Premium Bonds & LISA as a UK national living in Belgium

Porpentine

Good afternoon everybody! 
I apologise if this has been asked before, but I was wondering what the tax situation is regarding investing in the following as a UK national living in the EU (Belgium): 

1. Premium Bonds (I hope to invest the full 50K as a temporary place to hold the money before I put a deposit down on a property).
2. Cash Lifetime ISA (I plan on meeting the full 4K allowance for both this tax year and next).

I understand that the interest on both of these are "tax free" (or rather PBs have tax-deductions already calculated in the winnings), but I am worried that I will be taxed on both the initial investment and any winnings as I am currently residing in Belgium. Can anyone offer me a bit of guidance, or possibly point me in the right direction to find out more about this?  

Thank you in advance.

xylophone

https://www.nsandi.com/help/join-nsandi/using-nsandi-outside-uk

If you live outside the UK, please check if local regulations let you hold Premium Bonds. For example, the US has strict gaming and lottery laws which mean that it might not be possible or practical to hold Premium Bonds while in the US.

If you're allowed to hold them, you'll need to apply first by post. Once your holding has been set up, you can register for our online and phone service.

https://www.gov.uk/lifetime-isa

To open and continue to pay into a Lifetime ISA you must be a resident in the UK, unless you’re a crown servant (for example, in the diplomatic service), their spouse or civil partner.

MDMD

I understand that the interest on both of these are "tax free" (or rather PBs have tax-deductions already calculated in the winnings), but I am worried that I will be taxed on both the initial investment and any winnings as I am currently residing in Belgium.

Premium Bonds are just tax free, however with any UK-based savings or investment, tax free or not,  if the rules permit a non resident to use them, you need to seek advice locally to determine whether you have to pay tax where you are living.

bowlhead99

If you're living in Belgium and tax resident in Belgium rather than tax resident in the UK, don't pay into any kind of ISA. You can keep ISAs that you set up before you stopped being UK resident (though income from them doesn't have any special exemption in Belgium as they don't see an ISA as any different from a normal saving or investment account) but you're prohibited from making any more contributions to them until you become UK resident again.

If you continue to make contributions into an ISA or LISA, you are declaring to the bank or investment provider that you're UK resident, which they will report to HMRC. And you do *not* want to be declaring that you're UK resident if you're not, because telling the bank that they can tell HMRC you're UK resident is something that can result in HMRC expecting you to pay UK income tax on your entire worldwide income, which is not something you want to be doing if in fact you're a resident of Belgium and earning money over there which you don't want to be taxed by HMRC.

There is an exception for Crown servants who are serving overseas and their spouses, so if the reason you're in Belgium is that MI6 have posted you there, then it's fine to pay into an ISA.