What is included in the fee for streamlined catch-up — 3 years + 6 fbars?
The full streamlined submission: the back returns, the account reports for the whole period, and the non-willfulness certification that is the substance of the application.
What would make streamlined catch-up — 3 years + 6 fbars cost more than the standard tier?
The number of years and the state of the records. The filings are mechanical; reconstructing account histories and building the chronology is what takes the time.
Is the fee really fixed?
Yes, for the scope quoted. If the scope changes — another year appears, an entity turns up, a certificate becomes necessary — we re-quote before doing the work, so there is never an invoice you have not already agreed to.
I have never filed US taxes while living abroad, what now?
The streamlined route exists for exactly this situation: people whose failure to file was not willful, who bring the back returns and the foreign account reports in as one submission together with a certification explaining why the returns were never filed. The certification is the substance of it rather than an afterthought. It is a statement of fact about your understanding and your circumstances, and it has to sit consistently with the record of what you actually did. The mechanics are the straightforward part. Establishing and evidencing the non-willfulness is the work.
Do I need to file an FBAR if my accounts are small?
It depends on the total rather than on any single account. The test adds together every foreign financial account you hold and looks at the highest point reached during the year, not the balance sitting there at the year end. For the 2025 calendar year the trigger is an aggregate value exceeding US$10,000 at any time during the year. Two modest current accounts and a savings account can cross that between them without any one balance looking significant, which is how most people who owe reports never realised they did.
Is the FBAR part of my US tax return?
No, and that is the point most often missed. The account report is filed with FinCEN, separately from the income tax return, and it is not attached to it. Two consequences follow. A catch-up that files returns without the reports is only half a submission, which is why a streamlined package covers both. And somebody who filed a return every year while never filing an account report still has a reporting gap, even though they believed they were entirely compliant. It is a report of accounts, not a computation of tax.
What does non-willful mean in a streamlined submission?
In practice it means a failure that came from not knowing, from misunderstanding what was required, or from negligence, rather than from a decision to conceal. It is not a box to tick. The certification asks you to set out what you believed and why, and your account and filing history sits alongside it, so a narrative that does not fit the record is worse than no application at all. We take the history first and tell you honestly how the case reads before anything is drafted, because this is the part that decides the outcome.
How much does a streamlined catch-up cost?
A fixed fee, agreed in writing before the work begins, covering the back returns, the account reports for the whole period, and the certification. The straightforward case is a complete set of account statements and income from one country. What moves the number is accounts that have to be reconstructed from institutions that closed them, income needing treaty treatment, a business interest or a foreign pension with reporting of its own, or a spouse whose position has to be dealt with in parallel. If the records show something outside the scope, we re-quote first.
Which years do I have to go back and file?
A streamlined submission is a defined package rather than an open-ended catch-up: back returns for a set recent period, and account reports covering a longer one, which is why the two counts differ. On this engagement that is three years of returns and six years of account reports. Working out which calendar years those are in your case depends on what has already been filed and where you were resident in each of them, and it is settled during scoping so that what goes in is complete.
Do I need to report a foreign business I own?
Almost certainly, and on more than one form. Canada requires reporting of foreign affiliates on the T1134; the United States has a family of returns keyed to the entity type and your level of control, and several carry penalties that apply whether or not any tax is owed. These are information returns, so the obligation follows the ownership rather than the profit. See T1134.
Do I have to declare my dual citizenship?
A tax return does not generally ask you to declare which passports you hold; it asks about residence, and in the US case it applies to citizens by definition. What does ask is your bank. Account-opening self-certification under FATCA and the Common Reporting Standard asks which countries you are a tax resident or citizen of, and the answer is reported onward to the tax authority. So the practical answer is that the information arrives either way. See FATCA reporting.
