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.

FATCA full form and CRS full form

• FATCA full form: Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a US federal law enacted in 2010 (part of the HIRE Act). Sometimes written "FACTA" in error, the correct acronym is FATCA.
• CRS full form: Common Reporting Standard, formally the OECD "Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters", approved in 2014 and now called AEOI in OECD documents.

They exist for the same reason, giving tax authorities automatic visibility of accounts their residents hold abroad, but FATCA is one country's law applied globally, while CRS is a multilateral standard between participating countries.

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.

FATCA and CRS 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. This table shows which form does what:

There is no single "FATCA and CRS form", a bank typically hands you a combined self-certification pack that contains the relevant ones above. The forms themselves come from the IRS (W-series) and the OECD (CRS self-certification template); your bank supplies its own branded version.

FATCA and CRS requirements

The core requirement under both regimes is the same: the bank must identify each account holder's tax residency and, where that triggers reporting, send the account details (holder name, address, TIN, balance, and income) to the relevant tax authority once a year.

• FATCA (individual reporting, Form 8938): filed with your US tax return. Thresholds are tiered, for a US resident filing single it starts at USD 50,000 of specified foreign financial assets on the last day of the year (USD 75,000 at any point); higher for joint filers and for US persons living abroad.
• FBAR (FinCEN Form 114): a separate US Treasury filing, triggered once all your foreign accounts together exceed USD 10,000 at any point in the year, regardless of income.
• CRS: no de minimis threshold for individual accounts, any reportable account is reported. Pre-existing lower-value vs high-value accounts (the USD 1,000,000 line) only affects the depth of due diligence the bank must perform, not whether the account is reported.
• Self-certification: mandatory under both. A bank generally cannot open a new account without a valid self-certification and may freeze or close an existing one if it is never provided.

Whether your specific account country actually exchanges under FATCA or CRS depends on the agreements it has signed, check its status on the full FATCA & CRS countries list. Exact current thresholds and filing mechanics change periodically, confirm the figures for your year with the IRS or a qualified tax advisor.

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.

FBAR vs FATCA: two separate US filings, and both can apply at once

The distinction most people miss: filing FBAR doesn't exempt you from also filing FATCA's individual reporting, and vice versa, they're two separate obligations that frequently apply to the same person and the same accounts.

• FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) is filed with the US Treasury via the BSA e-filing system, separately from your tax return. It applies once the aggregate value of all your foreign financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any point during the year.
• FATCA's individual reporting (Form 8938) is filed alongside your IRS tax return. Its thresholds are tiered by filing status and whether you live in the US or abroad, and they're materially higher than FBAR's $10,000 trigger.

This is separate from the bank-side FATCA reporting described above, that's an obligation the bank itself carries, not something that substitutes for your own FBAR or Form 8938 filing. Exact current thresholds and filing mechanics change periodically, confirm the figures that apply to your year directly on fincen.gov (FBAR) and irs.gov (Form 8938), or with a qualified US tax advisor, this is personal tax filing territory, not something we handle as a corporate service provider.

Check your FATCA/CRS status now, free tool →

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

Need help completing your self-certification or opening a compliant account? See our guide to opening an offshore account online, or see our services →

Frequently Asked Questions