What is FBAR (FinCEN Form 114)?

FBAR is the Foreign Bank Account Report, formally FinCEN Form 114, filed electronically with the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It is not a tax form. It does not go to the IRS. It does not appear on your 1040. And if you've been quietly ignoring it for a decade because you've never owed any U.S. tax, it's the form most likely to ruin your life.

This is the single most-misunderstood obligation American expats have.

The $10,000 trigger

You must file an FBAR for any calendar year in which the aggregate maximum value of all your foreign financial accounts exceeded $10,000 USD at any point during the year.

Three words in that sentence carry all the weight:

• Aggregate: it's the sum across all accounts, not per account. Five accounts at $2,500 each = $12,500 = file.
• Maximum: the highest balance the account hit at any moment, not the year-end balance, not the average.
• At any point: even for one day. If your salary hit your account on payday and pushed you over $10,000 for 24 hours before you moved it, that triggers FBAR.

The $10,000 threshold is not indexed for inflation. It was $10,000 when the Bank Secrecy Act was passed in 1970, and it's still $10,000. In most countries this is now a normal checking-account balance.

Who has to file

You file an FBAR if you are a U.S. person with a financial interest in or signature authority over any foreign financial account during the year, and the aggregate maximum exceeded $10,000.

U.S. person means: citizens, green-card holders, resident aliens, and U.S. entities (LLCs, corporations, partnerships, trusts).

Financial interest generally means: you're the owner of record, or you own more than 50% of an entity that holds the account.

Signature authority means: you can move money in or out — even if it isn't yours. This catches business owners, treasurers of foreign clubs, parents on a child's account, and adult children on an elderly parent's account.

What counts as a foreign financial account

• Checking and savings accounts at foreign banks
• Brokerage and investment accounts at foreign institutions
• Foreign mutual funds (also brings PFIC issues — see the PFIC trap)
• Foreign retirement and pension accounts (most of them — there are narrow exceptions)
• Foreign life insurance and annuity policies with cash value
• Cryptocurrency held on a foreign exchange (FinCEN proposed this; as of 2026 the formal rule has been pending for years but expect this to be reportable)

What's not an FBAR account:

• A U.S.-based account at a U.S. bank, even if you live abroad
• A foreign branch of a U.S. bank (Citi London, for example) is the murky middle — generally does require FBAR
• Real estate held directly (but a foreign account holding rental income does)
• Foreign-currency cash you keep under your mattress

When and how to file

• Due date: April 15. Automatically extended to October 15 every year. No form required for the extension.
• Filed: electronically at the BSA E-Filing website, separate from your 1040.
• No tax owed: FBAR is a report, not a tax. Filing it doesn't generate a bill.
• Joint filers: spouses can file a single joint FBAR if one spouse has signature authority over the other's accounts and they file jointly on the 1040 — most expats find it simpler to file individual FBARs.

What you report on each account

• Name of the financial institution and address
• Type of account
• Account number
• Maximum value during the year, in USD

You're expected to use the Treasury's exchange rate as of December 31 to convert the maximum balance. You don't need bank statements for every day — the year's-highest-balance number is what matters. Most people pull each account's highest balance from quarterly or monthly statements.

The penalties

This is where FBAR earns its reputation. Penalties are per account, per year, and the willful/non-willful distinction makes a 100x difference:

Violation	Civil penalty	Criminal
Non-willful failure	Up to $10,000 per violation (per account, per year)	None
Willful failure	Greater of $100,000 or 50% of account balance	Up to $500,000 + 10 years

The Supreme Court ruled in Bittner v. United States (2023) that non-willful penalties apply per FBAR form, not per account — so a non-willful filer with 20 accounts now faces $10,000 per year, not $200,000. Willful penalties remain per-account.

In practice, the IRS rarely applies maximum penalties to first-time non-willful violators who come forward voluntarily — but they have full discretion to do so, and they have done so.

FBAR vs. Form 8938 (FATCA)

These two reports overlap heavily but are not the same:

	FBAR (FinCEN 114)	Form 8938 (FATCA)
Filed with	U.S. Treasury (FinCEN)	IRS, with your 1040
Threshold (single, abroad)	$10,000 aggregate at any point	$200,000 year-end or $300,000 at any point
Includes signature-only accounts	Yes	No
Includes foreign stocks held outside an account	No	Yes
Penalties	$10K+ per FBAR (non-willful)	$10K initial + up to $50K continuing

If you have to file FBAR, you may or may not also need to file 8938. The thresholds are different and so is the scope. See What is FATCA? for the 8938 details.

What if you've never filed FBAR?

Three paths:

1. Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures. If you live abroad, qualify under the residency test, and your non-compliance was non-willful, this is the program. File the last 6 years of FBARs + 3 years of amended/delinquent 1040s, with no FBAR penalties and no income-tax penalties. See Streamlined filing procedures.

2. Delinquent FBAR Submission Procedures. If you don't have unreported U.S. tax (your income was fully reported, you just missed the FBAR), you can file the delinquent FBARs with a reasonable-cause statement. No penalty if the IRS accepts your statement.

3. Quiet disclosure — just starting to file from this year forward without addressing past years. Do not do this. It signals concealment and removes your access to the penalty-relief programs above.

The compliance routine

For anyone with foreign accounts, FBAR becomes an annual hygiene task:

1. Each January, pull the year's highest balance for every foreign account.
2. Convert at the Treasury year-end exchange rate.
3. Sum them. If aggregate > $10,000 at any point, you owe an FBAR.
4. File by October 15 (the auto-extended deadline) on the BSA website. Keep the confirmation.

For most expats this is a 30-minute task per year. For most expats who miss it, it's a five-figure problem.

Next steps

• Streamlined filing procedures — the fix for missed FBARs
• What is FATCA? — Form 8938, the IRS-side disclosure
• The PFIC trap — what happens if those foreign accounts hold mutual funds