Do I need to file?

The three categories

When a U.S. person has a connection to a foreign arrangement that the IRS treats as a trust, the reporting obligation depends on the person’s role and how the arrangement is classified:

• Foreign grantor trust. A U.S. person is treated as the owner of the trust for tax purposes. This triggers annual reporting on both Form 3520 (Part II) and Form 3520-A. This is the most common category for foreign pensions and retirement accounts.
• Foreign non-grantor trust. No U.S. person is the owner. The trust is a separate taxpayer. A U.S. beneficiary reports only when they receive a distribution (Form 3520, Part III). There is no annual Form 3520-A obligation for the beneficiary.
• Exempt or excluded arrangement. Certain foreign plans are excluded from §6048 reporting entirely, either by statute or by IRS guidance (a revenue procedure). If your arrangement falls here, you may have no Form 3520 obligation at all.

The rest of this page explains how to tell which category applies and where the exemptions are.

A note on §672(f) exception trusts. There is a common fact pattern that does not fit neatly into the grantor / non-grantor distinction above: a foreign person creates a trust (e.g., a revocable family trust) that benefits U.S. persons. Under §672(f)(1), the general grantor trust rules do not apply to treat a foreign person as the owner. But §672(f)(2) provides exceptions (for revocable trusts, and trusts whose distributions during the grantor’s lifetime are limited to the grantor and spouse) under which the foreign person is treated as the owner. When one of these exceptions applies, the trust is a grantor trust with a foreign owner. The U.S. beneficiary’s treatment differs from the standard non-grantor path: distributions are not accumulation distributions subject to throwback, and the beneficiary may receive a Foreign Grantor Trust Beneficiary Statement. See Grantor vs. non-grantor trusts for more on §672(f).

Foreign grantor trusts

Under IRC §679, a U.S. person who directly or indirectly transfers property to a foreign trust with any U.S. beneficiary is treated as the trust’s owner for income tax purposes. The “U.S. beneficiary” definition at §679(c) is broad: the trust has a U.S. beneficiary unless no part of its income or corpus could ever be paid to or accumulated for a U.S. person, including on termination.

An individually funded account typically falls here. When you contribute to a foreign superannuation fund, personal pension, or provident fund, you are transferring property to a foreign trust with yourself (a U.S. person) as a beneficiary. That makes you the deemed owner. An employer-maintained plan whose trust is described in §402(b) is outside §679 (§679(a)(1); Treas. Reg. §1.679-4(a)(2)): you are treated as owner only of the portion attributable to your own contributions, and only if they are not incidental (Treas. Reg. §1.402(b)-1(b)(6)).

Filing obligation: Form 3520 (Part II) and Form 3520-A every year the trust exists, regardless of whether anything happened in the trust that year. Income is reported on Form 1040 in the year earned, with no deferral unless a treaty provision (e.g., U.S.–Canada Art. XVIII(7), U.S.–UK Art. 18(1)/(5)) defers it.

For a detailed breakdown of the grantor trust rules (§§671–679), see Grantor vs. non-grantor trusts.

Foreign non-grantor trusts

A foreign trust is a non-grantor trust when no U.S. person is treated as the owner under §§671–679. The most common scenario: a non-U.S. person established the trust for the benefit of family members, some of whom happen to be U.S. persons.

Filing obligation: A U.S. beneficiary files Form 3520 (Part III) only in years they receive a distribution from the trust. There is no Form 3520-A obligation for the beneficiary. When the distribution includes income that accumulated over prior years, the accumulation distribution rules (§§665–668) apply. The partial tax is computed on Form 4970 using §667(b) averaging; the §668 interest charge is computed separately on Form 3520, Part III, Schedule C.

A U.S. person who transfers property to a foreign trust established by someone else (e.g., contributing to a non-grantor family trust) reports that transfer on Form 3520, Part I, in the year of the transfer. Note that under §679, a U.S. transferor to a foreign trust with any U.S. beneficiary is treated as the owner of the portion attributable to the transfer, which converts it to a grantor trust with annual Part II and Form 3520-A obligations.

For more on how distributions are taxed and the throwback rules, see Grantor vs. non-grantor trusts.

Foreign pensions

Foreign pensions are where the classification question gets complicated. There is no blanket “pension exemption” from Form 3520 reporting. Instead, the treatment depends on the specific type of plan, the country, and whether any relief provision applies.

Default treatment: pension as foreign trust

Most foreign pensions and retirement accounts are classified as foreign trusts under Treas. Reg. §301.7701-4. A pension fund that fails either the “court test” (a U.S. court does not have primary supervision over its administration) or the “control test” (U.S. persons do not control all substantial decisions) is a foreign trust. Nearly all non-U.S. pension arrangements fail at least the court test.

Once classified as a foreign trust, an individually funded account is typically a grantor trust under §679; an employer-maintained plan whose trust is described in §402(b) is outside §679 (§679(a)(1); Treas. Reg. §1.679-4(a)(2)): you are treated as owner only of the portion attributable to your own contributions, and only if they are not incidental (Treas. Reg. §1.402(b)-1(b)(6)). Where you are treated as the owner, this triggers annual reporting: Form 3520 Part II and Form 3520-A.

Common pension types and their treatment

An important distinction: a tax treaty that lets you defer income recognition on a foreign pension does not eliminate the §6048 information reporting obligation. Treaty deferral and reporting are separate requirements. You may owe no tax on the pension income while still being required to file Forms 3520 and 3520-A.

Employee benefit plans & §402(b)

IRC §402(b) governs the income tax treatment of employees who participate in a trust that is part of an employer plan but does not meet the requirements of §401(a) (i.e., it is not a qualified plan under U.S. standards). Most foreign employer pension plans fall here.

Under §402(b), the employee’s rights in the trust are taxed as follows:

• If the employee’s interest is vested: the employer’s contribution is included in the employee’s gross income in the year of the contribution (§402(b)(1)).
• If the interest is not vested: taxation is deferred until the interest vests or a distribution is made (§402(b)(1), via §83). Note: §402(b)(4) is a separate rule that taxes highly compensated employees annually on vested accrued benefits in plans that fail the §410(b) coverage test.

Do employer-funded §402(b) plans require §6048 reporting?

Generally no, for employer-funded plans. Several interlocking statutory provisions remove employer-funded foreign pension plans from the §6048 reporting framework:

• §6048(a)(3)(B)(ii). Part I “shall not apply with respect to a trust which is ... described in section 402(b), 404(a)(4), or 404A”. The exception is for the trust, so it covers every transfer to it, the employee’s own contributions included (Notice 97-34, Section III.E: “Without regard to whether a transfer to a foreign trust is gratuitous or nongratuitous”).
• §679(a)(1). The foreign grantor trust rules apply to transfers to a foreign trust “other than a trust described in section 6048(a)(3)(B)(ii).” Because employer pension trusts fall within that exception, §679 does not make the employer or the employee the trust’s owner.
• §402(b)(3) and Treas. Reg. §1.402(b)-1(b)(6). A beneficiary of a §402(b) trust is not treated as the owner of the portion funded by the employer, or by the employee’s own contributions while they are incidental. They stop being incidental once the employee’s total contributions are more than the employer’s “as of any date”; then the employee owns the portion those contributions fund (below).
• Notice 97-34, Section V; Form 3520 instructions, Exceptions To Filing. Excepts from Part III distributions from compensatory trusts (§672(f)(2)(B)) that are taxable as compensation, provided the recipient reports them as compensation income. These payouts are taxed under the annuity rules (§402(b)(2), §72); their taxation “is not governed by the provisions of § 662” (Rev. Rul. 2007-48), which the throwback depends on (§667(a)), so Form 4970 doesn’t apply.

The combined effect: while your own contributions have never been more than your employer’s, no transfer goes on Part I, no one owns any part of the trust (no Part II or Form 3520-A), and payouts you report as compensation income stay off Part III. For that plan there is no Form 3520 or Form 3520-A to file.

When reporting is required

The exemption has limits. If the employee’s own contributions are not incidental compared with the employer’s, the employee is treated as the owner of the portion attributable to those contributions (Treas. Reg. §1.402(b)-1(b)(6)). In that case, the employee has §6048 reporting obligations on their share: Form 3520-A and Form 3520 Part II for the employee-funded portion, and a payout from that portion goes on Part III, lines 24 and 27 only. Amounts the employee chose to put in, salary sacrifice included, count as the employee’s; amounts withheld from pay because the plan’s rules require it count as the employer’s (IRS Chief Counsel memorandum on the Singapore Central Provident Fund, 1997; not precedent). Purely or heavily employee-funded individual retirement arrangements (e.g., voluntary individual pension accounts with no employer match) do not benefit from the employer-plan exemption.

Rev. Proc. 2020-17 provides a separate, broader exemption. Even if the statutory employer-plan provisions above do not fully cover a plan (e.g., because the employee’s contributions are significant), Rev. Proc. 2020-17 may exempt the plan if it meets all Section 5.03 conditions. See the Rev. Proc. 2020-17 section below.

For Canadian RRSPs, RRIFs, RPPs, and other plans within Article XVIII(7), the plans are fully exempt per the Form 3520 instructions and Rev. Proc. 2014-55; no election or protective filing is required.

Notice 2003-75

IRS Notice 2003-75 (2003) created a simplified reporting regime specifically for U.S. persons holding interests in Canadian registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) and registered retirement income funds (RRIFs). Under the notice, the IRS provided that §6048 reporting (Forms 3520 and 3520-A) is no longer required for these Canadian plans, replacing those obligations with the simplified regime.

Current status

• Superseded by Rev. Proc. 2014-55 for Canadian RRSPs and RRIFs. Rev. Proc. 2014-55 eliminated the former Form 8891 election process and treats eligible individuals (those who never reported the plan’s undistributed earnings) as having made the Article XVIII(7) election (§4.02); others need the Commissioner’s consent (§4.04). The Form 3520/3520-A exemption applies to all beneficiaries and annuitants regardless (§5.01). Under the current Form 3520 instructions, Canadian retirement plans described in §3 of Rev. Proc. 2014-55 (RRSPs, RRIFs, RPPs, and any other arrangement within Article XVIII(7)) are fully exempt from both Form 3520 and Form 3520-A reporting.
• Notice 2003-75 was specifically about Canadian retirement plans. It did not provide penalty relief or reporting exemptions for foreign retirement plans in other countries. For non-Canadian foreign retirement plans, the applicable exemption is Rev. Proc. 2020-17 (see below).

Rev. Proc. 2020-17

Revenue Procedure 2020-17 is the most significant reporting relief issued for foreign retirement plans. Unlike Notice 2003-75 (which applied only to Canadian RRSPs/RRIFs), Rev. Proc. 2020-17 provides a broad exemption from the §6048 reporting requirements, Forms 3520 and 3520-A, for two categories of foreign trusts:

• Tax-favored foreign retirement trusts: foreign pension plans, retirement accounts, and similar arrangements that meet specified conditions.
• Foreign non-retirement savings trusts: tax-favored savings plans that are not retirement accounts (e.g., certain medical, disability, or education savings plans) that meet their own set of conditions under §5.04. TFSAs and ISAs are general-purpose savings accounts and do not qualify.

Conditions for the retirement trust exemption

Who can use it. The exemption is available only to an “eligible individual” (Rev. Proc. 2020-17, §5.02): a U.S. citizen or resident individual who is compliant, or comes into compliance (including by amended return), with all U.S. income tax filing requirements for open years and who has reported any contributions to, earnings of, or distributions from the trust to the extent U.S. law requires. Entities cannot use it, and a non-compliant individual is not exempt until compliant.

To qualify as a “tax-favored foreign retirement trust” under Section 5.03 of the revenue procedure, the arrangement must first be established under the laws of a foreign jurisdiction and operated exclusively or almost exclusively to provide, or earn income for the provision of, pension or retirement benefits and ancillary or incidental benefits. That purpose test is the lead-in to §5.03, not one of its numbered conditions. It must then meet all six numbered requirements, which are numbered below exactly as the revenue procedure numbers them; our country guides and the comparison table cite these numbers:

1. The trust is generally exempt from income tax or otherwise tax-favored under the laws of the trust’s jurisdiction, meaning contributions are deductible or excluded from income, taxed at a reduced rate, or give rise to a tax credit; and/or investment income is deferred until distribution or taxed at a reduced rate.
2. Annual information reporting about the trust (or its beneficiaries/participants) is provided to, or otherwise available to, the relevant tax authorities in the trust’s jurisdiction.
3. Only contributions with respect to income earned from the performance of personal services are permitted.
4. Contributions are subject to limits: a percentage of earned income, an annual cap of $50,000 or less, or a lifetime cap of $1,000,000 or less.
5. Withdrawals are conditioned on reaching a specified retirement age, disability, or death, OR penalties apply to earlier withdrawals. Permitting in-service loans or withdrawals for hardship, education, or purchase of a primary residence does not disqualify the plan.
6. If the trust is an employer-maintained plan, it must also be nondiscriminatory: a wide range of employees, including rank and file employees, must be eligible; the plan must actually provide significant benefits for a substantial majority of eligible employees; and the benefits actually provided must be nondiscriminatory (§5.03(6)).

Conditions for the non-retirement savings trust exemption

A “tax-favored foreign non-retirement savings trust” (e.g., certain medical, disability, or education savings plans) qualifies under Section 5.04 if it meets all of the following:

• The trust operates exclusively or almost exclusively to provide medical, disability, or educational benefits.
• The trust is tax-favored (exempt or reduced tax) under the laws of the trust’s jurisdiction.
• Annual information reporting is provided to or available to the relevant foreign tax authorities.
• Contributions are limited to $10,000 or less per year or $200,000 or less over a lifetime.
• Withdrawals are conditioned on the provision of medical, disability, or educational benefits, or penalties apply for withdrawals made before those conditions are met.

Key points

• No treaty is required. Rev. Proc. 2020-17 does not limit the exemption to plans in treaty countries. A qualifying retirement trust in any foreign jurisdiction can qualify if it meets the conditions above. Whether the country has a U.S. income tax treaty may affect the income tax treatment (e.g., treaty deferral of pension income) but does not determine eligibility for the §6048 reporting exemption.
• This is a full exemption, not just penalty relief. Qualifying plans are exempt from both Form 3520 and Form 3520-A.
• The income tax treatment is separate. Even if the plan is exempt from §6048 reporting, you may still owe U.S. tax on contributions or earnings under §402(b) or other provisions. The reporting exemption does not change the substantive tax treatment.
• Earned income and contribution caps matter. Plans that accept contributions from sources other than personal-services income, or that have no meaningful limits on contributions, are unlikely to qualify. This excludes most individually arranged offshore savings vehicles and self-settled trusts.
• Self-settled offshore retirement trusts and individually arranged plans generally do not qualify because they typically fail the earned-income or contribution-cap requirements.

2024 proposed regulations

On May 8, 2024, Treasury and the IRS published proposed regulations (REG-124850-08) under §§643(i), 679, 6039F, 6048, and 6677. A taxpayer (and all persons related to the taxpayer under §§267(b)/707(b)(1)) may rely on these proposed regulations for tax years ending after May 8, 2024, and beginning on or before the date final regulations are published, provided they apply them in full and consistently. As of the last review of this page, the regulations remain proposed (not finalized).

Key changes

• Value-threshold alternative. A tax-favored foreign retirement trust qualifies for the proposed regulations’ exemption if the aggregate value of all such trusts in that country never exceeds $600,000 (inflation-adjusted) at any point during the year, even if the plan’s contribution rules do not satisfy a percentage-of-earnings, $75,000 annual, or $1,000,000 lifetime cap. The earned-income condition still applies. This helps participants in plans with high or uncapped contribution rules whose balances are modest; it does not help large balances.
• Expanded contribution limits. The contribution cap alternative is raised to a percentage of earned income, $75,000 per year, or $1,000,000 lifetime (adjusted for inflation).
• Limited contributions by unemployed individuals. The earned-income condition is relaxed to allow limited contributions made by individuals who are unemployed.
• De minimis savings trusts: defined, but not exempted. Prop. Reg. §1.6048-5(b)(4) defines a general-purpose savings trust category: a trust that is tax-favored under local law, reported annually in its jurisdiction, and worth no more than $50,000 in total in that country at any point during the year. The preamble describes these trusts as exempt, but the paragraph that grants the exemption, §1.6048-5(b)(1), names only retirement trusts ((b)(2)) and medical, disability, or educational trusts ((b)(3)), and the Form 3520 instructions describe the exemption you may rely on the same way. Until final regulations say otherwise, this category cannot be relied on, and this site does not treat it as an exemption.
• Treaty-based nonresidents. A green-card holder or other resident alien treated as a resident of a treaty country under the tie-breaker, who computes U.S. tax as a nonresident alien and files the required Form 1040-NR/Form 8833 disclosure, would not be a “U.S. person” for §6048 for that part of the year. U.S. citizens cannot use this rule; under the current instructions such dual residents remain U.S. persons.
• Gifts (Part IV). The $100,000 threshold would rise with inflation since 1995; spouses filing a joint income tax return would apply it separately; once a donor’s gifts pass it, each gift over $5,000 would be listed with the name and address of the donor and each related donor; gifts from covered expatriates received on or after January 14, 2025 would be reported once they total more than $19,000 in the year (2025 and 2026). Prop. Reg. §1.6039F-1(c)(2)(i)–(v), (h)(2).

See Relying on the 2024 proposed regulations in the decision guide below.

Treaty-based relief

Some U.S. tax treaties contain provisions that allow U.S. persons to defer taxation on contributions to or earnings within foreign pension plans. The most commonly invoked examples:

• U.S.-Canada (Article XVIII). Allows a U.S. citizen or resident to defer U.S. taxation on income accruing in an RRSP, RRIF, or certain other Canadian pension plans. Rev. Proc. 2014-55 separately exempts those plans from both Form 3520 and Form 3520-A.
• U.S.-UK (Article 18). Provides that contributions to a pension scheme established in the other country may be deductible or excludable while you work there, and that income accruing in the scheme is not taxed until paid out. No provision waives §6048 reporting. For a U.S. citizen living and working in the UK, the relevant rule is Article 18(5), which is limited to employment-linked contributions and accruals and to schemes the U.S. competent authority accepts as corresponding.
• U.S.-Australia. The U.S.-Australia treaty does not contain a pension provision equivalent to the U.S.-Canada Article XVIII. Australian superannuation generally receives no treaty-based reporting relief.

The critical point: treaty provisions typically address the substantive tax treatment of pension income (deferral, deductions, exemptions). They do not address §6048 information reporting. A treaty may mean you owe no U.S. tax on your foreign pension contributions or growth, but you may still need to file Forms 3520 and 3520-A to report the arrangement’s existence and activity. The two obligations are independent.

What doesn’t require filing

Some foreign arrangements are genuinely outside the scope of Form 3520 reporting:

• Government-run social insurance. National pension programs (e.g., UK State Pension, Canada CPP/OAS, Australian Age Pension, German statutory pension insurance) are government social insurance programs, not trusts, and are generally not subject to §6048 reporting.
• Arrangements that are not trusts. Not every foreign financial account or investment is a “trust” under U.S. tax law. A foreign bank account, brokerage account, or insurance policy is not a trust (though it may trigger other reporting requirements like FBAR or Form 8938). The classification depends on the legal structure of the arrangement under Treas. Reg. §301.7701-4.
• Plans exempt under Rev. Proc. 2020-17. Where the plan meets the revenue procedure’s conditions, an eligible individual’s (§5.02) transactions with, and ownership of, it are exempt from all §6048 reporting: contributions in, annual owner statements, distributions out, and Form 3520-A. Note what is exempt: the revenue procedure exempts the eligible individual’s transactions and ownership (§3), not the plan itself, so someone who is not an eligible individual reports normally on the same plan. See the Rev. Proc. 2020-17 section above.
• Canadian RRSP / RRIF. Per the Form 3520 instructions (Rev. December 2025) and Rev. Proc. 2014-55, Canadian RRSPs, RRIFs, RPPs, and other plans within Article XVIII(7) are fully exempt from both Form 3520 and Form 3520-A reporting. No separate election is required for this exemption.
• Foreign gifts (different rules). Receiving a gift from a foreign person is reported on Form 3520, Part IV, when the amount exceeds the annual threshold (more than $100,000 in a year from one nonresident alien individual or foreign estate, adding together gifts from donors related to each other, which is not indexed; an indexed threshold for foreign corporations or partnerships, $20,116 for 2025 and $20,573 for 2026). But gifts are not trust reporting: they fall under a separate part of the form with different rules.

Decision guide

Answer the questions from the top. A green box means you can stop: none of Forms 3520 or 3520-A applies to this arrangement. If you reach the bottom without stopping, the blue panel tells you which parts to file. Amber boxes show what the 2024 proposed regulations would change, who can use them, and what relying on them costs; they are not final.

Sources

This page summarizes the law as of its last update and is not tax advice. The primary authorities are:

• IRC §6048 : Information reporting for foreign trusts (transfers, annual owner statements, distributions).
• IRC §679 : Foreign trusts having one or more United States beneficiaries.
• IRC §402(b) : Taxability of beneficiary of nonexempt trust.
• Treas. Reg. §1.402(b)-1 : Treatment of beneficiary of a trust not exempt under §501(a), including the “not incidental” employee-contribution test.
• IRC §6677 : Penalties for failure to file information returns relating to foreign trusts.
• Treas. Reg. §301.7701-7 : Court test and control test for domestic vs. foreign trust classification.
• Notice 97-34 : Foundational guidance implementing §6048 reporting requirements after the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996.
• Notice 2003-75 : Simplified reporting regime for Canadian RRSPs and RRIFs (superseded by Rev. Proc. 2014-55).
• Rev. Proc. 2020-17 : Exemption from Forms 3520 and 3520-A for certain tax-favored foreign retirement trusts and non-retirement savings trusts.
• Rev. Proc. 2014-55 : Exemption from Forms 3520 and 3520-A for certain Canadian registered plans (RRSP, RRIF, RPP, and other Article XVIII(7) plans); no election required.
• Form 3520 Instructions (Rev. December 2025).
• Form 3520-A Instructions (Rev. December 2025).