Do I have to file at home while living in Ecuador?
Residence decides it, and residence is a question of facts rather than of where your post arrives. The one exception is US citizenship, which carries the filing obligation with the person wherever they go. So the first thing we establish is which system still claims you.
Is there a treaty between my country and Ecuador?
That is verified rather than assumed: we confirm which treaty text governs Ecuador and your home country for the year in question, because a protocol can move a rate or an article between years. If there is no treaty, unilateral credit rules are what prevent double taxation.
I own property in Ecuador. Where is the rent taxed?
Where the property is. That is close to universal, and it usually arrives as withholding on the gross rent rather than as a return on the profit — which is why the election onto a net basis, where Ecuador offers one, is normally the first thing to check. Your home country taxes the same rent and credits what was paid.
Do I still file a home country return after retiring to Ecuador?
Residence, not your address, decides that. Moving to Ecuador does not by itself end home residence; the home authority looks at where your home, your household and your day-to-day ties actually sit after the move. Retirees often keep a property, a bank account and a family doctor at home, and that combination can hold residence open for years after the suitcase is unpacked. The practical work is to date the departure, evidence it, and then file whatever the home system requires of a departing resident. Until that is settled, filing in both places is the safe position rather than the wasteful one.
Why is tax still taken off my pension after I moved?
Pension payers withhold on the basis of the records they hold, not on the basis of where you now sleep. If the payer has not been told that the residence position changed, and has not been given whatever certification the home system requires, it will keep applying the rate it applied before. Two things follow. The withholding continues until the payer is instructed otherwise, and any reduction available under a treaty in force for your year has to be claimed, either at source or afterwards through a return. Neither happens automatically, and neither happens retrospectively without a filing.
How do I prove I actually left for tax purposes?
With dated documents rather than assertions. A residence file is built from the things that moved and the things that stayed: the visa or residence permit and its date, the lease or purchase of the Ecuadorean home, the closing or retention of home country accounts, where the household goods went, where the family lives, and where you were physically present across the year. Intention carries very little weight on its own. The file is assembled before it is needed, because the question is usually asked years later, when memory has gone and the paperwork is scattered.
Do I have to report my Ecuadorean house back home?
Most likely yes, and the reporting obligation is separate from whether any tax is due. Home systems commonly require foreign holdings themselves to be disclosed once they pass a threshold, and a personal residence and a rental property are not always treated the same way. Rental income adds a second layer: the rent is normally taxable in Ecuador as local source income, and taxable again at home if home residence continued, with relief for the local tax claimed rather than applied automatically. Get the reporting right first; the tax computation follows from it.
Can I recover Ecuadorean withholding taken on a payment?
Sometimes, and the route depends on why it was taken. Withholding on payments to non-residents is a collection mechanism: it is applied to a gross amount at a set rate without regard to what the final liability turns out to be, so it frequently exceeds the tax actually due. Where the amount withheld is larger than the liability, recovery normally runs through a local filing that computes the real figure, not through a request to the payer. Where a treaty in force for the year gives a lower rate, the reduction is usually claimed with certification of residence. Both routes need the withholding certificates.
My spouse stayed behind. Am I still resident at home?
A spouse who remains behind is one of the strongest ties a residence test looks at, and in several systems it comes close to being decisive on its own. That does not make the answer automatic. What matters is the overall pattern: where a dwelling remains available to you, where the family lives, where economic interests sit, and where you actually spend your days. A retirement in Ecuador with a spouse, a house and a bank account left at home usually reads as a continuing home residence. Where both spouses move, the same facts point the other way. Either way, the position is documented.
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.
Can I take the foreign tax credit and the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion together?
On the same income, no — you cannot exclude income and then claim credit for foreign tax on the part you excluded. You can use both in one return on *different* income: exclude qualifying earned income, then claim credit for foreign tax on what remains, such as investment income or earnings above the cap. Which combination leaves you better off is an arithmetic question on your figures. Our FEIE vs foreign tax credit calculator works it through.
