How much does it cost to file an FBAR?

The government charges nothing to file an FBAR

The FBAR is not an IRS tax form. It is a report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the US Treasury, and it is filed only online through the BSA E-Filing System. There is no fee to register, no fee to submit, and no fee for filing late.

Individuals can complete the form directly in the browser or download a fillable PDF, sign it electronically and upload it; either way it takes minutes once the numbers are ready. Paper filing is not accepted without special permission.

Because it goes to FinCEN rather than the IRS, the FBAR is never attached to your Form 1040 and does not go through tax software in the ordinary way. It is due April 15 and receives an automatic extension to October 15 with no request needed. The rule that triggers it is simple: if the combined highest balances of all your non-US financial accounts passed US$10,000 at any point in the year, you file. Our FBAR guide explains how that rule reaches Canadian chequing, savings, RRSP, TFSA, RESP and brokerage accounts.

What professional preparation costs and what drives it

When an accountant prepares the FBAR, you are paying for the account inventory and the valuation work, not for pressing submit. The public ranges on our cross-border fees page put FBAR preparation at roughly $100-$200 per year when it is done alongside a US return, and a streamlined catch-up covering six years of FBARs plus three years of returns at $1,750-$2,500 or more as a package. Within those ranges, the price moves with:

• Number of accounts. Two chequing accounts is one thing; fourteen accounts across three banks, two brokerages and an insurer is another. Each line needs an address, an account number and a verified maximum balance.
• Number of years. Current-year filings reuse last year's inventory. Six back years mean six sets of statements, six sets of exchange rates, and accounts that opened and closed along the way.
• Joint and signature-authority accounts. A business account you can sign on, a parent's account you were added to, or a spouse's account you hold jointly all have to be traced and classified.
• Missing records. If the bank cannot produce old statements, the preparer reconstructs a defensible maximum from what exists, and that takes time.
• Whether returns need amending. Where the account income was left off the 1040, the FBAR becomes part of a larger fix and is priced within it. Our late-FBAR answer explains the two routes.

Two things the FBAR fee usually does not include are worth confirming when you get a quote: Form 8938, which reports much of the same information to the IRS once higher thresholds are crossed, and Form T1135 on the Canadian side for US-situated holdings. A good preparer builds one maximum-balance schedule and feeds all three forms from it.

What you need to have ready

Whether you file yourself or hand it over, the form asks for the same facts about every reportable account. Gathering them in advance is the single biggest way to keep the professional fee at the low end:

1. The financial institution's legal name and mailing address.
2. The account number and the type of account: bank, securities, or other (insurance with cash value, some pension arrangements).
3. The maximum value the account held at any point in the calendar year, taken from statements. Month-end figures are acceptable if daily peaks are unavailable, provided the approach is reasonable and consistent.
4. That figure converted to US dollars at the Treasury Reporting Rate of Exchange for December 31 of the reporting year, published by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The FBAR does not use the Bank of Canada rate or the rate on the peak date.
5. How the account is held: solely, jointly and with whom, or signature authority only.

Spouses can file one FBAR covering everything if all reportable accounts are jointly held and the non-filing spouse signs Form 114a; if either has a separate account, they file separately. Accounts closed during the year are still reported for that year at their peak.

When filing it yourself makes sense and when it does not

Doing it yourself is reasonable when your 1040 is current, you have a small number of personal accounts with online statements, and the year in question is the current one. The form is repetitive but not difficult, and the information is largely the same year to year.

Handing it to a professional makes sense when years are missing, when you have signature authority on business or family accounts, when you are unsure whether an RRSP, RESP, pension or insurance policy is reportable, or when the FBAR is one piece of a wider catch-up. In those cases the FBAR is rarely the expensive part of the engagement - the returns, the PFIC forms and the Form 8938 work are - and it is prepared from the same account schedule at little extra cost. The cross-border accountant cost answer shows how the whole package is usually priced.

How we price FBAR work

We do not sell the FBAR as a standalone product for current-year filers who are otherwise compliant, because the form is free and most people in that position can file it themselves with a short checklist, which we are happy to provide. Where we prepare US returns, the FBAR is built from the same account inventory we already maintain for Form 8938 and T1135 and is quoted as part of the fixed fee. For missed years, we price the six-year FBAR set and any returns as a single streamlined or delinquent-procedure package after a discovery call, and the quote is in writing before we begin. The full service is described on our US tax preparation page.

Source: IRS - Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) and FinCEN - BSA E-Filing System.