I already filed the FBAR — do I need Form 8938 as well?
Very often both, and that is not duplication. The account report goes to the Treasury's financial-crimes bureau on its own timetable; Form 8938 attaches to your tax return. They use different thresholds and different asset lists, so satisfying one does nothing for the other and the contents of the two rarely match. Our page on filing both reports sets the differences out side by side. The practical answer is to build one schedule of everything you hold abroad and then map each line to whichever report reaches it.
What counts as a specified foreign financial asset?
Wider than a bank account, which is why people who report their accounts still miss things. Accounts held at a foreign institution are in scope, and so are holdings an account report does not reach at all: shares or bonds issued by a foreign person and held directly, an interest in a foreign entity, and certain foreign contracts. The useful question is not whether a holding has an account number but what you hold and who issued it. We test each line of the schedule against the definition rather than assuming the bank list is complete.
How do the thresholds change if I live abroad?
Two things move them: your filing status, and whether you count as living outside the United States for the year, which is itself a test with a presence requirement behind it rather than a matter of how you describe yourself. There is a second structural point people miss. The reporting test is applied twice — to the value on the last day of the tax year, and to the highest value at any time during it — so a year that ends quietly can still be reportable. Establishing residence and status for the year is therefore the first piece of work, not the asset list.
Do I file Form 8938 if my income is below the return threshold?
Start with the return, because this form has no filing channel of its own — it attaches to the tax return and travels with it. Whether a return is required for the year is therefore the question that has to be settled first, and for someone living abroad with income taxed elsewhere it is not always obvious. The account report to the Treasury is a separate matter on its own timetable and is unaffected by any of this. We settle the return position for each year first, then the statement follows from it.
I have lived abroad for years and never filed it — what now?
It is one of the most common ways this arrives, and the route depends on the years, not on the size of the assets. What has to be established first is which years are still open, whether the returns themselves were filed and correct, and what the reason for the omission actually was. Those answers decide between an ordinary filing, an amendment, and one of the procedures for late information returns. The narrative supporting the position is written with dates and documents behind it, because that is what it is judged on.
Does a shareholding in my family's company abroad get reported?
An interest in a foreign entity is inside the definition, so a private family holding is not outside it merely because there is no statement and no market price. Two pieces of work follow. The holding has to be valued for the year on a basis you can explain, which for an unlisted company means going back to its own accounts. And the entity may carry reporting of its own for a US owner, separate from this statement and with its own consequences. We look at the shareholding and the entity together rather than one at a time.
Do US citizens abroad have to report foreign bank accounts?
Yes, and under two separate regimes with different thresholds and different filing homes — one report to FinCEN covering foreign financial accounts, and one to the IRS with the return covering a broader class of foreign assets. Both are keyed to balances rather than income, so an account earning nothing can still require reporting, and each carries penalties of its own. See filing both.
What does "received a distribution from a foreign trust" mean on my return?
It is asking whether the trust conferred anything on you during the year — cash, property, or the use of trust property, including rent-free occupation of a house and, in some circumstances, a loan. Answering yes brings an information return, and where the distribution includes income accumulated in earlier years the tax computation can carry an interest charge for the delay. Trust accounts showing the composition of the distribution are what keep that computation from defaulting against you. See Form 3520.
