Exclude your UK gilts,
tax-free on CGT.

Yes. A gain on the disposal of a gilt-edged security is not a chargeable gain under section 115 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. The exemption is unlimited and it does not consume any of your annual exempt amount, so a gilt sale never reaches the CGT pages of your Self Assessment. It has applied to every gilt in issue since 1992.

No. The exemption is symmetric. Section 16(2) applies the same test that makes a gilt gain non-chargeable to losses, so a loss on a gilt is not an allowable loss and cannot be set against gains on anything else. If gilts are the only thing you sold at a loss, there is nothing to carry forward.

Yes — only the disposal is exempt. The coupon a gilt pays is taxable as savings income under ITTOIA 2005 s.369 and goes on the interest pages of your return, not the CGT pages. If you sell between coupon dates, the interest that has built up since the last payment is reported separately under the Accrued Income Scheme.

Yes. Both conventional gilts (a fixed coupon) and index-linked gilts (coupon and principal uplifted in line with RPI) are gilt-edged securities, so both are outside Capital Gains Tax. The uplift on an index-linked gilt is part of the exempt disposal, not a separate taxable gain.

By matching the exact ISIN against the UK Debt Management Office register of every gilt in issue, snapshotted from 2022 so older disposals still resolve. An ISIN prefix alone is not enough: GB00B* also appears on UK corporate bonds and UK shares. Only the exact ISIN against the issuer’s register is reliable, which is why the full list is published on this page.

The report flags a "UK bonds — verify gilt status" note rather than guess. Usually the holding is a UK corporate bond, which is taxable like any other share, so you leave the calculation alone. Occasionally it is a gilt issued after our last DMO refresh or redeemed before our 2022 snapshots begin — the exemption cannot be applied by hand, so cross-check the ISIN on the DMO website and, if it is a gilt, tell us so the next data refresh carries it. The safe default treats it as a normal share, so you can never accidentally underpay.

No. Section 115 covers UK gilt-edged securities only. US Treasuries, German Bunds, Japanese government bonds and every other foreign government bond are taxed under UK Capital Gains Tax as normal listed securities, with any treaty relief claimed separately. UK Treasury Bills are not gilts either — they are Deeply Discounted Securities, taxed as income.