Form 1040-NR: the U.S. tax return for nonresidents

Form 1040-NR is the return a nonresident alien files: someone who is not a U.S. citizen or national and who meets neither of the residency tests explained below.

You must file if you were engaged in a trade or business in the United States during the year, and performing services here usually counts. That holds even if you had no U.S.-source income or your income is exempt under a tax treaty. If you were not engaged in a U.S. trade or business, you still file if you had U.S.-source income and not all of the tax you owe on it was withheld. The IRS says there is no minimum amount of income that triggers a filing requirement for a nonresident alien.

Students, teachers and trainees in F, J, M or Q status are the main exception: they file Form 1040-NR only if they have income subject to tax, such as wages, tips or a taxable scholarship. Without it they file Form 8843 alone. And even without a filing requirement, a return is how you get back income tax that was over-withheld.

You are a resident alien for the year if you were a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder, at any time during it, or if you meet the substantial presence test: at least 31 days in the United States during the year and 183 days over three years, counting every day of the current year, one third of the days in the year before and one sixth of the days in the year before that.

Days on which you are an exempt individual are left out. For students in F, J, M or Q status that generally covers their first five calendar years; for teachers and trainees in J or Q status it generally ends once they have been exempt for any part of two of the previous six calendar years. Those days are claimed on Form 8843, filed with the return.

The answer decides more than the form. Resident aliens are generally taxed on their worldwide income, like U.S. citizens, and file Form 1040. Nonresident aliens are taxed only on U.S.-source income and certain income connected with a U.S. trade or business.

Your income falls into two groups. Income effectively connected with a U.S. trade or business, which includes wages for work done here and the taxable part of a U.S. scholarship or fellowship, is taxed after allowable deductions at the same graduated rates as citizens and residents. U.S.-source fixed or periodic income that is not connected with a U.S. business, such as dividends, is taxed at a flat 30%, or a lower treaty rate, on the gross amount with no deductions; it goes on Schedule NEC.

Beyond that, Form 1040-NR allows less than Form 1040. The main differences:

A tax treaty can exempt income or lower the rate on it, but treaty-exempt income is still reported. On Form 1040-NR it goes in item L of Schedule OI, with the treaty country, the article and the amount, and any Form 1042-S for that income is attached to the return.

Separately, if you take the position that a treaty overrides or modifies the Internal Revenue Code and that position reduces, or may reduce, your tax, you generally disclose it on Form 8833, and the penalty for leaving out a required disclosure is $1,000 for each failure. Form 8833 is required, for example, when you rely on a treaty’s tie-breaker rule to be treated as a resident of the other country. Several common cases are waived; you do not need Form 8833 to claim:

Nonresident alien students in F-1, J-1 or M-1 status are generally exempt from Social Security and Medicare tax on pay for work that immigration rules allow and that serves the purpose of their visa: on-campus jobs, practical training and economic hardship employment. J-1 exchange visitors with permission to work and a letter of authorization from their sponsor are treated the same way, and Q visa holders can be exempt when they work for the employer that petitioned for the visa. The exemption does not cover F-2, J-2 or M-2 family members, and it ends when you become a resident alien.

If these taxes were withheld anyway, ask the employer who withheld them for a refund first. If you cannot get all of it back, you claim it from the IRS on Form 843, with Form 8316 and supporting documents: your Form W-2, your visa, your I-94 record, your Form I-20 or DS-2019, and Form I-766 if you were on optional practical training. The refund is claimed on its own form, not on Form 1040-NR.

A year in which you are a nonresident for part of the time and a resident for the rest is a dual-status year, most often the year you arrive or the year you leave. For the resident part you are taxed on income from all sources; for the nonresident part, generally on U.S.-source income and income connected with a U.S. business.

The return depends on your status on the last day of the year. Resident on December 31: file Form 1040 marked as a dual-status return, with a Form 1040-NR attached as a statement for the nonresident months. Nonresident on December 31: file Form 1040-NR marked as a dual-status return, with Form 1040 as the statement. Either way you cannot take the standard deduction, you cannot file jointly unless you choose to be treated as a resident for the whole year with a citizen or resident spouse, and for tax year 2025 the IRS says a dual-status return cannot be e-filed.

If you arrived too late in the year to meet the substantial presence test, were not a resident the year before, and will meet the test the following year, the first-year choice can make you a resident from the start of a 31-day stretch of presence, provided you were here at least 31 days in a row and for at least 75% of the days from then to the end of the year. That return cannot be filed until you actually meet the test the following year; the IRS’s route for the gap is an extension on Form 4868.

Form 1040-NR is due April 15 if you received wages subject to U.S. income tax withholding and June 15 if you did not, moved to the next business day when the date falls on a weekend or legal holiday. Form 4868, filed by that date, extends the time to file by six months but not the time to pay. File within 16 months of the due date at the latest: the IRS can deny deductions and credits on a return filed after that.

Form 1040-NR can be filed electronically, apart from the dual-status returns described above. It is a federal return only; a state return, if you need one, is a separate filing.

The mistake to avoid is filing Form 1040 while you are a nonresident. Form 1040 carries benefits a nonresident generally cannot take, such as the standard deduction and the education credits. The fix is Form 1040-X with the correct Form 1040-NR attached; if the correction produces a refund, the claim generally has to be filed within three years of the original return or two years of paying the tax, whichever is later.