Adds the highest balance of each foreign account and tests the aggregate against the verified FinCEN threshold.
Adds the highest balance of each foreign account and tests the aggregate against the verified FinCEN threshold.
Threshold verified against the IRS on 2026-08-13. All other figures are yours.
The report is tested on the aggregate of all foreign financial accounts at their highest point during the calendar year, which is why several small accounts can cross the line together. Signature authority over an employer's or a relative's account counts even though none of the money is yours. The threshold used here is the verified FinCEN figure.
A calculator narrows the range; it does not settle a filing. One call now is worth more than a filing season of guessing.
Reviewed against current guidance for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, International Tax, Cross-Border Tax & Transfer Pricing Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. General guidance only. Your own facts decide the answer, so bring them to a call before relying on this.
People reach this page searching for corporate tax calculator. It is covered here as it applies to FBAR threshold checker — who it applies to, what has to be filed, and what it costs, at a fixed fee agreed before the work starts.
The heaviest exposure on a cross-border file is usually a disclosure form, not the tax. We identify which ones apply before a deadline turns into a penalty.
Two returns built against each other by one team, so relief is claimed exactly once and nothing falls between the two systems.
If a file needs something this practice does not do, you hear that at the start rather than after a bill.
The engagement runs to submission and to the correspondence that follows it, including the queries that arrive months later.
A client had a current account, an old savings account and a fixed deposit left over from before moving, none of which felt significant enough to mention to anyone. Added at their highest points in the year, they were over. We listed every foreign account the client held or could sign on, established the peak for each from the statements, and prepared the reports for the years concerned. The engagement produced filed reports covering those years, a schedule of accounts to review each year, and a record of where each figure came from.
A finance manager was a signatory on their employer's foreign operating account and had never considered it their business to report. The money was not theirs and never had been, but the authority was. We confirmed the scope of the authority from the bank mandate, obtained the peak balance for each year from the company, and reported the account as one held under signature authority rather than ownership. The engagement produced corrected reports for the open years and a short written note the employer now gives to every new signatory.
A married couple held a joint account abroad. One spouse had been reporting it for years, the other had assumed a single report covered the household. It does not: the obligation attaches to each person with an interest in the account. We reviewed which accounts each of them held, jointly and separately, and brought the second spouse's position up to date across the years still open. The engagement produced a complete set of reports for both individuals and a division of responsibility for the annual review going forward.
A client needed to report accounts that had been closed years earlier at a bank that had since been taken over. Statements were gone and the login had lapsed years before. We wrote to the successor institution for the account history, filled the remaining gaps from transfers visible on the surviving accounts at the other end, and documented which figures were confirmed by the bank and which were derived. The engagement produced reports supported by an evidence file for every figure in them, and a written explanation of the derivation for the ones the bank could not confirm.
A client managed an elderly parent's accounts abroad under a power of attorney and had never thought of them as anything to do with a US filing obligation. Authority over an account is what matters, not ownership of the funds. We read the instrument to establish what it actually permitted, identified the accounts within its scope, and gathered the highest balances for each year. The engagement produced the reports for those years, and a note recording the date the authority began, so the boundary of the obligation is documented.
A client received a routine request from their foreign bank confirming their tax residence and citizenship, and realised the information would be exchanged. Nothing had been filed. We established which accounts and which years were involved, checked whether the income on them had been reported on the returns already filed, and chose the route for coming forward on those facts before submitting anything. The engagement produced the outstanding reports, amended returns where the income had been missed, and a documented chronology showing the work began before any authority made contact.
Born in the United States, left as an infant, and told by a bank that the returns were owed all along. The work is sequencing: establish which years are actually open, choose the catch-up route on the facts rather than filing quietly, and claim the exclusions and credits that were never taken.
Read how this one runsPension and annuity payments to a non-resident carry a flat withholding that often exceeds what a return would produce. The alternative filing is elective, and whether it helps depends on the total income for the year rather than on the payment alone.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
Strategy and compliance for income, assets and families spread across borders.
Cross-border tax for sellers shipping worldwide: marketplace withholding, foreign registrations and inventory nexus handled before they become audits.
Marketplaces withhold, remit and report in their own right, so the tax position of a single sale is decided by where the stock sat, where the buyer was and which platform collected — not by where the company is registered. We reconcile the platform's own filings against the returns before either is submitted.
The FinCEN test looks at the combined highest balances of every foreign financial account you have a financial interest in or signature authority over, added together on the single day the combined total was highest, rather than the peak of any one account on its own. The aggregate figure the checker produces is what actually determines whether a filing obligation exists.
A jointly held account is generally included at its full balance in each joint owner's own aggregate test, rather than divided by ownership share. A joint account held with a spouse who has no separate filing obligation still counts in full toward your own aggregate figure in the checker, not at a reduced portion.
Signature authority covers an account where you can direct what happens to the funds by communicating with the institution, even with no beneficial ownership interest of your own, such as an account held on behalf of an employer or family member. Those accounts belong in the aggregate the checker tests, alongside anything you actually own.
Foreign accounts that crossed the aggregate threshold in earlier years without a report being filed can generally be addressed through the correction options the IRS makes available, which differ depending on whether the earlier omission was willful. That is a separate remediation question from what the checker shows for the current year, and it is worth looking at rather than assuming only this year is relevant.
Where our partners studied — CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), AICPA, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.
