FBAR for H-1B Holders With NRE and NRO Accounts: October 15, 2026 Deadline Guide

The FBAR requirement comes from the Bank Secrecy Act and its regulation at 31 CFR 1010.350. FinCEN owns the form, and the IRS enforces it on FinCEN’s behalf, which is why the IRS website explains it and the IRS assesses the penalties. The report lists each foreign financial account you had a financial interest in, or signature authority over, during the calendar year, along with the highest value each account reached.

Because it is an information report, there is no tax computed on the FBAR and no payment attached to it. Any tax on interest your Indian accounts earned is handled separately on your Form 1040. A large balance does not create a tax bill by itself; it only has to be disclosed.

FinCEN grants every filer an automatic extension from April 15 to October 15, so a 2025 FBAR filed on or before October 15, 2026 is on time even if you never asked for more time. Form 4868, the automatic extension for your income tax return, has nothing to do with it. The two deadlines happen to land on the same day for people who extended their 1040, which is why they are often confused.

Only a “United States person” files an FBAR. That means a U.S. citizen, a green card holder, or a “resident alien” under the income tax residency rules in section 7701(b) of the Internal Revenue Code. For H-1B and H-4 holders, the test that matters is the substantial presence test. Your visa type does not decide it; your days in the country do.

You meet the substantial presence test for 2025 if you were physically in the United States on at least 31 days in 2025, and the following total reaches 183: every day you were present in 2025, plus one-third of your days in 2024, plus one-sixth of your days in 2023. Any part of a day counts as a day. H-1B and H-4 days always count. F-1 and J-1 student days generally do not count for the first five calendar years, because students are “exempt individuals.”

The IRS manual on FBAR enforcement (IRM 4.26.16) is explicit on two points that trip up visa holders. A work-visa holder who does not meet the substantial presence test is not a U.S. resident for FBAR purposes. And a first-year choice under section 7701(b)(4) does make you a resident for FBAR, while an election under section 6013(g) or 6013(h) to file a joint return with your spouse does not. You can run your own numbers with our substantial presence test calculator.

Full-year H-1B. If you worked in the United States through all of 2025, you were a resident alien for the whole year and file a regular Form 1040. You are a U.S. person for the FBAR. This is the most common situation and the one with the least room for doubt.

Arrived on H-1B in mid-2025. Someone who landed on June 15, 2025 for the first time was present 200 days in 2025, which passes 183 on its own. Their residency starting date is June 15, so they are a dual-status taxpayer for 2025 and a U.S. person for the FBAR. The form asks for the maximum value of each account during the calendar year and does not provide for a partial-year value, so the conservative practice is to report the highest balance for all of 2025, including the months before arrival. If you arrived on August 1, 2025 instead, you had only 153 days. You would not meet the test for 2025, and you would have no 2025 FBAR unless you make the first-year choice described next.

F-1 or OPT to H-1B on October 1, 2025. This is the classic cap-gap case for Indian students. If your F-1 days were within your first five calendar years as a student, they do not count, so your 2025 count is the 92 days from October 1 to December 31. That is short of 183, so by default you are a nonresident for all of 2025 and have no FBAR for 2025. Your first FBAR will be for 2026, due April 15, 2027. Two exceptions change this. If you were a student for any part of more than five calendar years (for example, you arrived in August 2020, so 2020 through 2024 were your five exempt years), your 2025 F-1 days count and you are almost certainly a full-year resident. And if you make the first-year choice on your 2025 return, which is available because you will meet the test for 2026, you become a resident from October 1 and the FBAR applies. Our guide to the F-1 to H-1B dual-status tax year explains the return side.

H-4 spouse who arrived late in 2025. H-4 days count in full, but a spouse who arrived on November 10, 2025 had only 52 days, so she was a nonresident for 2025 and files no 2025 FBAR of her own. Choosing to file a joint 1040 with the H-1B spouse under section 6013(g) or (h) does not change that for FBAR purposes. Any account she holds jointly with the H-1B spouse still goes on his FBAR at its full value. She will most likely be a U.S. person for 2026.

Left the U.S. in 2025. An H-1B worker who lived here through 2024 and flew home on June 30, 2025 had 181 days in 2025, plus 122 days (one-third of 366) for 2024, plus about 61 days (one-sixth of 365) for 2023. That is roughly 364 weighted days, well over 183. They were a resident for part of 2025 and still owe a 2025 FBAR, even though they now live in India. Leaving does not cancel the report for the year you were here.

The threshold is not $10,000 per account and it is not your balance on December 31. You add up the maximum value each account reached at any point in 2025, convert each to dollars at 89.854, and ask whether the total is more than $10,000. If it is, you report every foreign account, including ones with tiny balances. If it is $10,000 or less, you file nothing.

In rupee terms, the line sits at Rs 8,98,540. An aggregate of Rs 8,98,540 is exactly $10,000 and does not trigger a filing. One more rupee does, because the rule is “exceeds $10,000.”

None of these three accounts is close to $10,000 alone, and a quick look at the December statements might suggest no filing is needed. But the test adds the peaks. The maximums do not have to occur on the same day, either. The NRE savings peak could be in February and the NRO peak in September; you still add them.

The “any day” rule matters most for NRO accounts that receive a lump sum. Say your NRO account sat at Rs 2,00,000 for most of the year, but on March 10, 2025 your parents deposited Rs 7,50,000 from a plot sale before you moved it into an FD a week later. The NRO account’s maximum value for 2025 is Rs 9,50,000, or $10,573, which crosses the threshold by itself even though the December balance was a fraction of that.

Money that moves between your own accounts can be counted twice. If Rs 5,00,000 went from NRO savings into an NRE FD in June, both accounts show that amount as part of their maximums, and the aggregate test sees Rs 10,00,000. That is how the rule works, and it is one reason people with modest savings end up over the line.

Indian banks offer three account types to non-residents, and all three are foreign financial accounts for the FBAR. The labels are Indian regulatory categories under FEMA. They say nothing about U.S. reporting.

The NRE “tax-free” myth. NRE interest is exempt in India under section 10(4)(ii) of the Income-tax Act, and bank staff describe NRE accounts as tax-free. That exemption is Indian law only. A U.S. resident alien is taxed on worldwide income, so NRE interest belongs on your Form 1040 and on Schedule B. Our explainer on NRE and NRO interest for U.S. taxpayers covers how to report it and claim credit for NRO tax deducted in India. If you left NRE interest off a filed return, see how to amend with Form 1040-X.

Schedule B, Part III. Line 7a asks whether you had a financial interest in or signature authority over a foreign financial account at any time in 2025. The IRS instructions say to check “Yes” even if you are not required to file the FBAR. If you do file, line 7b asks for the country, which is India. The IRS manual treats a wrong or blank answer on this line as a significant fact when it judges whether an FBAR failure was willful, so answer it carefully on the return you file by October 15.

Every FD is its own account. Indian banks give each fixed deposit its own deposit or account number. On the FBAR, each one is a separate line with its own maximum value. Five NRE FDs at one branch means five entries, plus the savings account they were funded from.

Auto-renewing FDs. When an FD matures and renews, many banks issue a new deposit number. If a deposit renewed during 2025 under a new number, list both the old and the new number for 2025. The maximum value for the renewed deposit includes the interest that was rolled in.

Sweep accounts. Auto-sweep facilities quietly move surplus savings into linked deposits and break them when you spend. A year of sweeps can create a dozen deposit numbers you never opened yourself. Ask the bank for a list of every deposit linked to your account in 2025 and report each one. FCNR(B) deposits, covered in our FCNR(B) explainer, follow the same one-deposit, one-line rule.

Bank accounts are only part of the picture. The FBAR definition of a financial account includes securities and brokerage accounts, mutual fund shares, and insurance or annuity policies with a cash value. Each of these counts toward the $10,000 test as well as going on the report.

Joint accounts with parents are the most common surprise. Many H-1B workers are second holders on a father’s or mother’s savings account opened years ago. If you are a joint owner, you report the entire value of the account, not your share. If you are only a mandate holder who can operate the account, that is signature authority, which is also reportable.

Indian mutual funds also carry a separate U.S. tax form, Form 8621, because they are passive foreign investment companies. See our guide to PFIC rules for Indian mutual funds, and our explainer on U.S. tax rules for EPF, PPF and NPS. A dedicated account-by-account checklist is coming this week.

Each spouse is a separate filer. Married filing jointly on your 1040 does not combine your FBARs, and your tax filing status has no effect on the FBAR at all. What matters is whether each spouse was a U.S. person for 2025 and which accounts each one owns.

There is one shortcut. A spouse does not have to file a separate FBAR if every foreign account that spouse must report is owned jointly with the filing spouse, the filing spouse reports those joint accounts on a timely FBAR, and both spouses complete and sign FinCEN Form 114a. You keep Form 114a in your records; you do not send it to FinCEN. If even one account is in the H-4 spouse’s name alone, the shortcut fails and both spouses file their own FBARs, each reporting the full value of every joint account.

Take a couple who both lived in the U.S. all of 2025. They share a joint NRE account with a 2025 peak of Rs 12,00,000 ($13,355). The wife also has an NRO account in her own name from before her marriage, with a peak of Rs 1,00,000 ($1,113). Because of that one sole account, she cannot rely on Form 114a. The husband files an FBAR showing the joint NRE at $13,355. The wife files her own FBAR showing the joint NRE at $13,355 and her NRO at $1,113.

If the H-4 spouse was not a U.S. person for 2025, she files nothing for 2025, and the H-1B spouse lists any joint accounts with her as joint accounts on his report. Children who are U.S. persons with their own Indian accounts over the threshold have their own FBAR obligation, which a parent signs for them.

Individuals use the “File FBAR” option on the BSA E-Filing System, which needs no account or registration. There is no paper version for current-year filers. A detailed screen-by-screen walkthrough is in a separate guide; the short version is below.

Then work through these steps:

Each account is valued on its own, and a negative value is entered as zero. FCNR(B) deposits held in dollars are reported at their dollar maximum with no conversion. Keep the statements you used for five years from the FBAR due date, along with account names, numbers, bank addresses and maximum values.

The FBAR is one of three forms an Indian H-1B worker with savings at home may need, and all three can be due October 15, 2026 if you extended your 2025 return. The other two go inside the Form 1040, not to FinCEN, and they use different thresholds. Filing one never satisfies another.

A single H-1B worker with Rs 60 lakh in Indian FDs (about $66,775) at the end of 2025 would need both the FBAR and Form 8938. The same worker with Rs 15 lakh ($16,694) needs only the FBAR. Our comparison of FBAR vs FATCA for NRIs and the Form 8938 essentials guide go deeper.