Selling US property — FIRPTA checklist
The closing pack for a foreign seller of US real property, assembled before the closing date rather than after.
- 15+Years of cross-border experience
- 18,000+Clients served
- 5.0Google rating
- 4Global offices — India, USA, Canada & UAE
The closing pack for a foreign seller of US real property, assembled before the closing date rather than after.
The document pack
- The purchase documents and closing statement from when you bought
- Records of capital improvements, with invoices
- Depreciation claimed in any year the property was rented
- Rental income and expense records for every year of ownership
- The sale contract and the draft closing statement
- Your US taxpayer identification number, or the application if you do not have one
- The buyer's and closing agent's details for the withholding filings
- A computation of the expected gain, for the withholding certificate application
Why each of these is asked for
The withholding is computed on the price and the tax on the gain, so the gain computation is what releases the difference — and it has to be prepared before closing to be useful. Depreciation claimed in earlier years increases the gain, which is why those records matter even for a property that was rented only briefly.
What to do next
Send what you have and we will tell you what is missing. A complete pack is usually the difference between a filing that takes a fortnight and one that takes a season. We will tell you if you do not need us. That happens more often than you would expect.
Reviewed for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, Cross-Border Tax Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. Written as general guidance, not as a recommendation for your situation. Talk it through with us before acting on it.
US international tax — what this page covers
People reach this page searching for US international tax. It is covered here as it applies to selling US property — who it applies to, what has to be filed, and what it costs, at a fixed fee agreed before the work starts.
Why choose Legal Quotient for selling US property — FIRPTA checklist
A named reviewer on every file
Every page on this site and every file we deliver says which practitioner reviewed it — a person, not a team inbox.
You deal with the person who did the work
The practitioner who prepared and reviewed your file is the one who answers the question about it.
The fee is fixed before we start
Quoted from your documents and agreed in writing. The number you accept is the number you pay.
Filed with the authority, not just prepared
The engagement runs to submission and to the correspondence that follows it, including the queries that arrive months later.
Cross-border situations we are engaged for
Withholding certificate application prepared in the weeks before a signed closing
A foreign owner had accepted an offer on a property bought some years earlier and let for part of that time. We worked backwards from the closing date, pulling the original closing statement, the invoices for a roof and a bathroom replacement, and the depreciation taken across the rental years, then computed the expected gain. The work consisted of assembling that evidence into an application in time for it to be lodged before closing. The engagement produced a certificate application supported by documents, and a closing at which the amount held back was set against the computed gain rather than the price.
Depreciation history rebuilt for a property let for one short period
The seller remembered a brief tenancy years earlier and assumed it had no bearing on the sale. The returns for those years had been prepared by someone else and showed depreciation claimed. We obtained the filed returns and the schedules behind them, established what had been taken, and carried the result into the cost computation. The work consisted of reconciling that history with the owner's own recollection before anything was relied on. The engagement produced a gain computation that would stand comparison with the earlier filings, rather than one built on the purchase and sale prices alone.
Taxpayer identification obtained alongside a sale rather than after it
A foreign seller had never filed anything in the United States and had no taxpayer identification number. The sale was under contract and the closing agent needed to make the withholding filings. We ran the identification application in parallel with the gain computation and the withholding paperwork, so the seller's details were resolved rather than left until a return fell due. The engagement produced a complete set of filings naming the seller correctly, and removed the delay that ordinarily follows when identification is left until after money has been withheld.
Excess withholding recovered through a return after a completed closing
We were approached after the closing, with the withholding already remitted. Nothing could be done at the front end, so the work ran through the return instead. We obtained the closing agent's file, the purchase documents, the improvement invoices and the rental history, computed the gain, and set the tax on it against what had been held back. The engagement produced a filed return reconciling to the closing agent's remittance records, a claim for the excess, and a note for the seller on what the timing had cost in waiting rather than in tax.
Improvement invoices reconstructed where the seller kept no records
An owner had extended and re-roofed a property over several years and had kept nothing beyond bank entries. Improvements raise the cost base and so reduce the gain, which made the absence of invoices expensive. We worked from the bank records to identify the contractors, requested copies of their invoices, and matched them against the permits held by the municipality. The engagement produced a documented schedule of capital improvements with third-party support behind each entry, and a gain computation that did not rest on the owner's memory of what had been spent.
Two foreign co-owners filed separately from one closing statement
A property was held by two foreign sellers in unequal shares, and the closing statement named them jointly. The withholding, the certificate application and the eventual returns all had to follow the shares rather than the statement. We established the interests from the original purchase deed, allocated the purchase cost, the improvements and the depreciation accordingly, and prepared the paperwork for each seller. The engagement produced separate computations that add back to the closing figures, and filings for both owners on the same allocation, so the two could not contradict each other later.
A Canadian Landlord With Property in the United States
Gross withholding on US rents takes no account of mortgage interest, tax or repairs, so a leveraged property can face tax on turnover. An election onto net basis fixes that, and it has its own timing and its own filing.
Read how this one runsAccounts Reported Late When the Income Already Was
Where the income was on the return and only the account report was missed, a narrow route allows late filing with a reason attached. It is open only while no income is unreported and no examination has begun, which is why it is checked first.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
Core International & Cross-Border Tax Services
International Tax Planning & Advisory
Strategy and compliance for income, assets and families spread across borders.
U.S. & Cross-Border Tax Returns
Expat & Emigration Tax
Non-Resident Canadian Tax
Transfer Pricing & BEPS
Tax Treaties & Withholding
Cross-Border Estates & Trusts
Global Investments & Reporting
Cross-Border Corporate Tax
India Tax for NRIs & Returning Residents
Canadian Tax with a Foreign Element
UAE Tax for Expats & Their Home Country
Industries & Client Types We Serve Worldwide
Global E-commerce & Marketplaces
- Foreign VAT / GST / sales tax registrations
- Marketplace withholding reviews
- Inventory nexus & PE analysis
- Multi-currency books reconciled
Technology & SaaS
- Cross-border revenue sourcing & withholding
- IP structuring with real substance
- Equity for cross-border teams
- U.S. expansion: entity & PE setup
Professional Services Firms
- Reg 105 / 102 waivers
- Permanent establishment risk
- Partner mobility planning
- Cross-border withholding recovery
Cross-Border Real Estate
- Section 216 rental returns
- FIRPTA withholding recovery
- Section 116 clearance
- Treaty credit optimization
Importers, Exporters & Manufacturers
- Transfer pricing documentation (s.247)
- Customs value vs transfer price
- Foreign affiliate reporting (T1134)
- Country-by-country reporting
Athletes, Artists & Entertainers
- Reg 105 & U.S. CWA agreements
- Multi-state & country calendars
- Touring income allocation
- Royalty & image-rights withholding
Remote Workers & Digital Nomads
- Residency analysis before moving
- Employer payroll exposure
- Totalization & social security
- Foreign tax credits
Investment Funds & Holding Companies
Holding structures live or die on treaty access, beneficial ownership and substance — the MLI's principal-purpose test now sits over every arrangement.
A holding structure is only as good as its reporting. Foreign affiliates, accrued passive income and distributions each carry their own return, and the penalties on those attach to the form rather than to any tax being owed — so a structure that saves tax can still cost money if the information returns are late.
- Treaty access & PPT reviews
- FAPI & surplus computations
- Withholding-efficient routing
- Governance & substance
