If you live abroad and have unfiled U.S. Returns Getting current, without penalties
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The IRS runs a program for Americans living outside the United States who fell behind on filing or who filed incompletely — not because they were hiding anything, but because nobody told them the extent of the obligation that followed them overseas. It is called the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures. If you qualify, you pay the tax you owed and interest on it. Nothing else.
3years of tax returns to file or amend | 6years of foreign account reports (FBARs) | $0in penalties, if you qualify |
Do you qualify?
Four things have to be true. They are strict, but they are also clear — we can usually tell you within one conversation.
- You were genuinely living abroad
In at least one of the last three tax years, you spent 330 full days or more outside the United States and had no home here. If you are not a U.S. citizen or green card holder, a different residency test applies instead. On a joint return, this has to be true of both spouses.
- The failure to file was an honest one
Negligence, an oversight, bad advice, or a good-faith misunderstanding of the rules. You will sign a statement to this effect, under penalty of perjury, explaining in your own words how it happened.
- The IRS has not already come to you
You cannot use this program if the IRS has opened an audit of any of your returns — on any subject — or if you are under criminal investigation. This is why timing matters.
- You have a Social Security number or ITIN
If you don’t have either, we apply for an ITIN as part of the package.
What you will pay to the IRS, and what the IRS waives
| Tax actually owed Across the three years, after foreign tax credits and the foreign earned income exclusion — often little or nothing. | Payable |
| Interest on that tax Runs from each original due date. | Payable |
| Late-filing and late-payment penalties | Waived |
| Accuracy penalties | Waived |
| FBAR penalties Otherwise upwards of $10,000 for each year missed, inflation-adjusted — and far more if the failure is treated as deliberate. | Waived |
| Foreign asset and entity reporting penalties Forms 8938, 5471, 3520, 8865 and the rest — $10,000 and up, each. | Waived |
| Offshore penalty on your account balances People living inside the U.S. pay 5% of their highest balance. You do not. | None |
Many clients who come to us worried about a six-figure exposure end up owing modest tax, or none at all, because the credits and exclusions they never claimed cover the income once the returns are properly prepared.
What we’ll need from you
The narrative statement is the part clients underestimate. The IRS wants the story, specifically and in detail — not a paragraph. For that, a U.S. licensed tax attorney must be part of your team.
- Year-end and peak balances for every foreign bank, brokerage, pension and insurance account you held or could sign on, for six years.
- Income records — local employment, self-employment, rentals, dividends, interest, capital gains — and the foreign tax you paid on them.
- Proof of your days outside the U.S. Passport stamps, entry and exit records, travel history.
- Proof you had no U.S. home in the year you rely on — and records of the home you did have abroad.
- Ownership details for any foreign company, partnership, trust or pension you hold an interest in.
- The story, honestly told. When you learned of the obligation, who advised you and what they said, how each account came to be yours. If you relied on an advisor, the IRS asks for their name and contact details.
What happens next?
Step 1: An eligibility conversation
We test the residency requirement and talk through the circumstances honestly, before any work begins. If this program isn’t the right one for you, we will say so and explain what is.
Step 2: We prepare the package
Three years of returns with every required foreign reporting form attached, six years of FBARs, and your signed certification with the narrative statement.
Step 3: Filing
The FBARs are filed electronically. The rest goes on paper to a dedicated IRS unit in Austin, Texas, with the tax and interest paid at the same time.
Step 4: Then, quiet
The IRS does not send an acceptance letter or a closing agreement. A correctly filed package is simply processed. From that point you are current, and you stay current by filing normally each year.
Two things you should know
This program is for honest mistakes only. If you knew about the obligation and chose not to file — if you answered “no” to the foreign account question on a return you signed, or took steps to keep accounts out of sight — the certification you would sign here becomes evidence against you. There is a different and appropriate path for those facts, and we would take it instead. Tell us the real history at the outset; it changes the recommendation, not our willingness to help.
It will not stay open forever. The streamlined procedures are offered at the IRS’s discretion and can be withdrawn at any time — its predecessor program was closed on ninety days’ notice. An open audit also closes the door permanently. If you are eligible today, that is the fact worth acting on.
