Do Americans living in Germany still have to file US taxes?

Generally yes. US citizens and green-card holders file a US federal return on worldwide income wherever they live. German tax residence does not end that, though German income tax is usually high enough that the Foreign Tax Credit on Form 1116 removes most or all of the US tax on employment income. The return and any reporting forms are still required.

Do German bank accounts count for the FBAR?

Generally yes. A Girokonto, Tagesgeldkonto, Festgeld or Depot at a German institution is a non-US financial account, and its maximum value during the year counts toward the $10,000 aggregate test for FinCEN Form 114. A Bausparvertrag holding a credit balance is commonly reportable too. The test is the combined peak across all accounts, not a per-account figure.

Are German ETFs and UCITS funds PFICs for US taxpayers?

The Irish- and Luxembourg-domiciled UCITS ETFs sold to German retail investors, and German Publikumsfonds, are non-US pooled investment vehicles — and such vehicles commonly meet the §1297 income test (75% or more of gross income is passive) or asset test (50% or more of assets produce, or are held to produce, passive income). It is an annual test applied to the fund rather than a status conferred by domicile, so each holding should be confirmed. Shares in SAP, Siemens or Allianz are not PFICs.

Is my ETF-Sparplan at Trade Republic or Scalable Capital a problem?

The broker is not the issue; what the Sparplan buys is. EU PRIIPs rules keep US-domiciled ETFs off German retail platforms, so a savings plan almost always accumulates units in a non-US UCITS fund — generally one Form 8621 per fund per year for a US person, under the §1291 default. A monthly plan also creates a long list of purchase lots that matter to the §1291 holding-period allocation.

How does the Vorabpauschale interact with US tax?

It does not line up. Germany taxes an imputed annual return on accumulating funds each January through the Vorabpauschale, while US PFIC rules tax excess distributions and dispositions under §1291, or the annual value change under a mark-to-market election. Because the bases and the timing differ, German tax can fall in years with no corresponding US income — and Form 1116 credits, computed year by year and by category, can go unused.

How is a German pension treated for US tax purposes?

It depends on the arrangement. The statutory Rente through Deutsche Rentenversicherung, a Riester contract, a Rürup annuity and an employer betriebliche Altersvorsorge are analysed separately, and the US characterisation comes before any treaty article. German tax deferral does not automatically carry across, and reporting can apply even where no tax is due.

What does Article 18A of the US–Germany treaty do?

Article 18A (Pension Plans) was added by the 2006 Protocol and provides rules for contributions to a pension plan in one state by a person working in the other. It is the treaty's principal cross-border pension provision, and it can be genuinely useful — but the relief is conditional on the article's own requirements, including what qualifies as a pension plan, who is contributing, and the individual's circumstances. It needs applying to your documents rather than assuming.

Can German taxes reduce my US tax through the Foreign Tax Credit?

German income tax paid on the same income is generally creditable on Form 1116, computed per income category and limited to the US tax on that category. Income tax plus Solidaritätszuschlag on employment income usually exceeds the US tax on it. Abgeltungsteuer on investment income credits in the passive category — but Teilfreistellung reduces the German tax on equity funds, and therefore reduces the credit.

Do I need Form 8938 in Germany?

Possibly, and it is a separate test from the FBAR. For a single filer living abroad Form 8938 starts at $200,000 in specified foreign financial assets at year end or $300,000 at any point; married filing jointly, $400,000 and $600,000. It covers a broader class of assets than the FBAR, so the two do not move together.

Germany · US corridor

US expat taxes in Germany —
your Sparplan is the standard advice and a standard problem.

A US citizen living in Germany generally stays inside the US federal filing system on worldwide income. German tax is high enough that the Foreign Tax Credit usually removes the US tax on salary — so the hard part is not the tax. It is that Germany made low-cost index investing mainstream, and the whole German ETF shelf is non-US funds.

Check my Germany filing The Germany treaty desk

Free diagnostic and on-screen summary — you pay only to generate the package.

What actually applies

The layers a German return runs through.

Not everyone needs every form. These are the layers that come up most for Americans in Germany, and what makes each one bite here.

US filing layers that commonly apply to a US person living in Germany
Form	What it is	What makes it bite in Germany
Form 1040	The US federal return, on worldwide income.	Filed regardless of German residence. Euro converts at the IRS yearly-average rate; the German tax year is the calendar year, so the periods align.
Form 1116	Foreign Tax Credit for foreign income tax paid.	Income tax plus Soli, and Kirchensteuer where it applies, usually exceeds US tax on the same salary. Investment income is less clean — Teilfreistellung shrinks the credit.
FinCEN 114 (FBAR)	Report of non-US financial accounts once the combined peak exceeds $10,000.	Girokonto, Tagesgeld, Depot, Bausparvertrag. German banking spreads you across accounts by design, and they aggregate.
Form 8938	FATCA reporting of specified foreign financial assets, filed with the return.	Higher thresholds than the FBAR — from $200,000 year-end for a single filer abroad — but a broader class of assets, which reaches some German insurance and pension wrappers.
Form 8621	One per PFIC per year, subject to the form's own triggers.	The Sparplan. Three ETFs is three forms a year, indefinitely — and this is where a German return stops being routine.
Form 8833	Disclosure of a treaty-based return position that overrides the default treatment.	Not needed for the ordinary Form 1116 credit. Article 18A pension positions are the usual reason it comes up.
Streamlined (Form 14653)	The catch-up route for non-willful taxpayers living abroad.	The common path for the long-settled American population in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt and the university towns.

A form listed here does not mean it applies to you. Which of these your return needs depends on your accounts, holdings and income.

Salary and accounts

The easy half of a German return.

German tax on employment income does most of the work. It is worth knowing which parts are genuinely simple before getting to the parts that are not.

German salary and the Foreign Tax Credit

Lohnsteuer withheld at source, plus Solidaritätszuschlag and Kirchensteuer where it applies, generally exceeds the US tax on the same income. Form 1116 credits it category by category, and the residual US tax on salary is commonly zero.

Your Steuerbescheid is the cleanest evidence of tax actually paid, year by year — which is exactly what the credit needs.

How the Foreign Tax Credit works →

German accounts: reporting, not tax

A Girokonto, a Tagesgeldkonto, a Depot, a Bausparvertrag — each is a non-US financial account. The FBAR adds their peaks together, so accounts that each look small can cross $10,000 between them.

A Freistellungsauftrag is a German withholding instruction and does nothing here. Neither does filing a Steuererklärung. The layers are independent.

FBAR from Germany, in detail →

If you have an ETF-Sparplan

€150 a month into an MSCI World tracker?

It is the standard German financial advice and, for a US citizen, a standard PFIC. Trade Republic, Scalable Capital, comdirect and every Sparkasse Depot sell Irish- and Luxembourg-domiciled UCITS funds, because PRIIPs rules keep US-domiciled ETFs off the German retail shelf. Generally one Form 8621 per fund per year — and a monthly plan creates a long list of purchase lots that matter to the §1291 allocation.

Direct shares in SAP, Siemens or Allianz are not PFICs, and neither is a Bundesanleihe held directly.

PFICs in Germany, in full Check my ISINs

Vorabpauschale and Teilfreistellung

Two German rules the US return does not mirror.

Since the 2018 Investmentsteuerreform, Germany taxes fund investors in ways that have no US counterpart. Both of them make the Foreign Tax Credit work worse than the headline rates suggest.

Vorabpauschale: tax on what you did not receive

Each January, holders of accumulating funds pay German tax on an imputed minimum return computed from the Basiszins and the fund's value, capped at the actual increase. Real German tax, deducted at source, on income you have not received.

The US taxes something else, in another year

Under §1291 the US taxes excess distributions and dispositions, allocated back across the holding period. Under mark-to-market it taxes the actual annual value change. Neither matches the Vorabpauschale's base or its timing.

German tax paid in a year with no matching US income has nothing to credit against, and Form 1116 is computed year by year.

Teilfreistellung shrinks the credit

Germany exempts 30% of an equity fund's income from Abgeltungsteuer. Lower German tax means a smaller Foreign Tax Credit against whatever US tax does arise. A German relief that costs you on the US side.

QEF vs mark-to-market

Which election is realistically available on a German-held UCITS ETF, and what electing actually changes.

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Check your Depot for PFICs.

Pick your broker — Trade Republic, Scalable, comdirect, a Sparkasse, IBKR — and what you hold, or paste the ISINs from your Jahressteuerbescheinigung.

1 · Where do you live?

Where you live changes the products you are likely to hold and the guidance you get next. It does not change how the PFIC rules classify a holding — those turn on the fund, not your address.

2 · Where do you hold it?

3 · What do you hold?

Or paste your ISINs — one per line

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More for US taxpayers in Germany: The Germany desk.

Educational estimate, not tax advice. Domicile is the fund's legal home, not the broker or exchange you used. Broker and provider policies change — confirm current terms with your provider before acting.

German pensions

Three pillars, four US classification problems.

Rente, Riester, Rürup, betriebliche Altersvorsorge — plus Article 18A, the one genuinely useful cross-border pension rule in the treaty.

Classification before treaty

Before any article applies, the arrangement has to be characterised for US purposes: employer plan, personal annuity contract, bank-held savings, or state benefit. German product names do not settle it, and German deferral does not automatically carry across.

A Direktzusage with no separate employee account is analysed quite differently from a Direktversicherung — which is why “my German pension” has no single answer.

German pensions and US tax, in detail →

Article 18A, and the totalization agreement

The 2006 Protocol added Article 18A (Pension Plans), with rules for contributions to a pension plan in one state by someone working in the other. Genuinely substantive — and conditional on the article's own requirements, so it needs applying to your documents.

Separately, the US–Germany totalization agreement assigns social-security coverage to one country, documented by a certificate of coverage. It governs contributions; the income tax treaty governs how the benefit is taxed.

The Germany treaty desk →

Behind on filings?

The penalty-free route back, from Germany.

Germany has a large, long-settled American population and a steady stream of people who find out years in. The programme exists for exactly that.

A qualifying taxpayer files the most recent 3 years of returns and the most recent 6 years of FBARs, with the offshore penalty at 0%. Two gates: non-willful conduct, and the non-residency test — at least 330 days abroad in at least one of the last three years.

On salary, the tax across those years is often little or nothing after the credit for German tax. The volume is in the information returns — and a five-year-old Sparplan produces a long list of lots and one Form 8621 per fund per year across the window.

You certify non-willfulness on Form 14653, under penalty of perjury. Atamatax prepares the return side and does not generate Form 14653, assemble the mailing, or transmit anything to the IRS or FinCEN.

Check Streamlined eligibility The Germany catch-up guide

The treaty, in short

The 1989 convention, and what the 2006 Protocol added.

US–Germany Convention 1989

The convention allocates taxing rights and provides relief from double taxation — for a US citizen, almost always as a credit on Form 1116. The saving clause preserves US taxation of citizens subject to the exceptions listed in Article 1. The 2006 Protocol added Article 18A (Pension Plans).

Article 10 — dividends. Article 11 — interest. Article 13 — capital gains.
Article 18 — pensions and similar remuneration.
Article 18A — cross-border pension contributions, added by the 2006 Protocol, subject to the conditions in the article.
Form 8833 is for a position that overrides the default treatment, not for the ordinary credit.
Nothing in the convention displaces the PFIC rules, which are US domestic law.

The Germany treaty desk, article by article →

The Germany treaty desk has been on the site since the beginning and is unchanged — it does the article-level work, including Abgeltungsteuer creditability and the Riester/Rürup positions. This page exists for the broader question of what living in Germany does to a US return.

Berlin has its own guide too, for the city-level detail on Anmeldung, freelancing and the Finanzamt.

The Germany desk

Every Germany–US guide on the site.

FBAR for Americans living in Germany

Girokonto, Tagesgeld, Depot, Bausparvertrag — which German accounts count toward FinCEN 114, and why the Freistellungsauftrag has nothing to do with it.

PFICs for Americans in Germany: UCITS ETFs, Vorabpauschale and Form 8621

Your Trade Republic ETF savings plan is the standard German way to invest and a standard U.S. tax problem — two systems taxing the same fund on different bases in different years.

German pensions and US tax: Rente, Riester, Rürup and betriebliche Altersvorsorge

Germany's three-pillar system meets a U.S. return that recognises none of the German labels — plus Article 18A, the one genuinely useful cross-border pension rule in the treaty.

Streamlined filing from Germany: catching up on US taxes

The penalty-free route back for Americans in Germany who never filed — and why an ETF-Sparplan makes the catch-up bigger than the tax bill suggests.

U.S. Tax Filing for Americans in Berlin

Fixed-fee support for U.S. citizens and Green Card holders in Berlin — German salary, Riester/Rürup pensions, Abgeltungsteuer, FBAR and FATCA reporting.

Germany · US treaty desk

The 1989 convention article by article, with the 2006 Protocol.

FBAR & Form 8938 threshold checker

Test your German account balances against both thresholds.

All country desks

US filing abroad, adapted to where you live.

US taxes in Germany — the questions we get

Do Americans living in Germany still have to file US taxes?#: Generally yes. US citizens and green-card holders file a US federal return on worldwide income wherever they live. German tax residence does not end that, though German income tax is usually high enough that the Foreign Tax Credit on Form 1116 removes most or all of the US tax on employment income. The return and any reporting forms are still required.
Do German bank accounts count for the FBAR?#: Generally yes. A Girokonto, Tagesgeldkonto, Festgeld or Depot at a German institution is a non-US financial account, and its maximum value during the year counts toward the $10,000 aggregate test for FinCEN Form 114. A Bausparvertrag holding a credit balance is commonly reportable too. The test is the combined peak across all accounts, not a per-account figure.
Are German ETFs and UCITS funds PFICs for US taxpayers?#: The Irish- and Luxembourg-domiciled UCITS ETFs sold to German retail investors, and German Publikumsfonds, are non-US pooled investment vehicles — and such vehicles commonly meet the §1297 income test (75% or more of gross income is passive) or asset test (50% or more of assets produce, or are held to produce, passive income). It is an annual test applied to the fund rather than a status conferred by domicile, so each holding should be confirmed. Shares in SAP, Siemens or Allianz are not PFICs.
Is my ETF-Sparplan at Trade Republic or Scalable Capital a problem?#: The broker is not the issue; what the Sparplan buys is. EU PRIIPs rules keep US-domiciled ETFs off German retail platforms, so a savings plan almost always accumulates units in a non-US UCITS fund — generally one Form 8621 per fund per year for a US person, under the §1291 default. A monthly plan also creates a long list of purchase lots that matter to the §1291 holding-period allocation.
How does the Vorabpauschale interact with US tax?#: It does not line up. Germany taxes an imputed annual return on accumulating funds each January through the Vorabpauschale, while US PFIC rules tax excess distributions and dispositions under §1291, or the annual value change under a mark-to-market election. Because the bases and the timing differ, German tax can fall in years with no corresponding US income — and Form 1116 credits, computed year by year and by category, can go unused.
How is a German pension treated for US tax purposes?#: It depends on the arrangement. The statutory Rente through Deutsche Rentenversicherung, a Riester contract, a Rürup annuity and an employer betriebliche Altersvorsorge are analysed separately, and the US characterisation comes before any treaty article. German tax deferral does not automatically carry across, and reporting can apply even where no tax is due.
What does Article 18A of the US–Germany treaty do?#: Article 18A (Pension Plans) was added by the 2006 Protocol and provides rules for contributions to a pension plan in one state by a person working in the other. It is the treaty's principal cross-border pension provision, and it can be genuinely useful — but the relief is conditional on the article's own requirements, including what qualifies as a pension plan, who is contributing, and the individual's circumstances. It needs applying to your documents rather than assuming.
Can German taxes reduce my US tax through the Foreign Tax Credit?#: German income tax paid on the same income is generally creditable on Form 1116, computed per income category and limited to the US tax on that category. Income tax plus Solidaritätszuschlag on employment income usually exceeds the US tax on it. Abgeltungsteuer on investment income credits in the passive category — but Teilfreistellung reduces the German tax on equity funds, and therefore reduces the credit.
Do I need Form 8938 in Germany?#: Possibly, and it is a separate test from the FBAR. For a single filer living abroad Form 8938 starts at $200,000 in specified foreign financial assets at year end or $300,000 at any point; married filing jointly, $400,000 and $600,000. It covers a broader class of assets than the FBAR, so the two do not move together.
Can Americans in Germany use Streamlined procedures?#: Living in Germany neither qualifies nor disqualifies you. The Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures require non-willful conduct and the non-residency test — at least 330 days abroad in at least one of the last three years. A qualifying taxpayer files the most recent 3 years of returns and the most recent 6 years of FBARs with a 0% offshore penalty, certifying non-willfulness on Form 14653.

Authorities cited

IRC §1297 — IRC §1297 — Definition of a passive foreign investment company
IRS Form 8621 — About Form 8621 — Information Return by a Shareholder of a PFIC or QEF
IRC §1291 — IRC §1291 — Interest on tax deferral (excess-distribution regime)
IRC §1296 — IRC §1296 — Mark-to-market election for marketable PFIC stock
FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR) — Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR)
31 CFR §1010.350 — 31 CFR §1010.350 — FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) filing requirement and $10,000 threshold
IRS Form 8938 — About Form 8938 — Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets
IRC §6038D — IRC §6038D — Information reporting of specified foreign financial assets (Form 8938)
IRS Form 1116 — About Form 1116 — Foreign Tax Credit (Individual, Estate, or Trust)
IRC §904 — IRC §904 — Limitation on the foreign tax credit
US–Germany Income Tax Treaty — Convention between the United States and Germany (signed 1989) and the 2006 Protocol, which added Article 18A (Pension Plans)
U.S.–Germany Totalization Agreement — U.S.–Germany Social Security (Totalization) Agreement
IRS Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures — U.S. Taxpayers Residing Outside the United States — Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures

Primary sources (Cornell Legal Information Institute for the US Code and CFR; IRS.gov for forms, procedures, and treaty documents). This page is general information, not individualized tax or legal advice.

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