital gains tax calculator for shares reads a broker export and works out your Section 104 pool. Its Harvest planner can plan the sale in your spouse's name, from their taxable income and their unused allowance.

Sources

This is general information, not tax advice. The figures here are for 2026/27. Check gov.uk or ask a tax professional about the year you are filing.

Work out your own capital gains tax from your broker exports.

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