FBAR, Form 8938 and Form 3520: which one is yours

Three forms get confused because they all have the word "foreign" in them. They answer three different questions.

The one-line version

Form	Question it answers	Trigger	Where it goes
FBAR (FinCEN Form 114)	Do you have accounts abroad?	Combined balance over $10,000 at any point in the year	FinCEN BSA e-filing site, online, free
Form 8938	Do you own foreign financial assets?	Over $50,000 (single, U.S. resident) and up, see table below	Attached to your Form 1040
Form 3520, Part IV	Did a foreign person give you money?	Over $100,000 from related nonresident individuals or estates; lower threshold for foreign companies	Mailed on paper to Ogden, Utah, separately

A down payment wired by parents in China or India to your U.S. bank account triggers Form 3520 only. The money is now in a U.S. account, so there is no FBAR; it is cash, not a foreign asset, so no Form 8938.

FBAR: accounts

The FBAR is not an IRS form at all; it goes to FinCEN, the Treasury's financial crimes unit. You file it if the combined maximum balances of all your foreign accounts (bank, brokerage, some insurance and pension accounts) exceeded $10,000 at any moment in the year. Accounts you merely have signature authority over count. It is filed online, there is no fee, and the due date is April 15 with an automatic extension to October 15. A non-willful failure can cost up to $16,536 per late report (inflation-adjusted, assessed on or after January 17, 2025; per report, not per account, after Bittner v. United States); willful failure is far worse. See FBAR late filing and penalties or check whether you need to file.

Form 8938: assets

Form 8938 comes from FATCA and overlaps heavily with the FBAR, but it is an IRS form attached to your return, and the thresholds are higher:

Filing status	Living in the U.S.	Living abroad
Single / separate	$50,000 year-end or $75,000 any time	$200,000 / $300,000
Married filing jointly	$100,000 / $150,000	$400,000 / $600,000

"Specified foreign financial assets" include foreign accounts, foreign stock and bonds held outside an account, interests in foreign entities, and foreign pension rights. Real estate held directly is not included. Consumer tax software supports this form.

Form 3520: gifts and inheritances

Form 3520 Part IV has nothing to do with what you own. It asks whether a nonresident alien individual, foreign estate, foreign corporation or foreign partnership gave you money or property during the year above the threshold. Gifts from related persons are added together. It is an information return: no tax, no payment, just disclosure.

It is also the odd one out mechanically. There is no e-file, TurboTax and Drake do not support it, and it is mailed separately from the return. The due date follows your return including extensions. The penalty for filing late is 5% of the gift per month, capped at 25%. Full details in the plain-English instructions and the late filing guide.

Common combinations

• Parents wired $150,000 to your U.S. account for a house. Form 3520. Nothing else.
• Parents deposited $150,000 into an account in your name back home. Form 3520 for the gift, FBAR for the account, Form 8938 if over the asset threshold.
• You inherited a flat abroad and sold it. Form 3520 for the bequest; the sale proceeds in a foreign account trigger FBAR/8938; the gain is reported on your 1040.
• You hold $20,000 in a foreign savings account and received no gifts. FBAR only.
• Your spouse, a U.S. citizen living abroad, gave you $200,000. None of the three: gifts from U.S. persons are not reported on Form 3520.

Check your own situation

The free Form 3520 checker decides the gift question in five answers. For FBAR and Form 8938, FinCEN's FBAR page and the IRS Form 8938 page have the current thresholds.

Self-prepared information returns. Not tax or legal advice. Not affiliated with the IRS or FinCEN. Thresholds as published for recent years; verify the current year.