What happens to your US bank accounts when you move abroad is mostly settled before you leave, by two things: the address you give your bank, and a $10,000 line that starts counting the day you open an account in your new country. Cross that line on any single day of the year and you owe the Treasury a report called the FBAR. Not a tax. A report.
It’s easy to cross without noticing. A couple spending €3,000 a month who keep two months of it in a Spanish account hold about $6,840. Add a rental deposit and one month’s cushion for a car repair, and the account passes $10,000 without anyone meaning it to.
That’s one item. The rest mostly get settled with your own US bank, from a US phone number that still works, in the month before you go. Here’s the order I’d do them in, with the official page behind every number. I don’t have an arrangement with any bank, brokerage, card issuer or money-transfer service, and I don’t name one here. The answer that counts is your own bank’s, in writing.
Why the address is what changes things
Banks don’t ask where you live out of curiosity. The federal customer identification rule requires a bank to collect a residential or business street address before it opens an account for you. So when that address becomes Lisbon or Mérida, the bank notices. What it does next depends on the bank and on the account: checking, savings and a brokerage account can each get a different answer, and policies change.
The same pressure runs the other way. Under FATCA, the IRS requires foreign financial institutions to report on the assets their US account holders hold, or face withholding. That reporting costs a bank money. It’s why some foreign banks are reluctant to take Americans at all, and why the ones that do will ask about your citizenship and want your Social Security number. Routine paperwork. Bring the number.
Keeping US bank accounts when you move abroad: seven questions first
Skip the forum threads about which banks close accounts. The only bank that matters is yours, so ask it. Use secure messaging if it has it, so the answer arrives in writing and you can find it again in two years.
- If I change my address to one in another country, what happens to my checking, my savings and my brokerage account? Is anything restricted or closed?
- Can I keep a US mailing address on file while I live abroad, and does it have to be mine or can it be a family member’s?
- Will online banking and the app work from abroad, or do you block foreign logins?
- Where do security codes go? If it’s a text to my US mobile number, can I switch to an authenticator app?
- How do I send an international wire, what does it cost, and can I do it online?
- If my card is lost abroad, will you mail a replacement to a foreign address?
- What does my debit card charge for a purchase or an ATM withdrawal outside the US?
The first question decides the rest. If the answer is vague, that’s an answer too.
Ask the brokerage question separately and specifically. If an investment account is closed and the positions are sold, that sale is a taxable event in the year it happens, on the firm’s schedule rather than yours. Ask whether you could move the holdings in kind to another US firm instead.
The US address you keep
You’ll want a US address for more than the bank. Card issuers, brokerages and your state’s DMV will all keep writing.
The honest version is short. Use an address where mail actually arrives and someone you trust actually opens it, usually a family member. When an institution asks where you live, tell it the truth. An address you can’t explain just moves the problem into next year, where it sits badly next to the tax forms below.
Where your Social Security lands
The SSA’s booklet for people abroad is clear on the basics. Benefits are calculated in dollars, and they don’t rise or fall with exchange rates. You have three ways to receive them.
| Option | How it works | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Your US bank account | The SSA can deposit into a US account no matter where you live, unless a payment restriction applies | The Treasury bars payments to people living in Cuba or North Korea; your bank’s own policy on foreign addresses |
| A bank in your new country | International direct deposit, only where the US has an agreement with that country | You set it up through the SSA or the Federal Benefits Unit for your region, not online |
| Direct Express card | A debit card for federal benefits, no bank account needed | There’s an international collect number for card holders abroad |
The countries Americans actually retire to are on the SSA’s list of direct deposit countries: Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and Thailand among them.
Two details from the booklet worth knowing before you go. Your my Social Security account only lets you start or change direct deposit online for a US financial institution. And even when payments go straight to a bank, the SSA wants your actual home address. A change of address is the first thing on its list of what you must report.
What I’d do: leave the US account that receives the benefit alone for your first few months abroad. If you switch to a local bank later, keep the old account open until the first foreign deposit has actually arrived.
Close nothing first.
The $10,000 line, and the forms that come with it
FBAR. The IRS explains it in plain terms: if you’re a US person with a financial interest in, or signature authority over, accounts outside the US, and their combined value went over $10,000 at any time during the calendar year, you file. It’s due April 15 of the following year, with an automatic extension to October 15 that you don’t have to request. You file it electronically through FinCEN’s BSA E-Filing System, not with your tax return. There are civil and criminal penalties, and the civil maximums rise with inflation every year. Filing takes an evening.
Back home, none of this applies. A checking account in Ohio doesn’t generate a form. A checking account in Porto does.
Form 8938. This one comes from FATCA too, and it goes to the IRS attached to your tax return. The IRS comparison page sets its thresholds out, and they’re far higher once you count as living abroad.
| Filing status | Living abroad | Living in the US |
|---|---|---|
| Single or married filing separately | Over $200,000 on the last day of the year, or over $300,000 at any time | Over $50,000, or over $75,000 |
| Married filing jointly | Over $400,000, or over $600,000 | Over $100,000, or over $150,000 |
“Living abroad” has a definition. Your tax home is abroad and you’re a bona fide resident of another country for a period that covers the whole tax year, or you’re physically outside the US for at least 330 days in a 12-month stretch ending in that tax year. Land in October and you can’t reach 330 days by December 31, so for that first year the lower US thresholds are the ones you check.
The new country’s own report. Spain’s Modelo 720 asks residents to declare assets abroad above €50,000 (about $57,000) in any one category, such as bank accounts, filed between January 1 and March 31. From Spain’s side, your US checking and brokerage accounts are the foreign ones. More on that at Spain taxes for Americans.
One small comfort on the US return: if you live abroad on the regular due date, you get an automatic two-month extension to file, to June 15. Interest on any tax owed still runs from April 15.
Your cards: a fee on every purchase
Federal rules treat any fee for a purchase made outside the US, with a foreign merchant or in a foreign currency as a finance charge, and it has to be disclosed in your card agreement. It can come from two places at once. The regulator’s own example is a 1% fee from the card network plus 2% from the bank.
At 3%, putting $2,000 a month on a card costs $60 a month, $720 a year, for nothing. So open the agreement, not the ad, and find the line. If your everyday card charges it, get one that doesn’t while you still have a US address. And when a card machine abroad offers to charge you in dollars, choose the local currency.
Opening an account in the new country
This is the slow half. In many countries the bank wants your residency document before it opens anything, so for the first weeks or months you live on US cards and transfers. Budget for that window.
Two examples of what’s asked. In Mexico, the tax agency’s RFC tax ID is needed to open many bank accounts; foreigners who don’t work can get a restricted version for free, with a residency card, a CURP, proof of address and an appointment. In Portugal, the D7 file usually includes a Portuguese bank account and a tax number, so there the account comes before the residence permit.
Expect to go in person, with documents, often in the local language. It’s the same kind of paperwork as the visa, and it deserves the same planning.
Three things people get wrong
“Only an account over $10,000 gets reported.” The test is the combined value. The IRS gives the example itself: two accounts with a combined balance above $10,000 at any one time, and both go on the report. $6,500 in checking plus $4,000 in savings for one week is $10,500.
“Form 8938 replaces the FBAR.” It doesn’t. The IRS says to check each form against its own threshold. You may file one, the other, or both for the same accounts.
“My benefit goes up when the dollar falls.” It doesn’t. It’s fixed in dollars. If the local currency strengthens, your check buys less, and nothing adjusts it.
The order I’d do it in
Before you leave:
- Send your bank the seven questions and save the answers.
- Move security codes off US text messages if your bank allows it.
- Get a card with no foreign transaction fee.
- Decide on the US address, and ask the person who’ll open your mail.
- Send yourself a small international wire, so the first real one isn’t a test.
After you land:
- Open the local account. Bring your Social Security number.
- Write down the highest balance of every foreign account, every month. That’s your FBAR number.
- Give the SSA your new home address.
In January, add up the year’s highest balances. Then circle April 15 or June 15, whichever applies to you.
The same months carry other deadlines, from residence cards to tax registration: first-year abroad deadlines. And if you want to know whether your benefit will be taxed where you land, that’s who taxes your Social Security abroad.