Did your accounts cross the FBAR threshold?
The $10,000 trigger is aggregate and measured at each account's highest point in the year — not a year-end snapshot, and not per account.
Figures on this page are stated for tax year 2025/26 UK · 2025 US. Thresholds change annually.
How to run the check yourself
List every non-US account you own, co-own or can sign on: current, savings, ISAs, many pensions, even accounts you manage for others. For each, find its single highest balance during the calendar year, convert to dollars at the year-end Treasury rate, and add them all together.
If the total exceeds $10,000, every account on the list is reportable — including the one holding £3.50. Transfers between your own accounts count twice, which is how modest balances cross the line.
- Include joint accounts and signature-authority accounts
- Use each account's annual maximum, not the year-end figure
- One total over $10,000 makes every account reportable
Crossed it in a past year too?
Missed FBARs are the most fixable problem in expat tax — the delinquent-FBAR procedures and Streamlined programme both remove the penalties entirely when used before the IRS writes first. What matters is sequencing the fix, not rushing this year's form.
Add each account's highest balance of the year
A quick orientation, not advice — real positions have edges this cannot see.
Enter at least one balance to see your result.
Questions we get about this
Bank, investment and brokerage accounts, many pensions, and some insurance products with a cash value.
Also accounts you do not own but control, such as a business account or one where you hold signature authority.
The threshold is absolute rather than proportionate - crossing it by a small amount creates the same obligation as crossing it by a large one.
There is no de minimis relief, which is why marginal cases still need filing.
Treat it as a starting point. If it says an obligation applies, the next question is what the filing actually involves and whether earlier years are affected.
If it says nothing applies, it is worth re-running whenever your circumstances change - a move, a property, a new account.
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding. It is the combined high balance across all your non-US financial accounts.
Several small accounts can cross the line together even though none of them is close on its own.
The highest balance the account reached at any point during the year, not the closing balance.
Money that passed through briefly - a property deposit, a transfer between accounts - still counts toward the aggregate.
It covers the common cases and will tell you reliably whether the basics apply to you. It is a guide, not a filing position.
Edge cases - trusts, business ownership, unusual residence patterns - can change the answer, which is why the result flags when a position is worth checking properly.
Related pages
- Free tool
Foreign Earned Income Exclusion
See what the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion covers for your tax year, which qualification test you meet, and when foreign tax credits beat it in the UK.
- Pillar guide
Tax specialists for US and UK
What US and UK tax specialists handle that a general accountant does not: residence tests, treaty relief, FBAR, PFICs, pensions, property and catch-up filings.
- Glossary
FBAR: definition
The Foreign Bank Account Report — FinCEN Form 114 — and its $10,000 aggregate trigger.
- Service
FBAR & FATCA reporting
FBAR (FinCEN 114) and FATCA (Form 8938) preparation: thresholds checked, accounts aggregated, and both reports filed alongside the return they belong to.
- Service
Streamlined catch-up filing
Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures: 3 years of returns, 6 years of FBARs and the non-wilful certification, with no penalty on the Foreign route.
- Glossary
Streamlined Procedures: definition
The catch-up route: 3 years of returns, 6 of FBARs, one certification — penalty-free on the Foreign route.
Further reading
- Form 8938 vs the FBAR: two reports, one set of accounts
Same accounts, two different reports, two different agencies. Here is what separates the FATCA form from the FBAR, and why many expats file both.
- FBAR filing cost: what's free, what isn't, and what drives fees
The government charges nothing to file an FBAR. So where do the fees come from, when is paying someone worth it, and what does skipping it cost?
Last reviewed · Figures stated for tax year 2025/26 UK · 2025 US. Thresholds and rates change annually — check figures against the current tax year before relying on them.
Got your answer and it looks complicated?
These tools are deliberately simple, and real positions rarely are. Send us what you found and we will confirm it properly.