FATCA vs CRS: What's the Difference?

FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) is US law — it requires foreign banks to report accounts held by US persons (citizens, green card holders, and US tax residents) to the IRS.

CRS (Common Reporting Standard) is the OECD's global equivalent, adopted by over 100 countries, requiring banks to report account holders to their home tax authority regardless of nationality.

How to tell which applies to you

• If you're a US person — citizen, green card holder, or you meet the substantial presence test — FATCA applies to you everywhere you bank, regardless of where you live.
• If you're tax resident anywhere in a CRS-participating country, CRS applies based on where your account is held and where you're tax resident.
• The United States itself does not participate in CRS — it uses FATCA instead. This matters if you have both US-person status and tax residency ties elsewhere.

The forms

Most account-opening paperwork today includes both a FATCA self-certification and a CRS self-certification, even if only one actually applies to you — banks collect both because they can't always tell in advance which one is relevant. In practice: US persons complete a Form W-9 (or W-8BEN if certifying non-US status), and CRS-relevant account holders complete a CRS self-certification naming their tax residency.

Which one applies to your specific case?

The rules above cover the general framework, but the real answer depends on your citizenship, residency, and where the account is held — and which intergovernmental agreement (if any) your account country has with the US, or which countries actively exchange under CRS.

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5 questions, plain-language result, based on the current OECD and US Treasury source lists.

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