Do you need to file? Find out in five questions.
Citizenship, residence, income and account balances decide which returns and disclosures apply to you. Answer the questions below and get a straight answer — no email address required.
Why the answer is rarely obvious
US obligations follow citizenship; UK obligations follow residence. Live across both systems and the triggers stack: an income threshold here, an aggregate account balance there, and disclosure forms that exist entirely apart from the tax return.
This checker covers the common triggers. It will not catch every edge — state filings, trusts, business ownership — but it will tell you whether the basics apply.
Answer five questions for a straight answer
A quick orientation, not advice — real positions have edges this cannot see.
Answer all five questions to see your result.
Questions we get about this
State filings, business ownership, trusts and unusual residence patterns sit outside the questions here.
Those are exactly the areas where the answer most often differs from the general rule, so treat a clear result as provisional if any apply.
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.
Because the two systems trigger on different things. US obligations follow citizenship, UK obligations follow residence, and the disclosure forms sit apart from the tax return entirely.
Live across both and the triggers stack, which is how people end up owing a filing they have never heard of.
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.
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser and gives you the answer on screen.
Nothing is stored and nothing is sent to us unless you choose to get in touch afterwards.
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Further reading
- Do you need to file a US tax return from abroad?
Owing nothing is not the same as not filing. The duty follows citizenship, the thresholds are lower than people assume, and some forms apply regardless of income.
- Married to a Briton: the filing status choice that follows
Marry a Briton and your American return changes shape. The default status carries a $5 filing threshold, and the alternative pulls their income into the US net.
Last reviewed . 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.