A US federal law requiring foreign financial institutions to report information about accounts held by US citizens and tax residents to the IRS. It's the single most important piece of legislation shaping citizenship by investment planning for US persons. FATCA doesn't care where you hold your second passport—if you're a US citizen, the IRS gets told about your accounts everywhere. This is why some US citizens seriously consider renouncing citizenship.
FATCA was enacted in 2010 as part of the HIRE Act. The context matters: the US Treasury had spent decades watching wealthy Americans move money offshore to avoid taxation. Swiss banks were notorious for holding American wealth quietly. Cayman Islands companies would own US real estate while shielding the beneficial owner's identity. The IRS couldn't see the money or the taxpayers. FATCA was designed to change that.
The law requires non-US banks, investment firms, insurance companies, and other financial institutions to identify and report accounts held by US persons. A "US person" includes US citizens, green card holders, and anyone meeting the substantial presence test (roughly, anyone physically present in the US for more than 183 days over a three-year period). Once identified, these accounts must be reported to the IRS.
Congress essentially outsourced IRS enforcement to the entire global banking system. Every foreign bank became an unpaid IRS agent. This was intentional and leveraged.
Here's the truth: if you're a US citizen acquiring a second passport through citizenship by investment, FATCA doesn't care. You acquire the new citizenship, open a bank account in your new country, and the IRS finds out. The bank is required to report it. There's no escape through acquiring a second passport unless you renounce US citizenship.
This is the single biggest reason US citizens seriously consider renunciation. A US citizen acquiring Dominica citizenship while maintaining US citizenship still has to report all foreign accounts to the IRS. The FATCA reporting requirement doesn't disappear. The tax obligations don't disappear. The second passport provides other benefits (visa-free travel, alternative residency), but it doesn't provide tax privacy.
For someone with significant assets or income from non-US sources, FATCA reporting is ongoing, detailed, and expensive to manage. Many wealthy US citizens accept FATCA compliance as the cost of US citizenship. Others, particularly those with substantial non-US-source wealth, find the compliance burden and the principle of global taxation (taxing citizens on worldwide income regardless of where they live) so objectionable that they pursue renunciation. See Citizenship Renunciation for the complications there.
Foreign financial institutions (FFIs) must sign agreements with the IRS or comply through intergovernmental agreements (IGAs). The IGA is the more common mechanism—it's simpler for banks because they report to their own government, which then forwards the data to the IRS, rather than reporting directly to the IRS.
There are two models of IGAs. A Model 1 IGA (the most common structure) has the FFI report to its own government's tax authority, which then exchanges information with the IRS. A Model 2 IGA has FFIs report directly to the IRS. Most countries chose Model 1 because it feels less like surrendering sovereignty to the US tax system.
The practical result is the same: your foreign bank account gets reported. If you're a US citizen with a bank account in Malta, the Maltese bank reports it to the Maltese tax authority, which then provides that information to the IRS. The data reaches the IRS either way.
FFIs must report the account holder's name, tax identification number, account number, account balance, and gross receipts from the account. For US persons, this is comprehensive financial visibility.
The stick that forced global compliance is the 30% withholding tax. Any FFI that doesn't comply faces a 30% withholding tax on all US-source payments passing through it. So if a non-compliant bank receives a dividend from a US corporation, or interest from a US Treasury bond, or any payment from a US source, 30% gets withheld.
In practice, this makes non-compliance impossible for any bank that touches the US financial system. A global bank with millions of dollars in daily US-source payments can't survive a 30% withholding tax. So even banks in countries that philosophically opposed FATCA compliance found they had no practical choice. The threat was credible and severe.
This mechanism is why FATCA worked as a compliance tool, despite its controversial nature. No negotiation or diplomatic pressure was needed. The economics did the work. Banks either complied or got cut off from the US financial system.
Over 300,000 FFIs in 113 jurisdictions have registered with the IRS FATCA registration system. This includes major global banks, regional banks, investment firms, insurance companies, and pension funds. Virtually every institution that touches the US financial system participates.
The administrative burden has been enormous. Each FFI had to conduct due diligence on existing accounts, implement new reporting systems, train staff on FATCA rules, and maintain ongoing compliance. For smaller banks in developing countries, FATCA compliance costs were substantial relative to their size.
Some banks simply chose to stop accepting US clients rather than deal with the compliance burden. A small regional bank in Southeast Asia might decide that the handful of US customers isn't worth the FATCA infrastructure costs. This created a secondary effect where some US citizens found it difficult to open new accounts abroad because banks saw US persons as compliance headaches.
US persons have to file not just FATCA reports but also FinCEN Form 114, commonly called the FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report). This is a separate requirement from FATCA, which creates confusion and additional compliance burden.
The FBAR requirement applies if you have foreign bank accounts totaling more than $10,000 in aggregate at any point during the year. The threshold is low and the definition of "bank account" is broad. If you have a savings account and an investment account and a currency account, all at different banks, and they collectively exceed $10,000 at any point, you file an FBAR.
FATCA reporting (Form 8938, Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets) has higher thresholds. For single filers, the threshold is $200,000 on the last day of the year. For married couples, it's $400,000. These thresholds are adjusted for inflation annually.
Both exist. Both are mandatory. You can't file FATCA without FBAR or vice versa—they're separate requirements with overlapping scope. Penalties for non-compliance are severe. The FBAR penalty is $10,000 per violation for non-willful violations and up to $50,000 per violation for willful violations (where willfulness means knowing about the requirement and ignoring it, not necessarily intent to evade taxes). FATCA penalties can be up to $50,000 as well.
For a US person with multiple foreign accounts, managing both FBAR and FATCA compliance is an annual compliance exercise. Most use tax preparers who specialize in international tax issues.
FATCA has been called American financial imperialism. It forces the entire global banking system to act as unpaid IRS agents. It extraterritorially applies US tax law to foreign institutions. Compliance costs for foreign banks have been estimated at billions of dollars collectively.
Some banks have made business decisions to simply stop accepting US clients rather than deal with the reporting burden. This has real consequences for Americans living and working abroad. They find it harder to open accounts, access banking services, or conduct business because banks view US persons as regulatory liabilities.
The philosophical critique is sharp: the US taxes its citizens on worldwide income, which is unusual among developed countries. Most countries tax based on residence or source. The US taxes on citizenship. Combined with FATCA, this means the US government considers itself entitled to tax information about US citizens' financial lives regardless of where in the world they live or where the accounts are held. Critics argue this is overreach.
The counterargument from the US Treasury is straightforward: FATCA prevents tax evasion by making it nearly impossible to hide assets offshore. It levels the playing field for US persons who can't evade taxes the way they could before.
Both arguments have merit.
For US citizens considering citizenship by investment partly to eventually renounce US citizenship, FATCA creates a final complication. If you renounce, FATCA doesn't simply stop applying. The "covered expatriate" rules require you to file FATCA reports for five years after renunciation. Your new country's government still reports your accounts to the IRS.
Additionally, if the IRS determines that your renunciation was tax-motivated (meaning the primary purpose or one of the principal purposes was to avoid US taxation), they can impose an exit tax on unrealized capital gains. You're essentially deemed to have sold all your assets at fair market value on the day you renounce, and you owe tax on the gains. This can be substantial for someone with appreciated real estate or investment portfolios.
The IRS has broad discretion in determining tax motivation. If you renounce and your net worth is above a threshold ($2 million adjusted annually), or your average income tax liability over the prior five years exceeded a threshold ($186,000 adjusted annually), you're presumed to be tax-motivated unless you prove otherwise. The burden shifts to you to show that tax avoidance wasn't a principal reason for renouncing.
This creates a real trap: US citizens who want to renounce to escape FATCA can't simply walk away. The exit tax and the continued reporting obligations follow them. Proper planning requires understanding these consequences well in advance.