Late FBARs after the IRS withdrew its procedure

What did the delinquent FBAR submission procedures offer?

They offered a published statement of IRS practice. A person who had reported and paid tax on all the income from their foreign accounts, and had not been contacted by the IRS, could file the missing FBARs late with an explanation, and the IRS said it would not impose a penalty for the late filing.

The conditions were narrow. The filer could not be under a civil examination or a criminal investigation, and could not already have been contacted about the missing reports. The income from the accounts had to be on the US returns for the years concerned, with the tax paid. Where that was true, the only failure was the report itself.

It suited a common UK pattern. A US citizen files a full return every year, declares the interest on a UK savings account, and has never heard of the separate FBAR, which goes to FinCEN and not to the IRS and is required once foreign accounts together exceed $10,000 at any time in the year. Nothing was hidden and no tax was lost. The procedure let that person file the back years without the cost of a streamlined submission.

It was never law. It was a web page describing how the IRS would exercise its discretion, and it could be changed without notice. The statute that sets the penalties and the defences to them sat behind it throughout and has not been amended.

What has the IRS changed about late FBARs in 2026?

The IRS removed the delinquent FBAR submission procedures page from its website around the start of July 2026. There was no announcement and no replacement procedure. The old address now returns an error, and the remaining guidance is a short passage on the main IRS FBAR page.

That passage says three things. Filing an FBAR late, or not at all, is a violation that may lead to penalties. Whether a penalty is asserted depends on the facts and circumstances. And a person who has not been contacted by the IRS and is not under investigation should file late FBARs as soon as possible to keep potential penalties to a minimum. The sentence promising no penalty where the income was reported and taxed is no longer published.

What is not known is how the IRS will treat the cases the old page covered. It has given no reason for the removal, and we do not speculate about one. It has not said that penalties will now be charged where income was fully reported, and it has not said that they will not. The law on FBAR penalties is as it was. The change is that a filer can no longer point to a published assurance.

One practical consequence follows. The explanation filed with a late report now has to carry the weight that the published assurance used to carry, because it is the main account of the facts that FinCEN and the IRS will have.

How do you file a late FBAR now?

A late FBAR is filed electronically on FinCEN's BSA E-Filing System, exactly as a timely one is, with one report for each calendar year missed. The form asks for a reason for filing late, chosen from a list, and offers a box for a short explanation where the reason selected is other.

Nothing is sent to the IRS. FinCEN's page on reporting foreign accounts (opens the official FinCEN page in a new tab) links to the filing system and to its instructions for late filers. Each year's report lists every foreign account the filer owned or could sign on, with the maximum value of each during the year converted to dollars. Accounts that are easy to miss include joint accounts with a non-US spouse, accounts held for children, ISAs, and accounts at an employer or charity where the filer is only a signatory.

The years to file are a matter of judgement now that no procedure defines them. The streamlined procedures ask for six years, and that period is the usual reference point for a standalone late filing as well. The reports should be right first time, because a late report that then needs amending is a weaker record. Our article on whether you file an FBAR or Form 8938 sets out which accounts belong on which report.

How should the explanation for a late FBAR be written?

With facts. The explanation should say what the filer knew, when they learned of the FBAR, and what they did next, in plain statements that documents could support. A sentence saying only that the filer was unaware of the requirement, or acted in good faith, is a conclusion and proves nothing.

The space on the form is short, so the statement has to be exact. The reason selected and the explanation should agree with each other and with every other year filed. They should also agree with the tax returns: if the explanation says the account income was always reported, the returns must show it. Schedule B of the return asks directly whether the filer has foreign accounts, and a wrong answer there needs addressing openly.

Unhelpful facts belong in the account too. A box ticked wrongly on an earlier return, or a year in which a small account was left off, is better stated with its context than discovered later. We keep a longer file note behind the short statement, with the documents that support each point, so that the same account can be given again if the IRS ever asks.

• Where you were living and how long you had been outside the United States
• Whether the income from each account was on your US returns, and for which years
• Who prepared those returns and whether they asked about foreign accounts
• How and when you first learned that an FBAR was required
• What you did after learning, and how quickly

When are the streamlined procedures the better route?

When income was missed as well as the reports. If any interest, dividends, gains or other income from the foreign accounts was left off the US returns, or no returns were filed at all, a standalone late FBAR does not deal with the tax, and the streamlined filing compliance procedures are usually the right tool.

The streamlined filing compliance procedures (opens the official IRS page in a new tab) require three years of tax returns, six years of FBARs, payment of the tax and interest, and a written certification, signed under penalty of perjury, that the failures were non-wilful. Under the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures (opens the official IRS page in a new tab), a US citizen or green card holder must have had no US abode and been physically outside the United States for at least 330 full days in at least one of the three most recent years for which the return due date has passed.

A worked example: a US citizen employed as a teacher in Leeds has filed US returns for a decade and reported her salary, but never mentioned a cash ISA and a savings account, because the interest was not taxed in the UK. Her FBARs were never filed. Since account income is missing from the returns, late FBARs alone would leave the returns wrong. She meets the non-residency test, so the Foreign route fits: amended returns on Form 1040-X, the FBARs, and Form 14653. Had the interest been on her returns all along, standalone late FBARs would have been the narrower answer.

Where only other international information returns were missed, such as Form 8938, the IRS still publishes its delinquent international information return submission procedures (opens the official IRS page in a new tab), which have their own conditions and give no assurance against penalties. Our IRS streamlined filing service begins by sorting a case into one of these routes before anything is filed.

• Foreign route: no FBAR or information return penalty for a filer who qualifies and follows the instructions
• Domestic route (opens the official IRS page in a new tab): a 5% miscellaneous offshore penalty on the relevant foreign assets
• Both routes: non-wilful conduct, certified in writing with a narrative of specific facts
• Both routes: closed once the IRS has begun an examination, and neither is a closing agreement

What do reasonable cause and wilfulness mean for a late FBAR?

They decide the penalty exposure. The statute provides that no penalty applies to a non-wilful violation that was due to reasonable cause, where the account balance was properly reported. A non-wilful violation without reasonable cause can attract a civil penalty. A wilful one carries far heavier civil penalties and possible prosecution.

Reasonable cause is judged on the facts: what a person of ordinary prudence would have known and done in the filer's position. Reliance on a competent adviser who was given the full picture can support it. Not knowing the law is weaker when it stands alone, though the surrounding facts, such as a lifetime spent outside the United States, matter. It is a defence to be shown, and we do not promise that any explanation will be accepted.

Wilfulness reaches further than deliberate concealment. In the FBAR case law it includes recklessness and wilful blindness, meaning a conscious effort not to find out. Where there is a real question on that point, the case needs a US tax attorney before any report is filed, and our tax controversy page explains how we work with one.

For non-wilful violations, the Supreme Court held in Bittner v. United States in 2023 that the penalty applies per report and not per account. A person with seven UK accounts who missed one year has one violation for that year. We do not quote penalty amounts, which are adjusted annually. The foreign income and FBAR service covers the filings, and the full comparison of catch-up routes is in the streamlined filing guide.