Form 3520-A, the Annual Information Return of Foreign Trust With a U.S. Owner, is filed each year by any foreign trust that has at least one U.S. owner under the grantor trust rules. It reports the trust’s assets, income, and distributions so the IRS can check that U.S. owners and beneficiaries are reporting the right amounts on their own returns. No tax is paid with the form. For a calendar-year trust the return is due March 15, it must be mailed to the IRS in Ogden, Utah, and if the foreign trustee will not file it, the U.S. owner has to file a substitute return or face a penalty starting at $10,000 or 5% of the trust’s assets, whichever is greater.1Internal Revenue Service. About Form 3520-A, Annual Information Return of Foreign Trust With a U.S. Owner
Who Has to File
A foreign trust with at least one U.S. owner must file Form 3520-A every year. Ownership is decided under the grantor trust rules in Internal Revenue Code sections 671 through 679.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 671 – Trust Income, Deductions, and Credits Attributable to Grantors and Others as Substantial Owners You are treated as an owner if you retained certain powers over the trust, such as the ability to revoke it, control who benefits, or direct its investments.
Form 3520-A applies only to foreign grantor trusts. If you receive distributions from a foreign non-grantor trust, the reporting goes on Form 3520 instead, not here.
The filing duty formally belongs to the foreign trustee, but the IRS holds the U.S. owner responsible when the trustee doesn’t file. The penalties land on you, not on the trustee abroad. If your trustee won’t cooperate, you file a substitute yourself.
Exemptions for Certain Foreign Retirement and Savings Plans
Some tax-favored foreign plans are exempt from Form 3520-A. Revenue Procedure 2020-17 exempts qualifying foreign retirement trusts if the trust is established under foreign law to provide pension or retirement benefits, is tax-favored in its home country, and is subject to contribution limits: annual contributions capped at $50,000 or less, or lifetime contributions capped at $1,000,000 or less, using the Treasury’s year-end conversion rate.3Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Procedure 2020-17 – Exemption from Information Reporting Under Section 6048 for Certain Tax-Favored Foreign Trusts
A parallel exemption covers tax-favored foreign trusts for medical, disability, or educational benefits, with lower thresholds: $10,000 annually or $200,000 lifetime. To claim either exemption, you must be an eligible individual who has kept up with U.S. tax filings on contributions, earnings, and distributions.
Canadian RRSPs and RRIFs are handled separately under Revenue Procedure 2014-55, which excuses custodians from filing Form 3520-A when the beneficiary is eligible and properly reports distributions.4Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Procedure 2014-55
What the Return Requires
Form 3520-A collects the trust’s legal name, address, and Employer Identification Number. Every entry must be in English, and every dollar figure in U.S. dollars.5Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 3520-A (Rev. December 2025)
The financial sections work like a compact balance sheet and income statement. You list assets and liabilities at year-end fair market value, and separately report income, deductions, accumulated income, and all distributions to U.S. beneficiaries.
Valuing Assets
Assets are reported at fair market value determined under IRC section 2512. Formal appraisals are not generally required, but keep records showing how you arrived at each value. For foreign-currency assets, convert to U.S. dollars; the instructions don’t specify a source, and Treasury published rates are the safest choice. Distributions to U.S. owners and beneficiaries are valued at fair market value on the date of distribution.
Owner and Beneficiary Statements
Two attachments are mandatory: the Foreign Grantor Trust Owner Statement and the Foreign Grantor Trust Beneficiary Statement. The Owner Statement allocates income, deductions, and credits to the U.S. owner under the grantor trust rules. The Beneficiary Statement documents distributions to each U.S. beneficiary. Without these, the return is incomplete and can draw the same penalty as a missing return. Copies must also be sent to the U.S. owners and beneficiaries so they can complete their own returns.
The U.S. Agent Designation
The form requires the trust to designate a U.S. agent, and skipping this is one of the most consequential mistakes filers make. A U.S. agent is a U.S. person (typically the grantor, a beneficiary, or a domestic corporation controlled by either) authorized under a binding contract with the trust to answer IRS examination requests and summonses about the trust. The agent’s name, address, and taxpayer identification number must appear on the form itself; otherwise the trust is treated as having no U.S. agent.
If no U.S. agent is designated, the IRS can determine on its own what the U.S. owner should have reported, and those determinations are usually unfavorable. Distributions from a trust with inadequate records may be recharacterized as accumulation distributions, which carry a heavier tax result.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 6048 – Information With Respect to Certain Foreign Trusts The agency must be in place when the form is filed and must remain so as long as the statute of limitations is open. If the agent relationship ends for any reason, an amended Form 3520-A naming a replacement must be filed within 90 days.
When the Return Is Due
Form 3520-A is due on the 15th day of the third month after the close of the trust’s tax year. For a calendar-year trust, that is March 15. The Owner and Beneficiary Statements must reach the U.S. owners and beneficiaries by the same date.
You can get an automatic extension by filing Form 7004 before the original due date. Use the foreign trust’s EIN on Form 7004, not the U.S. owner’s Social Security number.7Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 3520-A Extending your personal Form 1040 does not extend Form 3520-A. If you need more time for the trust return, file Form 7004 separately.
Substitute Filing Deadline
A substitute Form 3520-A is due on your Form 3520 deadline, not the trust’s March 15. That is April 15 for most individuals, June 15 for many taxpayers abroad, and October 15 if you extend your personal return.8Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 3520 (12/2025)
How and Where to File
Form 3520-A must be filed on paper; there is no e-file option. Mail the completed form, with both required Statements, to:
Internal Revenue Service Center
P.O. Box 409101
Ogden, UT 844099Internal Revenue Service. Where to File – Forms Beginning With the Number 3
Do not attach Form 3520-A to your Form 1040; it is filed independently. The one exception is a substitute Form 3520-A, which is attached to your Form 3520.
To correct a previously filed return, check the “Amended return” box and mail to the same Ogden address. An amended return is also required within 90 days if a designated U.S. agent’s role terminates.
Substitute Form 3520-A When the Trustee Won’t File
If your foreign trustee refuses to file or simply doesn’t, you complete a substitute Form 3520-A to the best of your ability, including the Owner and Beneficiary Statements, and attach it to your Form 3520. Check the “Substitute Form 3520-A” box.
The substitute is due on the Form 3520 due date, so calendar-year individual filers have until April 15 rather than March 15. Filing the substitute on time is what protects you from the penalty that would otherwise fall on you for the trust’s failure to file. If the trustee won’t provide information, fill in what you can, and keep a written record of every request you made and every response you got. That record is what supports a reasonable cause claim later.
Penalties
Penalties under IRC 6677 fall on the U.S. owner. The initial penalty for a return that is late, incomplete, or unfiled is the greater of $10,000 or 5% of the gross value of the trust assets treated as owned by the U.S. person at year-end.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6677 – Failure to File Information With Respect to Certain Foreign Trusts For a trust with $500,000 in assets, that is $25,000 on day one. The same penalty applies for failing to furnish the required Owner and Beneficiary Statements.
If a complete and accurate return still isn’t filed 90 days after the IRS mails a notice of failure, an additional $10,000 accrues for each 30-day period (or fraction of one) the failure continues. Total penalties cannot exceed the gross reportable amount, and any excess collected must be refunded.11Internal Revenue Service. Failure to File the Form 3520/3520-A Penalties
Failing to file has a second consequence beyond dollars. Under IRC 6501(c)(8), the statute of limitations on your income tax return does not begin to run until the required information return is filed.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 6501 – Limitations on Assessment and Collection Normally the IRS has three years from filing to assess additional tax. If Form 3520-A is missing, that clock never starts, and your return stays open. When the failure is due to reasonable cause rather than willful neglect, only the items related to the unfiled information stay open, not the whole return.
Reasonable Cause and Delinquent Filings
The 6677 penalties don’t apply if you can show the failure was due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect. The IRS expects a showing that you exercised ordinary business care and prudence. Reasonable cause statements must be in writing and signed under penalties of perjury.
Two limits are worth knowing. The statute makes clear that a foreign country’s laws penalizing disclosure of trust information do not amount to reasonable cause. And in practice, blaming an uncooperative trustee rarely works on its own: the IRS expects you to take affirmative steps to obtain the information, document them, and file a substitute Form 3520-A when necessary.
Delinquent International Information Return Procedures
If you realize you should have been filing in prior years and are not under examination, under criminal investigation, or already contacted by the IRS about the missing returns, you can file the delinquent returns through normal filing procedures.13Internal Revenue Service. Delinquent International Information Return Submission Procedures Attach a reasonable cause statement to each late return. Penalties may still be assessed during processing before the IRS reviews your explanation, so be prepared to respond to correspondence and resubmit. Filing delinquent returns does not automatically trigger an audit.
How Form 3520-A Interacts With Form 8938 and the FBAR
If you report a foreign financial asset on Form 3520-A, you don’t separately report it on Form 8938, and you exclude its value when testing whether you meet the Form 8938 threshold.14Internal Revenue Service. Do I Need to File Form 8938 Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets
The FBAR is separate. If the trust holds foreign bank or financial accounts, you may need to file FinCEN Form 114. You have a financial interest in the trust’s foreign accounts if you are the grantor with an ownership interest for U.S. tax purposes, or if you hold a greater than 50% present beneficial interest in the trust’s assets or income.15FinCEN. BSA Electronic Filing Requirements For Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FinCEN Form 114) A beneficiary with a greater than 50% interest doesn’t file a separate FBAR if the trust or its U.S. trustee has already filed one disclosing those accounts. The FBAR is filed electronically through FinCEN’s BSA E-Filing system, with an April 15 deadline and an automatic extension to October 15.