If you are a US citizen or resident earning wages overseas (or from a US employer), here is what usually applies, what the Standard plan covers, and what it leaves out.
See the Standard planEligible 2025 federal returns
A salary abroad does not automatically mean no US tax is due. These are the pieces that decide it.
You may qualify to exclude eligible foreign earned income if you meet the foreign tax-home requirement and either the residence or the physical-presence requirement.
The Standard plan includes eligible exclusion calculations.
Eligible foreign income taxes can reduce your US income tax through a credit. The credit has limits, and foreign tax withheld is not automatically the credit you can claim.
The Standard plan includes foreign tax credit cases, with limits.
Your US return must report US dollars. For many pay and expense questions you can enter the foreign amount, and the software converts it at the IRS yearly average rate, recording the rate and its source.
Form 8938 values, and foreign tax where the rate on the day you paid it applies, you enter in US dollars. Other foreign tax is converted for you at the IRS yearly average rate.
For an eligible case, the interview uses your answers to calculate and prepare the supported forms. You check the answer summary, review your return on screen and read the PDF before signing.
The interview asks about each employer.
For a foreign employer you give the pay and service details; W-2 details are asked for where that form applies.
In US dollars or in another currency the interview offers.
The country or place where you did the work.
For a salary abroad, bank interest, and ordinary dividends.
Eligible federal returns: 2025 is e-filed, and 2019 to 2024 are prepared on paper for you to sign and mail. The foreign tax credit includes unused foreign tax carried over from earlier years: Schedule B of Form 1116 is filed from 2021, and for 2019 and 2020, which have no Schedule B, the carryover computation is attached to Form 1116 as a statement. Income and expenses entered in another currency are converted at the IRS yearly average rate, and we write the conversion explanation for any foreign tax we convert. When a foreign tax must use the rate on the day you paid it, you enter the dollar amount and attach your own short explanation before e-filing. Changing the credit on an earlier return, four special income categories, and expenses listed against foreign income are excluded. A past revocation of the income exclusion is handled; an IRS-approved re-election within five years is excluded, as are some credit claims. Retirement and savings forms are prepared for you or your spouse at no extra charge, for 2019 to 2025: Form 5329 covers the 10% early-distribution tax, with the exception you state, checked against its limit (an amount above it is refused by name) and against the year it began, and the extra tax on an excess IRA or health savings account contribution; Form 8606 covers nondeductible IRA contributions, conversions and Roth IRA distributions; Form 8880 covers the retirement savings contribution credit; and Form 8889 covers a health savings account, one form per account holder. Schedule 1 includes educator expenses (a school outside the United States is not prepared), student loan interest (refused beside some foreign tax credit claims), the early withdrawal penalty and the self-employed SEP, SIMPLE and qualified plan deduction. Form 5695 covers the residential energy credits for a home in the United States, for 2019 to 2025; insulation, exterior doors, windows and skylights count only for a main home you owned, and where more than 20% of an item's use is for business, only the personal share counts. Forms 8919 and 8801 (uncollected Social Security and Medicare tax on wages, and the credit for prior year minimum tax) are prepared for 2025 returns only. Form 8862 is prepared, for 2019 to 2025, when you claim a child or education credit (the child tax credit, the credit for other dependents or the American opportunity credit) that the IRS disallowed in an earlier year. The earned income credit part of Form 8862 is not completed. Form 3520 Part IV reports gifts and bequests from foreign persons, for 2019 to 2025, on its own paper filing, apart from your return, that you mail; in a streamlined package it goes with the return, and an amended return that changes the gifts comes with an amended Form 3520, mailed on its own (Parts I to III, for foreign trusts, are not prepared). The 2021 child tax credit is prepared on the 2021 paper return, with your Letter 6419 figures. Form 4952 covers investment interest deducted on Schedule A, for 2025 returns only: the interest paid, including a K-1's, last year's carryforward, investment income from interest, dividends, annuities, K-1s and your own royalties, your royalties' costs, and your choice to count qualified dividends or long-term gains. Gains count only from investments, not a home, a business or rental sale or a passive activity. Interest entered as a cost of your own royalty is counted on it too, and the form is then filed even with the standard deduction; a K-1 from a trading business you do not take part in counts from its statement's split of box 1. Some of the interest being for your royalty property (or not knowing), even with the standard deduction, until you enter that part as a cost of the royalty, a K-1's capital gains or losses where they could change the deduction or your choice to count long-term gains, a K-1's investment expenses (code B) where they could change the deduction, that choice beside Form 1116, the alternative minimum tax's second Form 4952 where it could change that tax, and a limited deduction shared between a royalty's or a trading K-1's interest and other investment interest are refused by name. Form 8833 prepares a treaty disclosure from a position you supply, for 2019 to 2025; personal treaty advice is not included. Check the form details for your situation.
Standard fits the income on this page when your complete return stays within coverage. A salary does not make every other income type or form eligible.
Some of these sit in another plan; others are not included in any. Check the forms your return needs before choosing a plan.
| Situation | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| Eligible investment sales, with or without Form 1099-B | Investor plan |
| Rental and royalty income (Schedule E Part I) | Investor plan |
| Limited Form 8938 preparation | Investor plan |
| Digital-asset sales (Form 8949 boxes G to L) | Not included in the plans |
| Changing the credit on an earlier return, four special income categories, expenses listed against foreign income | Not included in the plans |
| An IRS-approved re-election of the exclusion within five years | Not included in the plans |
| Statutory-employee cases | Excluded |
| State returns | Not prepared. The state check tells you whether a state may expect one, or to check with the state where we have no saved rules |
| FBAR filing | Prepared separately, $59 per person, not in the plan price |
| Accountant review or personal tax advice | Not included |
Keeping your original figures beside your answers is good practice (general record-keeping advice, not an IRS rule).
Not automatically zero. US citizens and resident aliens generally follow US filing rules while abroad, and whether you must file depends on things like gross income from worldwide sources and filing status. Exclusions and credits have requirements, and how they interact matters.
No. The interview asks whether each employer is outside the United States and, for a foreign employer, asks for the pay and service details instead. W-2 details are asked for where that form applies.
Not for that alone. Bank interest and ordinary dividends are in the Standard plan. A separate reporting form, such as a foreign account report, may still be needed depending on your facts; this page does not decide that.
A foreign tax credit cannot be claimed for taxes on income you exclude. Which approach suits you depends on your facts; the interview prepares the forms from your answers for an eligible case.
Yes. The interview asks about your spouse's US status. On a separate return, a spouse who is neither a US citizen nor a US resident and has never been issued a US tax number can be left without one.
Create an account and answer the interview. You review your return on screen before paying, and you pay before you open the PDF, sign and we e-file it with the IRS. The product is software for preparing your own return.
Check the supported situations and form limits for an eligible 2025 federal return, then start your return.
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