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What is your filing status if your spouse is not a US citizen or resident?

Updated: 4 days ago

What is your filing status if your spouse is not a US citizen or resident?



You would file either as Married filing separately or Head of Household, if you qualify. If your spouse wants to elect to be taxed like a US citizen, you can file as Married filing jointly. This is called the 6013(g) election. 



Note that there could be big benefits or detriments to this, depending on the case.



IRS regulations don't allow a married person to file as a single. So that isn't an option, even though Single and Married filing Separately have the same standard deduction and have almost identical status for tax purposes. Note that legal marriage in any country is called being married in the eyes of the IRS. 



Although in this case your spouse's name will be on the return when filing separately, they will not have any US tax liability or reporting requirements at all. 



Head of Household status is available if you have a child who would be qualified to be your dependent, even if they aren't a US citizen and can't actually be claimed as a dependent on the return. 



Though a married person can't normally file as head of household, if they're married to a non US citizen and non resident, they are considered not married in the eyes of the IRS. 



This status gives you a higher standard deduction, and can cause less taxes to be due. Note that there is a higher audit risk when claiming this status, so if it won't make any difference, married filing separately would be a better choice. 



In many cases, due to filing the foreign income exclusion or foreign tax credit, the head of household status will not help anything, so it's best to file as married filing separately. Though in certain cases it is worthwhile.



The seemingly simple decision of deciding on which status to choose can be very complicated, unlike US citizen couples where filing jointly is almost always the best option.

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