Do Americans Still File US Taxes From Portugal?

Yes. The IRS says that if you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, the rules for filing income, estate and gift tax returns are generally the same whether you are in the United States or abroad, and that you are subject to tax on worldwide income from all sources. What living in Portugal changes is the tools: a longer deadline, an income exclusion, a tax credit and extra reports on foreign accounts.

This guide is the hub of our U.S. tax section. It reports what IRS.gov and the text of the U.S.-Portugal convention say, on the day we read them, and it is written for Americans and for Britons who hold a U.S. green card or U.S. citizenship. It is not tax advice. It does not compute your tax, and a U.S. tax professional who knows expat returns should read your numbers.

What we read, and what the date of this guide refers to

We read the IRS pages named in the closing line on 18 October 2026. Each IRS page shows its own “last reviewed or updated” date. They run from 10 January 2026 for the tax treaties overview to 28 September 2026 for the pages on citizens abroad, filing requirements and where and when to file. The newest of those, 28 September 2026, is the date of the information in this guide. The IRS page on the exclusion amount gives figures for tax years 2025 and 2026, and we quote them for the years it states. The treaty text we read is the 1994 convention with its protocol, published by the IRS; the IRS page on the Portugal treaty lists only that income tax treaty (1994) and a technical explanation (1999). The IRS page on the Portugal treaty was last reviewed on 8 August 2026.

Do Americans still have to file US taxes if they move to Portugal?

Yes, according to the IRS. Its page on citizens and resident aliens abroad says the filing rules are generally the same as in the United States, that you are subject to tax on worldwide income from all sources, and that you must report all taxable income and pay tax under the Internal Revenue Code. Its filing requirements page adds that your income, filing status and age generally decide whether you must file, and that you usually must file if your gross income from worldwide sources is at least the amount shown for your filing status in the table in chapter 1 of Publication 54. We do not repeat that table because the IRS gives it in the publication, and you should read it for your status.

Two details from the same pages matter to people abroad:

• Gross income, for deciding whether you must file, includes income you exclude as foreign earned income or as a foreign housing amount.
• Amounts must be reported in U.S. dollars. If you are paid or pay expenses in euros, the IRS says you translate them into dollars, and points to its page on foreign currency and exchange rates.

For a Briton, the same pages speak of a “U.S. citizen or resident alien (including a green card holder)”. We read nothing on IRS.gov that applies this duty to a person who is neither. If you are a British citizen with no U.S. status, these pages are not about you; the UK side, HMRC, is not covered here.

If you are still choosing how to move, our guide to residence routes compares the options, including the retirement and passive income visa and the remote work visa. The IRS pages we read do not treat income differently by visa type.

What is the deadline for a US return from abroad?

The IRS says that if you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien residing overseas on the regular due date of your return, you are allowed an automatic 2-month extension to file without requesting it. For a calendar-year filer the regular due date is April 15 and the automatic extended date is June 15. If a due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday it moves to the next business day.

The IRS “where and when to file” page, last reviewed 28 September 2026, also says that a fiscal-year filer’s return is due 3 months and 15 days after the close of the fiscal year. The same page lists two mailing addresses for taxpayers living in a foreign country: Austin, Texas for a refund or no payment enclosed, and a post office box in Charlotte, North Carolina when a check or money order is enclosed. It also says that returns mailed from a foreign country are accepted as timely filed if they bear an official postmark dated on or before the last date for filing, citing Revenue Ruling 2002-23. The IRS page on citizens and resident aliens abroad says you can e-file, and that only a limited number of software companies provide software that handles foreign addresses.

How do the foreign earned income exclusion and the foreign tax credit work?

They are the two main ways the IRS offers to reduce U.S. tax on income you earn abroad. The IRS says many Americans living abroad qualify for them, but that they can get them only by filing a relevant U.S. return.

Foreign earned income exclusion (FEIE). The IRS page says you may qualify if you have foreign earned income, your tax home is in a foreign country, and you meet one of two tests:

• the bona fide resident test: a U.S. citizen, or a U.S. resident alien who is a citizen or national of a country with which the United States has an income tax treaty in effect, who is a bona fide resident of a foreign country for an uninterrupted period that includes an entire tax year
• the physical presence test: physically present in a foreign country or countries for at least 330 full days during any period of 12 consecutive months

The maximum, per the IRS page on figuring the exclusion, is the lesser of the foreign income earned or 130,000 dollars per qualifying person for tax year 2025, and 132,900 dollars per person for tax year 2026. If both spouses work abroad and qualify, each can choose it, and together they can exclude as much as 260,000 dollars for 2025. If you qualify for only part of the year, the maximum is multiplied by your qualifying days and divided by 365 (366 in a leap year). Housing is limited separately: generally 30 percent of the maximum exclusion, which the IRS puts at 39,000 dollars for 2025 and 39,870 dollars for 2026, with the limit varying by location and qualifying days.

What counts as foreign earned income matters for people who move to retire. The IRS says it means wages, salaries, professional fees or other amounts paid for personal services you performed. It lists as not foreign earned income, among others, pay as an employee of the U.S. government and “pension or annuity payments, including social security benefits”. The exclusion also lowers your regular income tax but not your self-employment tax, according to the IRS.

Three further points from the IRS pages:

• It is voluntary and chosen on Form 2555, generally with a timely filed return, including extensions. Once chosen it stays in effect for that and later years unless you revoke it.
• The IRS calls it a common misconception that excluded income need not be reported: the exclusion applies only if you file a return reporting the income.
• If you claim it, the IRS says you cannot take the earned income credit or the additional child tax credit for that year, and you must figure the tax on the rest of your income at the rates that would have applied without the exclusion.

Foreign tax credit (FTC). The IRS says that if you paid or accrued foreign taxes to a foreign country and are subject to U.S. tax on the same income, you may be able to take either a credit or an itemized deduction. A credit reduces your U.S. tax; a deduction reduces your U.S. taxable income, and the IRS says that in most cases the credit is to your advantage. Generally only income, war profits and excess profits taxes qualify. You claim it on Form 1116. Where a treaty gives you a reduced rate of foreign tax, the IRS says only that reduced tax qualifies for the credit.

The two together. The IRS says that if you exclude foreign earned income or foreign housing costs, you cannot take a foreign tax credit or deduction for taxes on income you excluded or could have excluded; if you do, one or both choices may be considered revoked. You can still take the credit on foreign earned income above what you excluded. Which fits you depends on your income, which this guide does not weigh.

Do I need to report my Portuguese bank accounts to the United States?

It depends on the totals. There are two separate reports, and the IRS says filing one does not relieve you of the other.

Other facts from the IRS pages:

• For the FBAR, whether the account produced taxable income has no effect. Records (name on the account, number, bank name and address, type, maximum value) must generally be kept five years from the due date.
• For Form 8938, the IRS page on who files says you count as living abroad if you are a U.S. citizen whose tax home is in a foreign country and you are either a bona fide resident abroad for an uninterrupted period that includes the entire tax year, or you are a U.S. citizen or resident physically present in a foreign country or countries at least 330 days during 12 consecutive months ending in the tax year. The FATCA summary page words it more narrowly: a U.S. citizen whose tax home is in a foreign country and who has been present abroad at least 330 days out of a consecutive 12-month period. The thresholds in the table are for those people; people in the United States have lower ones. If you do not have to file a U.S. income tax return, you do not file Form 8938.
• Form 8938 covers financial accounts at foreign institutions and certain other foreign investments. The IRS FAQ says foreign currency you hold directly, and foreign real estate such as a personal residence or rental property, are not reportable on it. An interest in a foreign pension or deferred compensation plan is reportable once you are over the threshold, but the right to a foreign equivalent of Social Security is not.
• Accounts held with a U.S. financial institution, including IRAs and 401(k) plans, are not reportable on Form 8938.

On the Portuguese side, FATCA is the U.S. law that requires certain foreign financial institutions to report to the IRS on accounts held by U.S. taxpayers. The IRS says a foreign bank may ask for information about your citizenship when you open an account. Our guide to opening a bank account in Portugal covers what Banco de Portugal says banks ask for, and the NIF guide covers the tax number that comes first.

Is there a tax treaty between the United States and Portugal?

Yes. The IRS page on the Portugal treaty lists the income tax treaty of 1994 and a technical explanation of 1999. The text we read is titled the convention for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income, together with a related protocol, with a general effective date under Article 30 of 1 January 1996.

The IRS treaty overview explains what treaties do for Americans, in these words:

“With certain exceptions, they do not reduce the U.S. taxes of U.S. citizens or U.S. treaty residents.”

It adds that U.S. citizens and treaty residents are subject to U.S. income tax on their worldwide income, and that treaty provisions are generally reciprocal, so a U.S. citizen who receives income from a treaty country and is taxed there may be entitled to credits, deductions, exemptions and reduced rates of the foreign country’s tax. The IRS tells readers to examine the specific articles for a credit, exemption, reduced rate or other benefit.

In the Portugal text:

• The saving clause. Paragraph 1(b) of the Protocol says that, notwithstanding any provision of the convention except paragraph (c), a Contracting State may tax its residents and the United States may tax its citizens as if the convention had not come into effect. Paragraph (c) keeps certain benefits, among them Article 25 on relief from double taxation, Article 26 on non-discrimination and paragraph 1(b) of Article 20.
• Relief from double taxation (Article 25). The United States allows a resident or citizen a credit against U.S. tax for income tax paid to Portugal, under and subject to the limits of U.S. law. For a U.S. citizen who is a resident of Portugal, income the United States may tax solely because of citizenship is deemed to arise in Portugal to the extent necessary to avoid double taxation, provided the U.S. tax is not less than it would be if the person were not a citizen.
• Pensions (Article 20). Paragraph 1(a), subject to Article 21 on government service, says pensions and other similar remuneration for past employment, derived and beneficially owned by a resident of one state, are taxable only in that state. Paragraph 1(b) says social security benefits and other public pensions paid by one state to a resident of the other, or to a U.S. citizen, may be taxed by the paying state. How the saving clause and these paragraphs interact for your pension is a question for your adviser; the IRS pages we read do not answer it.

The treaty also decides who is treated as a resident of Portugal or of the United States, and Article 4 covers it. A person who is a resident of both countries under each country’s law is, in the IRS wording, a dual resident taxpayer, and the IRS says the treaty must contain a rule to settle the conflict. If you claim treaty benefits as a resident of the other country, the IRS says you must file Form 1040-NR and attach Form 8833. We have not read the Portuguese tax authority’s side of the residence question here; it is covered in the Portugal tax guides of this site as they are published.

What other US forms can surprise people who move abroad?

The IRS pages on filing from abroad list a few more information returns. We name them so you know to ask, not to say they apply to you.

• Form 3520: the IRS says a foreign pension or retirement plan may be treated as a foreign trust, and that a U.S. person with transactions with one files Form 3520. It is also used to report receipt of more than 100,000 dollars in gifts or bequests from a nonresident alien individual or foreign estate. The IRS says it is not e-filed, and gives a penalty that starts at the greater of 10,000 dollars or a percentage of the value involved.
• Form 5471: for certain officers, directors or shareholders of foreign corporations, which may matter if you set up a Portuguese company.
• Virtual currency: the IRS says transactions must be reported on your return.

The IRS page on filing from abroad also lists, as related topics, the treatment of Social Security tax when working abroad and Social Security agreements with foreign countries. We have not read those pages, so this guide says nothing about them.

How does this fit with moving to Portugal?

Put it in the order of your move. The visa comes first, then the first-month paperwork with its tax number and bank account, and the U.S. return follows each year you stay a U.S. citizen or resident alien. If you plan to work, the work visa guide covers the Portuguese side of employment. Our citizenship guide covers the Portuguese route to nationality. We did not read the IRS pages on giving up U.S. citizenship, so this guide says nothing about them.

What to take away

The IRS pages say the same thing in several ways: a U.S. citizen or resident alien abroad files, is taxed on worldwide income, and gets relief mainly through a return that claims the exclusion or the credit. Deadlines are more forgiving abroad, but interest on unpaid tax is not waived. Foreign accounts need their own reports. The treaty with Portugal adds a credit and keeps a saving clause. For your own numbers, use a U.S. tax professional.

Related guides: working in Portugal as an American or a Briton and moving to Portugal as an American.

We read the following IRS pages on 18 October 2026: US citizens and resident aliens abroad, filing requirements abroad, where and when to file and pay, extensions of time to file, the foreign earned income exclusion (overview, figuring and choosing), the foreign tax credit, the FBAR, the summary of FATCA reporting, the pages on who files Form 8938 and its FAQ, the tax treaties overview, the Portugal treaty documents page and treaty text, and the Publication 54 page. We could not open the full text of Publication 54 chapter 1, so its filing table is not reproduced.