Tax and residency

FATCA and Form 8938

Also called FATCA, Form 8938, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets.

Form 8938 is the FATCA report of specified foreign financial assets, attached to the income tax return under 26 U.S.C. 6038D, and it is additional to the FBAR rather than a substitute for it. The same Act makes foreign banks report their US account holders to the IRS, which is how the two sides get matched.

What it decides

26 CFR 1.6038D-2(a) sets the thresholds by filing status and residence: more than $50,000 on the last day of the year or $75,000 at any time for a person filing alone in the United States, $100,000 or $150,000 on a joint return, and $200,000 or $300,000 alone and $400,000 or $600,000 jointly for someone who qualifies under section 911(d)(1) as living abroad. Form 8938 reaches what the FBAR misses, including foreign stock, securities and interests in foreign entities held outside any account, under 6038D(b)(2). No income tax return for the year means no Form 8938, whatever the assets are worth. The penalty under 6038D(d) is $10,000, plus $10,000 for each 30 day period once the failure runs more than 90 days past IRS notice, and that continuing piece stops at $50,000, so $60,000 in all. Reasonable cause excuses it under 6038D(g), but a foreign secrecy law is expressly not reasonable cause.

Governed by 26 U.S.C. 6038D(a), (b), (d) and (g); 26 CFR 1.6038D-2(a). The IRS page Summary of FATCA reporting for U.S taxpayers, last updated 18 September 2025, restates the thresholds, states that the requirement is in addition to FinCEN Form 114, states that no return means no Form 8938, and is the source for the bank side of FATCA, whose withholding and institution reporting rules sit at 26 U.S.C. 1471 to 1474 and are outside 6038D altogether.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into fatca and form 8938 rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

FBARThe FBAR is FinCEN Form 114, the annual report of foreign financial accounts that every US person, which a green card makes you, must file when those accounts together exceeded $10,000 at any moment in the calendar year. It goes to FinCEN through the BSA E-Filing System, not to the IRS with the tax return.
Passive foreign investment companyA passive foreign investment company is any foreign corporation for a year in which 75 percent or more of its gross income is passive or at least 50 percent of its assets produce passive income, a test that catches almost every foreign mutual fund, ETF or unit trust an investor holds before moving to the United States.
Controlled foreign corporationA controlled foreign corporation is a foreign corporation in which US shareholders, each holding 10 percent or more of its vote or value, together own more than 50 percent of its vote or value on any day of its tax year, which taxes its undistributed earnings to them personally.
Worldwide incomeWorldwide income is the rule that a United States resident for tax purposes, including a green card holder whose residence is still conditional, is taxed on income from every source anywhere in the world and not only on income arising inside the United States.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary