FBAR: reporting UK accounts to the US

The FBAR, the Foreign Bank Account Report, is filed on FinCEN Form 114. It is separate from your tax return and goes to the US Treasury, not the IRS. The rule is simple: add up the highest balance of every non-US account you hold or can control, and if the combined total crossed $10,000 at any single moment in the calendar year, you report all of them.

What counts toward the threshold

More than you might expect. Current accounts, savings accounts, ISAs, multi-currency wallets, investment accounts and most UK pensions count, as do accounts you do not own but can sign on, such as a business account. It is the aggregate that matters: five accounts of $3,000 each cross the line even though none does alone.

The threshold is a trigger, not a tax

Crossing $10,000 does not mean you owe anything. The FBAR is pure reporting. People conflate it with a charge and either panic or ignore it; both are wrong. You list the accounts, the highest balance in each, and the provider details, and you are done.

Deadline and penalties

The FBAR is due 15 April, with an automatic extension to 15 October, aligning with the US tax deadline. The penalties are where it gets serious: a non-willful failure can draw a penalty per year, and a willful one is far higher. The filing is straightforward; the cost of skipping it is not.

FBAR and Form 8938 are not the same

Both report foreign assets, but they are different forms with different thresholds and different recipients. Many people abroad file both. See Form 8938 for how the two differ.