For tax year 2026 the foreign earned income exclusion under IRC §911(b)(2)(D)(i) is $132,900. For tax year 2025 it is $130,000 and for 2024 it is $126,500.
The foreign earned income exclusion is $132,900 for tax year 2026, $130,000 for 2025 and $126,500 for 2024, each read from the revenue procedure that set it. Which year applies to you is the year you earned the income, not the year you file.
Built from 3 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: foreign earned income exclusion, FEIE, form 2555, foreign earned income exclusion 2026, FEIE limit.
An FBAR is required when the aggregate value of your foreign financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. It is an aggregate test across every account, and it is measured at the highest point in the year, not on the last day.
The FBAR threshold is $10,000 in aggregate across all foreign financial accounts, tested at any point in the year rather than at year end. Both halves of that sentence catch people out.
Built from 1 rule in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: FBAR, FBAR threshold, FinCEN 114, foreign bank account report, FBAR filing requirement.
Form 8938 thresholds depend on three things at once: your filing status, whether you live abroad, and whether the value is measured on the last day of the year or at any point in it. A single filer living abroad reports at $200,000 on the last day of the year or $300,000 at any time during it.
Form 8938 has ten thresholds, not one: filing status crossed with whether you live abroad crossed with whether the test is the last day of the year or any time during it. A single filer abroad reports at $200,000 on the last day; the same person living in the US reports at $50,000.
Built from 10 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: form 8938, FATCA, form 8938 threshold, specified foreign financial assets, FATCA reporting threshold.
If your total creditable foreign taxes are $300 or less, or $600 or less on a joint return, you may claim the foreign tax credit directly on your return without filing Form 1116. Above that ceiling the form is required, and only a credit computed on the form can be carried back 1 year or forward 10 years.
A foreign tax credit of $300 or less ($600 filing jointly) can be claimed straight on the return with no Form 1116. Above that the form is required, and with it comes a carryback of 1 year and a carryover of 10.
Built from 4 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: foreign tax credit, form 1116, foreign tax credit carryover, foreign tax credit carryback, IRC 904.
The streamlined procedures require 3 years of delinquent or amended returns and 6 years of delinquent FBARs. A taxpayer who meets the non-residency test, which requires no United States abode and at least 330 full days outside the country in one of the covered years, pays no miscellaneous offshore penalty. A taxpayer who does not pays 5% of the highest aggregate value of the assets concerned.
The streamlined procedures require 3 years of returns and 6 years of FBARs. Whether you pay a 5% penalty on your highest foreign balance or nothing at all turns on a 330-day residency test.
Built from 5 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: streamlined filing compliance procedures, streamlined foreign offshore procedures, streamlined domestic offshore procedures, IRS amnesty expat, catch up on US taxes abroad.
Where you take a position that a United States tax treaty overrides or modifies the Internal Revenue Code, you generally disclose it on Form 8833 with your return. The penalty for failing to disclose is $1,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a C corporation, per failure, and it applies even where the treaty position itself is entirely correct.
A treaty-based return position generally has to be disclosed on Form 8833. Failing to disclose one carries a penalty of $1,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a C corporation, charged for the non-disclosure rather than for the position.
Built from 2 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: form 8833, tax treaty position, treaty based return position, IRC 6114, IRC 6712.
Form 3520 reports gifts and bequests from foreign persons above $100,000 where the donor is a nonresident alien individual or a foreign estate, and above $20,573 for tax year 2026 where the donor is a foreign corporation or partnership. It also reports transfers to and distributions from foreign trusts, where the penalty for not filing starts at the greater of $10,000 or 35% of the gross value involved.
A gift from a foreign individual is reportable above $100,000. A gift from a foreign company or partnership is reportable above $20,573 for tax year 2026, because that one is indexed and the other is not.
Built from 8 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: form 3520, foreign gift reporting, gift from foreign person, foreign trust reporting, form 3520-A.
A United States person holding stock in a passive foreign investment company generally files Form 8621. The filing exception applies where the aggregate value is $25,000 or less, or $50,000 or less on a joint return, on the last day of the tax year, and there is no excess distribution and no recognised gain. An excess distribution is the part of a distribution above 125% of the average of the three preceding years.
Form 8621 is not required where your aggregate PFIC stock is worth $25,000 or less, or $50,000 or less on a joint return, and there is no excess distribution or disposition. An excess distribution is the part above 125% of the average of the three preceding years.
Built from 3 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: PFIC, form 8621, passive foreign investment company, PFIC de minimis, excess distribution.
You are a United States shareholder of a foreign corporation if you own, directly, indirectly or constructively, 10% or more of its total combined voting power or value. The corporation is a controlled foreign corporation if United States shareholders together own more than 50% of it. Reaching both tests brings Form 5471 and the current-inclusion regimes with it.
A United States shareholder owns 10% or more of a foreign corporation by vote or value. The company is a controlled foreign corporation when those shareholders together own more than 50%. Both are measured including stock you own constructively.
Built from 2 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: controlled foreign corporation, form 5471, CFC rules, US shareholder 10 percent, GILTI.
Renouncing United States citizenship or giving up long-term permanent residence triggers the section 877A mark-to-market regime only for a covered expatriate. There are three tests and meeting any one is enough: average annual net income tax above $211,000 for 2026, net worth of $2,000,000 or more, or failure to certify 5 years of federal tax compliance on Form 8854. A covered expatriate's deemed net gain is reduced by $910,000 for tax year 2026.
A covered expatriate is somebody whose average annual net income tax exceeds $211,000 for 2026, or whose net worth is $2,000,000 or more, or who cannot certify 5 years of tax compliance. Their deemed gain is reduced by $910,000.
Built from 8 rules in the store, each carrying the document that set it, the section, the date it was read and an archived copy of the sentence. Covers: expatriation tax, exit tax, covered expatriate, renounce US citizenship tax, form 8854.
Every headline figure, and the rules behind it
Every headline figure across these guides, with the rule behind it| Guide | The figure | Rules behind it |
|---|
| Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, tax year by tax year | For tax year 2026 the foreign earned income exclusion under IRC §911(b)(2)(D)(i) is $132,900. For tax year 2025 it is $130,000 and for 2024 it is $126,500. | 3 |
|---|
| The FBAR threshold, and the word that trips people up | An FBAR is required when the aggregate value of your foreign financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. It is an aggregate test across every account, and it is measured at the highest point in the year, not on the last day. | 1 |
|---|
| Form 8938 thresholds, all ten of them | Form 8938 thresholds depend on three things at once: your filing status, whether you live abroad, and whether the value is measured on the last day of the year or at any point in it. A single filer living abroad reports at $200,000 on the last day of the year or $300,000 at any time during it. | 10 |
|---|
| The foreign tax credit, and when you can skip Form 1116 | If your total creditable foreign taxes are $300 or less, or $600 or less on a joint return, you may claim the foreign tax credit directly on your return without filing Form 1116. Above that ceiling the form is required, and only a credit computed on the form can be carried back 1 year or forward 10 years. | 4 |
|---|
| Streamlined filing: three returns, six FBARs, and one test that decides the penalty | The streamlined procedures require 3 years of delinquent or amended returns and 6 years of delinquent FBARs. A taxpayer who meets the non-residency test, which requires no United States abode and at least 330 full days outside the country in one of the covered years, pays no miscellaneous offshore penalty. A taxpayer who does not pays 5% of the highest aggregate value of the assets concerned. | 5 |
|---|
| Claiming a tax treaty benefit, and the disclosure that goes with it | Where you take a position that a United States tax treaty overrides or modifies the Internal Revenue Code, you generally disclose it on Form 8833 with your return. The penalty for failing to disclose is $1,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a C corporation, per failure, and it applies even where the treaty position itself is entirely correct. | 2 |
|---|
| Form 3520, and the two thresholds that are not the same number | Form 3520 reports gifts and bequests from foreign persons above $100,000 where the donor is a nonresident alien individual or a foreign estate, and above $20,573 for tax year 2026 where the donor is a foreign corporation or partnership. It also reports transfers to and distributions from foreign trusts, where the penalty for not filing starts at the greater of $10,000 or 35% of the gross value involved. | 8 |
|---|
| PFICs, Form 8621, and why a foreign index fund is the problem | A United States person holding stock in a passive foreign investment company generally files Form 8621. The filing exception applies where the aggregate value is $25,000 or less, or $50,000 or less on a joint return, on the last day of the tax year, and there is no excess distribution and no recognised gain. An excess distribution is the part of a distribution above 125% of the average of the three preceding years. | 3 |
|---|
| Controlled foreign corporations, and the two percentages that decide everything | You are a United States shareholder of a foreign corporation if you own, directly, indirectly or constructively, 10% or more of its total combined voting power or value. The corporation is a controlled foreign corporation if United States shareholders together own more than 50% of it. Reaching both tests brings Form 5471 and the current-inclusion regimes with it. | 2 |
|---|
| Renouncing US citizenship, and the three tests that decide what it costs | Renouncing United States citizenship or giving up long-term permanent residence triggers the section 877A mark-to-market regime only for a covered expatriate. There are three tests and meeting any one is enough: average annual net income tax above $211,000 for 2026, net worth of $2,000,000 or more, or failure to certify 5 years of federal tax compliance on Form 8854. A covered expatriate's deemed net gain is reduced by $910,000 for tax year 2026. | 8 |
|---|
What these 10 have in common
Every one of them is an obligation rather than a calculation. None asks how much tax you owe; each asks whether a rule applies to you, and the answer turns on a threshold, a rate or a period published in a document. That makes them unusually well suited to being stored as rules: there is a figure, it has a source, it has a tax year, and it either applies or it does not. Between them these pages turn on 46 rules in the store.
They are also routinely misquoted in the same four ways. The tax year is confused with the filing year, so the wrong amount is given to somebody preparing a return. A test measured across the whole year is described as though it applied at year end. A rule with several thresholds is summarised as though it had one, which is right for one reader and wrong for the rest. And an indexed figure is quoted beside an unindexed one as though both were fixed, which is how a page stays half right for years without anybody noticing.
Each guide states its figures with the section of the document that set them and the date they were read. Where a related fact has not been read into the store (a statutory day count, a definition of an account type) the guide says so rather than reaching for it. A page that quotes a day count from memory is doing the thing that makes this whole subject unreliable, and the difference between a source and a recollection is invisible to a reader unless the page makes it visible.
Why these 10, and not thirty
The subjects here were chosen by measuring demand rather than by guessing at it. Nine keyword exports covering the United States expatriate seam were pulled and deduplicated to just under twenty thousand unique terms carrying about 3.6 million searches a month, and the clusters were then ranked by cost per click against volume. Every guide on this page is one of those clusters. They are also the clusters where the incumbent pages are thinnest, and where the figures are most often quoted for the wrong year.
A guide only exists here when the rule store already holds the figures it turns on. That constraint is the reason there are 10 rather than thirty. Writing a page about a subject we have not read the documents for would mean stating numbers from memory, which is the failure mode the whole project is built to make impossible. When a source is read and ingested, the guide becomes possible; until then, its absence is more honest than its presence.
Each page follows the same shape: the answer in one sentence at the top, the figures in a table with the section of the document that set each one, the situations where people get it wrong worked through, and then the questions readers actually ask. The last section of every guide names what is not modelled, because the boundary of a claim is part of the claim.
The rest of the site
The guides deal with reporting obligations and fixed amounts. The calculators deal with what is actually deducted from a salary. Every jurisdiction we compute is listed with the authority behind its rates and the simplifications we make, and 272 UK salaries have their own pages showing the bands each one crosses. The methodology explains how a figure gets from a government document into a page, and sources lists every document read.
Questions about these guides
Are these guides tax advice?
No. They state figures with their sources and explain what the figures mean. They do not know your circumstances, and every one of these rules has conditions that turn on facts about you. Use them to check a number you were given, or to arrive at a conversation with an adviser already knowing what the number is.
How often are the figures updated?
Every rule carries the date it was read and a maximum age. A build fails if any rule used by a published page is past that age, so a figure cannot quietly go stale behind a page that still looks current. Re-reading the sources is a single command, and what changed is printed as a diff rather than absorbed silently.
Why do you say what you do not know?
Because the boundary of a claim is part of the claim. A page that states ten facts confidently when it has sources for eight of them has taught you nothing about which eight. Naming the gap costs a little authority and buys the reader the ability to trust the rest.
Can I check the sources myself?
Yes, and that is the point. Every figure names the document, the section within it, and the date it was read. The exact sentence is archived and hashed, so if the source changes the change is surfaced rather than absorbed. The sources page lists every document this site has read.
Do these apply to US citizens only?
All of them are obligations of US persons, which includes citizens, green card holders and certain others regardless of where they live, and that reach is what makes them the busiest questions in the expatriate seam. Two of them reach further than people expect: the exit tax catches long-term permanent residents who never became citizens, and the controlled foreign corporation tests can be met through stock owned by a relative. The calculators cover several other countries and are not US-specific.
Will there be more guides?
When the underlying figures are ingested, yes, and not before. A guide exists here only once the rule store holds every figure it turns on, because writing one first would mean stating numbers from memory or from another website, which is the failure that makes this subject unreliable online.
How to use this site if you live abroad
There are two separate questions and conflating them is what makes people miss things for years. The first is what the country you live in takes from your salary. That is a calculation, it depends on your gross pay, and the calculators answer it: pick the jurisdiction, put in a salary, and the deductions come out band by band with the rule behind each rate. Every jurisdiction on the list has been checked against the average rates the OECD publishes independently for a single person at three incomes.
The second question is what your home country still requires of you. For a US person that is not a calculation at all: it is a set of thresholds, and being over one triggers an obligation regardless of how much tax you owe or whether you owe any. The guides answer that. Somebody who has excluded all of their income under the foreign earned income exclusion may still be required to file an FBAR, a Form 8938, or both, because those turn on account balances rather than on tax.
A sensible order is: read the guide for the obligation you think might apply, check the figure against its stated tax year, then use the calculator for the country you live in to know what is actually being taken from your pay. Those two facts together are what any adviser will ask for in the first ten minutes, and arriving with them is the difference between a short conversation and a long one.
How the subjects were chosen
Not by intuition. Nine keyword exports covering the United States expatriate seam were pulled and deduplicated to just under twenty thousand unique terms, and the reporting clusters were the ones that combined real volume with the highest commercial value in the whole corpus. The cost per click across these clusters runs an order of magnitude above anything on the calculator side of this site, which is a reasonable proxy for how hard somebody else is already trying to reach the same reader.
The same exercise found the incumbent coverage unusually thin. A leading competitor in this niche has dozens of pages matching the word expat and none at all for the specific forms these guides cover, which is a gap between what people search for and what has been written for them. That gap is the reason these 10 exist before anything else on this site.
One more thing the corpus settled: the language a reader searches in. The English-language demand in this subject is overwhelmingly United States connected, and the equivalent demand in continental markets exists almost entirely in the local language. That is a different site rather than a translation, and pretending otherwise would mean writing English pages for readers who are not searching in English. The guides here are English because their readers are.
Demand decides what gets written. It does not decide what gets said. Every figure in these guides comes from the document that set it, and where the store holds no rule the guide names the gap instead of filling it. A page that ranks and misinforms is worse than no page, because a reader who checks nothing has no way to tell it apart from one that is right.
What is not here, and why that is stated
Naming the gaps is part of the claim, so here they are. No treaty text is stated on this site. There are more than sixty United States income tax treaties, each with its own articles and its own exceptions to its own saving clause, and none of them is in the rule store. The Form 8833 guide states the disclosure obligation and its penalty, which are the same whichever treaty you are reading, and stops there.
The computations are not here either. The foreign tax credit limitation formula, the mechanics of a qualified electing fund or mark-to-market election, and the inclusion arithmetic under subpart F and the global intangible rules are structures rather than figures, and paraphrasing a structure is where a page like this stops being checkable. The same goes for the definitions that decide scope: what counts as a foreign financial account, what counts as a foreign trust, how ownership is attributed between family members. Each guide names the boundary it is standing at instead of stepping over it.
Nor is there anything here for a person whose home country is not the United States. The reporting obligations these 10 guides describe follow United States citizenship and residence, and the equivalent regimes elsewhere are a different set of documents this site has not read.
A note on what a guide is for
Most pages on these subjects are written to be found. That produces a particular shape: a definition nobody needed, a figure without a year, a list of considerations, and a call to speak to an adviser. The reader arrives with one question and leaves with the same question and a vague sense that it is complicated.
These guides are written to be finished. The answer is in the first sentence with the year it applies to, the figures are in a table with the section of the document behind each one, and the situations where people get it wrong are worked through with numbers rather than described in the abstract. If a page here tells you that you are under a threshold, you should be able to check that claim against the source in about two minutes, and every part of the page is arranged to make that possible.
How this figure is produced, and how it is checked
Nothing on this page is typed in. Every rate, threshold and allowance is a rule in a store, and each rule carries the document it came from, the date it was read, an exact quote and a hash of that quote as it stood on the day. The calculation reads rules through a lens that records every one it touches, so the citations underneath a number are derived from the arithmetic that produced it. A page cannot cite a source the calculation did not use, and cannot use one it does not show.
A missing rule is a build failure rather than a fallback. That sounds severe until you consider the alternative: the failure worth preventing here is not a wrong number, it is a plausible one. A calculator that quietly substitutes last year's allowance produces a figure no reader can tell apart from the right one, and every check that matters is designed around making that impossible rather than unlikely.
Four gates run before anything is published. Golden fixtures check the arithmetic against worked examples at several incomes. An independent second reader compares every rule against a separately published compilation of the same law and records each disagreement rather than resolving it silently. A reconciliation gate computes tax for a single person at 67%, 100% and 167% of the average wage and requires the result to reproduce the average rates the OECD publishes for exactly that person. And a page gate checks that what is rendered matches what was computed, because a template can drift from the engine behind it without either being wrong on its own.
Ruleset sha256:7c8a1de9fc6d87cc. The full method is on methodology, every source on sources, every change on the changelog, and anything found wrong on corrections.
Terms used across these guides
- Gross salary
- Your pay before any deduction. Every rate on this site is expressed against gross, so a rate of 20% means a fifth of what you are paid rather than a fifth of some smaller base.
- Taxable income
- What the tax ladder actually runs on: gross, less any allowance, less any contribution that reduces the base. It is usually a smaller number than your salary, which is why a top rate of 45% never means 45% of your pay.
- Effective rate
- Everything taken, divided by gross. It is always lower than the highest band you reach, because the income below that band is taxed at the lower rates on the way up. This is the number to use when comparing two offers.
- Marginal rate
- What is taken from the next unit you earn. It decides whether a rise, a bonus or an extra shift is worth taking, and it can be far higher than your effective rate. It is measured here by computing the tax twice and taking the difference, never by reading a band off a table.
- Allowance
- An amount of income outside the tax ladder. Some jurisdictions publish one; others express the same idea as a first band taxed at zero per cent, which produces the same answer by a different route.
- Tax credit
- An amount taken off the tax itself rather than off the income. A non-refundable credit can reduce tax to zero but not below it, so it is worth less to somebody who owes little than the headline suggests.
- Employee social security
- Compulsory contributions taken from your pay and distinct from income tax, usually charged on gross with thresholds of their own. Employer contributions are excluded everywhere on this site, because they never appear in your gross pay and including them would flatter or damn a country depending on where its wedge sits.
- Tax year
- The period a schedule applies to. It is not the year you file in. The two are routinely conflated by pages that rank well for these terms, which is why every rule here carries its tax year as a first-class field.