Do I have to file at home while living in Egypt?
It depends on residence, not on address — except for US citizens and green-card holders, for whom the answer is yes regardless of where they live. We settle the residence question first, because every other answer follows from it.
Is there a treaty between my country and Egypt?
Possibly, and the version in force for your year is the one that matters — protocols and multilateral-instrument positions change what a treaty does without changing its name. We check it against the authority rather than a summary. Where no treaty applies, domestic relief takes over.
I own property in Egypt. Where is the rent taxed?
Rent from immovable property is almost always taxable where the property is situated, frequently by withholding on the gross amount, with your home country taxing the same income and giving credit. A net-basis election, where one exists, is usually the difference between tax on profit and tax on turnover.
Do I report inherited family property in Egypt on my home return?
Reporting and taxing are separate questions. Home foreign property rules generally look at ownership and cost, so an inherited share of a family flat can be reportable even though no income arises and no tax is due. Inheritance also sets a cost the home system will expect to see evidenced years later, when the property is eventually sold. Two practical difficulties follow. The share may be undivided among siblings, so what you own has to be established before it can be reported, and its value has to be fixed in the home currency at the date the interest was acquired.
How do I value Egyptian property for home country reporting?
Not with the figure used for the local formalities. Local disposal and transfer procedures work from their own valuation basis, set for local administrative purposes, while the home system wants what you actually paid, or what the interest was worth when you acquired it, converted at the rate on that date. The two rarely agree, and adopting the local number because it is the one on paper is how a reported cost stops matching the real gain later. Keep both: the local documents, and a separate home currency record showing the conversion rate and its date.
I sold a flat in Egypt. Is the gain taxable back home?
If home residence continued through the sale, the gain is generally within the home tax net wherever the property sits, computed under home rules from the home currency cost and proceeds. That computation can produce a gain where the local one does not, because the bases differ and because currency movement between purchase and sale forms part of the home result. Any Egyptian tax or charge borne on the disposal is then considered for relief, which is claimed with evidence rather than assumed. The documents to keep are the contract, the transfer receipts and proof of what was actually paid.
Which country taxes my salary on a rotation in Egypt?
It depends on where you are resident and where the work is physically done, and the two answers can point in different directions. Rotational work usually places the employment duties in Egypt, which is where the local system starts. Home residence, if it continued, brings the same salary into the home return, with relief for tax borne locally. The order matters: the local position is established and evidenced first, because the home relief is only as good as the proof behind it. Day counts and the employer's schedules are that evidence, so keep them as you go rather than reconstructing them.
How do I get a tax certificate from Egypt for my claim?
Through the local procedure, and it takes longer than most timetables allow. The recurring constraint in this corridor is documentation rather than computation: a home claim for relief needs proof that the foreign tax was actually paid, in a form the home authority accepts, and that proof is issued locally on a local timetable. Start the request early, in the local period it relates to where possible, and keep payroll slips and payment receipts as interim evidence. A relief claim filed on weak documentation is not refused immediately. It is questioned later, when reassembling it is harder.
Do I have to declare an Egyptian bank account back home?
Usually yes, once holdings pass the threshold the home rules set, and the obligation is about the account existing rather than about it earning anything. Dormant family accounts, accounts opened to receive rent and accounts opened only to complete a property purchase all count as holdings. The frequent error is treating a small balance as beneath notice, when the rules run on aggregate holdings rather than on any single account. List every account, with the institution, the account identifier and the year end position, before deciding what is reportable.
Can I revoke the foreign earned income exclusion, and what happens if I do?
You can stop claiming it, but a revocation is not a free toggle: having revoked, you are locked out of electing it again for a period of years unless the IRS consents to an earlier return. That is why switching from the exclusion to the credit is a modelled decision — it can be right, particularly where local tax is high or where you need earned income for retirement contributions or the refundable child credit, but it should be made once and deliberately. See exclusion against credit.
Is there a limit on the foreign tax credit?
Yes, and it is the whole design. To calculate the limit you compute the US tax on your foreign-source income in that category; the credit cannot exceed it, because its purpose is to stop double taxation, not to refund another country's tax. Pay a higher rate abroad than the United States charges and the excess is not lost but deferred, becoming a carryover for a year with room. Pay a lower rate and the credit simply covers the foreign tax. See Form 1116.
