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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).
FATCA is part of a broader suite of international measures aimed at combating tax avoidance through more comprehensive exchanges of information between countries (for example, the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and Country-by-Country Reporting (CbC).
For further information refer to the Websites and documents below.
Latest news
November 2025
Update to TIN Code validation rules
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued Notice 2024-78 which extends the temporary relief provided in Notice 2023-11. Notice 2023-11 introduced temporary relief for Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs) regarding the provision of US Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) for the 2022-2024 reporting period. Notice 2024-78 extends this relief through years 2025, 2026 and 2027.
In Notice 2024-78 an additional requirement is stipulated to obtain relief.
‘To obtain the relief … for the 2025, 2026, and 2027 calendar years… the reporting Model 1 FFI must do the following:
(5) if the FFI’s electronically searchable account information contains a foreign taxpayer identification number (or functional equivalent) assigned to a taxpayer by its country of residence (FTIN), report an FTIN for each specified U.S. person that is missing a required U.S. TIN’
For more information, please refer to Extension of temporary US TIN relief for 2025, 2026 and 2027.
To enable the reporting of non-US TIN (FTIN) and allow for the extension of concessional relief the validation rules have been updated as follows:
Updated:
VR.ATO.FATCA.000146, VR.ATO.FATCA.000196, VR.ATO.FATCA.000228, VR.ATO.FATCA.W00511, VR.ATO.FATCA.W00512, VR.ATO.FATCA.W00513 and VR.ATO.FATCA.W00514
Added:
VR.ATO.FATCA.000483, VR.ATO.FATCA.000484, VR.ATO.FATCA.000485
For the latest validation rules please refer to the latest FATCA Specifications.
May 2023
Update to TIN Code validation rules
On 30 December 2022 the IRS published Notice 2023–11 (PDF, 101KB). This link will download a file. This notice provides concessional relief to Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs) who report missing US TINs.
To support the concessional relief, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published an updated list of taxpayer identification number (TIN) codes.
For more information, TIN codes and descriptions see Updated TIN Codes for 2022, 2023, 2024.
To support the use of the updated TIN codes we have updated the following validation rules:
Updates:
VR.ATO.FATCA.W00507, VR.ATO.FATCA.W00508, VR.ATO.FATCA.W00509 and VR.ATO.FATCA.W00510
Added:
VR.ATO.FATCA.W00511, VR.ATO.FATCA.W00512, VR.ATO.FATCA.W00513 and VR.ATO.FATCA.W00514
For the latest validation rules please refer to the latest FATCA Specifications.
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.
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Websites and documents
For further information refer to the websites and documents below.
For more information, refer to:
- Guide to how Australia participates in automatic exchange of financial account information with foreign jurisdictions
- FATCA Specifications including the FATCA Schema and Validation Rules
- FATCA Schema Information – FATCA XML Form 8966 Schema
- Information for FATCA Reporters on completing and lodging a Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) report.
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website
- Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – FATCA Registration System
- FATCA XML Schemas and Business Rules for Form 8966
US Department of Treasury website
Australian Treasury website
Parliament of Australia website
Contact information
Email questions and feedback to DPO@ato.gov.au