Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was enacted by the United States (US) Congress in March 2010 to improve compliance with US tax laws.

FATCA imposes certain due diligence and reporting obligations on foreign (non-US) financial institutions, including Australian institutions. These institutions will be required to report information on US citizens with financial accounts to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

You can subscribe to the Digital service providers newsletter for the latest FATCA and other software-specific updates.

You can also receive an email alert from us, when we have new information for reporters about FATCA. To subscribe to our Bulletin email ato-dmi@ato.gov.au

The IRS provides information on the latest news, guidance and other FATCA-related topics. You can subscribe to receive the IRS newsletter.

For more information, see FATCA reporting.

Latest news

March 2021

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has developed a new series of optional codes to populate the account holder’s US taxpayer identification number (TIN) where a TIN is not available. To cater for this change, we have extended the deadline for submitting 2020 reporting year FATCA reports to 31 August 2021.



Find out more on our FATCA reporting page.

October 2020

For the 2020 reporting year and onwards, a new validation rule will be added requiring the tax resident country code to be supplied for account holders that are entities.

Requirements for the reporting of account holder US TINs for the 2020 reporting year onwards have been updated.

More information

For more information, refer to:

• Automatic exchange of information guidance – CRS and FATCAExternal link
• FATCA XML form 8966 schema v2.0
• FATCA Reporters pageExternal link

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website

• Foreign Account Tax Compliance ActExternal link
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - FATCA Registration SystemExternal link
• FATCA XML Schemas and Business Rules for Form 8966External link

US Department of Treasury website

• Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)External link

Australian Treasury website

• Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Australia to Improve International Tax Compliance and to Implement FATCA (PDF, 286.70KB)External link

Parliament of Australia website

• Tax Laws Amendment (Implementation of the FATCA Agreement) Act 2014External link

Contact information

Email questions and feedback to DPO@ato.gov.au