The American nomad tax file.

The U.S. taxes you on where you hold a passport, not where you live.
It is one of the only countries that does.
As the IRS puts it: 'If you are a U.S. citizen or resident living or traveling outside the United States, you generally are required to file income tax returns... in the same way as those residing in the United States.'
That reaches your worldwide income, and it applies to citizens and resident aliens (green-card holders) alike, no matter where they live or where the money was earned.

You must file once your worldwide gross income hits the threshold for your filing status.
That threshold is the filing-requirements table in Pub 54 ch.1, which for under-65 filers equals the standard deduction.

Income you exclude under the FEIE (Form 2555), or the foreign housing amount, still counts as gross income when you test whether you have to file.
The exclusion lowers your tax. It does not remove the filing obligation.
Self-employed nomads must file the moment net SE earnings reach $400 or more, regardless of the standard-deduction threshold.

Post-OBBBA standard deduction, which is also the basic filing threshold (under 65):
TY2025 = $15,750 single / $31,500 MFJ.
TY2026 = $16,100 single / $32,200 MFJ.
Age-65+ adds a higher amount.

The most you can exclude from U.S. income tax, per qualifying person:
TY2025 = $130,000, the lesser of foreign income earned or $130,000.
TY2026 = $132,900.
A married couple both working and qualifying abroad can each take it, up to $260,000 combined for 2025.

You only get the exclusion if you actually file a return reporting the income.
The idea that excluded income need not be reported is a common myth.

Two ways to qualify, and either one needs a foreign tax home:
(1) the Physical Presence Test, 330 full days physically present in a foreign country during any 12 consecutive months;
(2) the Bona Fide Residence Test, an uninterrupted period that includes an entire tax year as a bona fide resident of a foreign country.
Qualify for only part of a year and the max prorates by qualifying days ÷ 365.

Figure housing first.
The foreign housing exclusion/deduction is generally capped at 30% of the max exclusion: $39,000 for 2025, $39,870 for 2026, and higher in some high-cost locations.
The FEIE is then limited to foreign earned income minus that housing exclusion, which is exactly why housing comes first.

The FEIE touches income tax only. That is the part people miss.
It does not exclude self-employment (SE) tax: you still owe the full 15.3%.
And it does not cover passive or unearned income, meaning interest, dividends, capital gains, rental, and pensions.

For the self-employed, the exclusion also shrinks pro-rata, reduced by expenses and the ½-SE-tax deduction allocable to excluded income.

If you paid or accrued foreign income taxes and the U.S. taxes the same income, you choose: a credit (Form 1116) or an itemized deduction (Schedule A).
The IRS is blunt about which: 'in most cases it is to your advantage to take foreign income taxes as a tax credit.'
The credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of your U.S. tax, so it typically beats the FEIE in high-tax countries, where the foreign tax you paid exceeds the U.S. tax on that income and can even generate carryforward credits.
It is also the tool of choice when income runs above the FEIE cap, or when it is passive, which the FEIE cannot touch.

You cannot do both on the same dollars.
Only income, war-profits and excess-profits taxes qualify at all.
The IRS states it plainly: 'If you elect to exclude either foreign earned income or foreign housing costs, you cannot take a foreign tax credit for taxes on income you exclude'.

Take the credit on excluded income and it can be treated as revoking your FEIE election.
Corporations use Form 1118 instead.

Excess credits can generally be carried back 1 year and forward 10 years, per the Form 1116 instructions.

If your foreign financial accounts together ever top $10,000 at any time in the calendar year, you must file an FBAR (FinCEN Form 114), under the Bank Secrecy Act.
It is the aggregate that matters, not any single account, and whether the account produced income is irrelevant.
Foreign bank accounts, brokerage accounts and mutual funds all count.

Filed with FinCEN, not the IRS.
You submit it electronically through FinCEN's BSA E-Filing System, and it is never attached to the federal tax return.

Due April 15, with an automatic extension to October 15. No request needed.
Keep your account records for 5 years.

Violations carry civil monetary penalties, criminal penalties, or both.
The Title 31 civil maximums are adjusted for inflation every year.

Willful versus non-willful matters enormously.
A willful penalty can reach the greater of ~$100k+ (inflation-adjusted) or 50% of the account balance per violation, plus potential criminal exposure.
If the IRS has not contacted you yet, file the late FBARs as soon as you can, or use the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures, to keep the penalties down.

Form 8938 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets) is a FATCA requirement.
It is attached to the income tax return and filed with the IRS, separate from and in addition to the FBAR. Many nomads must file both.

The thresholds are higher when you live abroad, and they turn on your filing status.
Living abroad, a single or other-than-joint filer must file if specified foreign assets exceed $200,000 on the last day of the year or $300,000 at any time during the year.
Joint filers: $400,000 last day, or $600,000 anytime.

Living in the U.S. the bars drop sharply: unmarried $50,000 last day / $75,000 anytime; MFJ $100,000 / $150,000; MFS $50,000 / $75,000.

Do not confuse it with the FBAR.
8938 is a tax-return form, its expat thresholds sit much higher, and it covers a broader set of specified foreign financial assets, including certain foreign stock or interests held outside accounts.
The FBAR, by contrast, is a FinCEN filing at a flat $10,000.

No income tax return required means no 8938, even if your assets exceed the threshold.

Here is the one that catches nomads: the FEIE does not exclude SE tax.
Even if all your income is FEIE-excluded from income tax, a self-employed U.S. citizen abroad still owes the full 15.3% SE tax on net earnings.
That 15.3% is 12.4% Social Security (OASDI) plus 2.9% Medicare, owed by anyone with net self-employment earnings of $400+.
The 12.4% Social Security portion applies only up to the annual wage base: the IRS page states $168,600 for 2024, the base is indexed annually, and 2025 is $176,100 per SSA.
The 2.9% Medicare portion has no cap.

An additional 0.9% Medicare Tax applies to earnings over $200,000 (single) / $250,000 (MFJ).
You may deduct the employer-equivalent half of SE tax against income tax, but not against the SE tax itself.
Totalization agreements are the way out: the U.S. has ~30 bilateral Social Security treaties (Italy, Germany, UK, Canada, France, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Spain, and more).

Their whole purpose is to eliminate dual Social Security taxation.
A self-employed nomad covered under a partner country's social security system, holding a certificate of coverage, can be exempt from U.S. SE tax on that income.

Without an agreement, nothing gets you out of SE tax, not the FEIE, not the FTC.

If you expect to owe $1,000 or more when the return is filed, you generally must make estimated tax payments via Form 1040-ES.
That is most self-employed nomads, whose SE tax and income tax are not withheld.
The safe harbor avoids the underpayment penalty: pay at least 90% of the current year's tax or 100% of the prior year's return, whichever is smaller.
Higher-income taxpayers owe 110% of the prior year instead, per Pub 505.

Four periods, four due dates: roughly Apr 15, Jun 15, Sep 15, and Jan 15 of the following year, shifting to the next business day on weekends and holidays.

Underpay by a due date and you can be penalized even if you are owed a refund at filing.
Use Form 2210 to compute any penalty.
Income received unevenly can be annualized so the payments can be unequal.

Pay through IRS Direct Pay, EFTPS, your online account, IRS2Go, or mailed 1040-ES vouchers.

Going expat federally does not end your state tax obligations.
States tax based on domicile, and there is no state-level equivalent of the FEIE.
A handful of sticky states (practitioner consensus, not an official list) scrutinize departing residents and can keep taxing you until you clearly establish domicile elsewhere:
California, whose FTB defines a resident broadly, domiciled or present for other than a temporary purpose, and audits residency aggressively.
Virginia, where a domiciliary resident stays taxable until Virginia domicile is abandoned and a new one acquired.
New Mexico, where domicile continues until a new one is established, and 185-day presence also triggers residency.
And South Carolina, where domicile continues until abandoned and a new domicile acquired.

Nine states levy no broad individual income tax on wages:
Florida, Texas, Washington (which has a limited capital-gains excise tax), Nevada, Tennessee (Hall investment tax fully repealed), South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, and New Hampshire (no wage tax; the old interest/dividends tax was fully repealed for tax periods beginning Jan 1, 2025).

Intent alone is never enough. States weigh a pattern of actions.
Sell or lease out the old home and establish a primary home in the new state.
Get a new-state driver's license, vehicle registration, and voter registration, and cancel the old ones.
Move your banking, business location, and account mailing addresses.
Relocate your spouse and minor children and your social and community ties.
Then file part-year, then nonresident, returns for the old state.

If you have no U.S. base, establish domicile in a no-income-tax state, commonly FL, TX, or SD, before going abroad, so a sticky state does not trail you out.

Live overseas (or in the military abroad) on the regular due date and you get an automatic 2-month extension to file. No request needed.
The calendar for Americans abroad:
April 15 is the regular due date.
June 15 is the automatic extension for those abroad.
October 15 is the further extension, reached by filing Form 4868 before that June 15 date.

An extension extends time to file, not time to pay.

The IRS states it directly: 'Even if you are allowed an extension, you will have to pay interest on any tax not paid by the regular due date of your return'.
Interest accrues from April 15 on any unpaid balance, regardless of the abroad extension.
If a due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, it moves to the next business day.

Separately, the FBAR is due April 15 with an automatic October 15 extension.

Crypto and other virtual-currency transactions are taxable property transactions, and you must report them.
Every Form 1040 carries the digital-asset question right on the front.
1099-K, current law per the IRS (updated 28-Jun-2026): a third-party settlement organization (a payment app or marketplace like PayPal, Stripe, Etsy) must issue a 1099-K once your goods and services payments exceed $20,000 AND more than 200 transactions.

The prior $600 / $2,500 phase-in thresholds were rolled back, restoring the $20,000/200 threshold.

Whether or not a 1099-K arrives, all income must be reported.
NIIT, the Net Investment Income Tax, is a 3.8% tax on the lesser of net investment income (interest, dividends, capital gains, rental/royalty income, non-qualified annuities) or the amount by which modified AGI exceeds the statutory threshold: $200,000 single/HoH, $250,000 MFJ, $125,000 MFS.
The FEIE does not reduce NIIT, since it only touches earned income, and NIIT is separate from the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax.
You can owe both, just not on the same dollars.

NIIT thresholds are not inflation-indexed.
Cross these MAGI thresholds with an investment portfolio and you owe NIIT even while living abroad.