F-1 and OPT Tax Filing Checklist

Two separate questions, not one

Students routinely collapse these into a single "do I need to do taxes" question, and the two answers come apart:

• Form 8843. This is how an exempt individual accounts for days of presence that do not count toward the substantial presence test. The obligation is generally tied to your status rather than to income, so it can apply in a year where you earned nothing at all.
• A tax return. A separate question, driven by what you earned and by your residency status. If you do file one, the Form 8843 normally goes with it rather than separately.

Neither answer is universal, and this page cannot settle either for you — both turn on facts specific to your year. What it can do is make sure you have the information in front of you when the question is answered.

F-1, OPT and tax residency are three different things

This is the distinction the rest of the page depends on. Conflating them is what produces a return on the wrong form:

The exempt-individual treatment that keeps many students nonresident is not open-ended. It is generally limited to a set number of calendar years, continuing past that requires meeting further conditions, and a change of status — the common one being F-1 to H-1B — restarts the analysis from a different place. Which is why the honest version of "what status am I?" is a calculation:

Our substantial presence test calculator handles the day count. The exempt-individual period and any change of status are judgements about your facts that sit on top of it.

Status and school documents

Form 8843 asks for programme and school details by name, so this list is not background paperwork — it is the content of a filing.

• Passport, visa page and I-94. Your entry and exit dates, and your class of admission. The day count is built from these.
• Every I-20, including any OPT-endorsed version. Programme dates, school, and your SEVIS number. Form 8843 asks for this information directly.
• EAD card, if you are on OPT. Establishes the authorised period, which matters when earnings straddle its start or end.
• Name and address of your DSO and school. Required on Form 8843. Finding it is the step that most often stalls an otherwise simple filing.
• A record of every entry and exit, for this year and the two before. The substantial presence test looks back three years. So does the question of how long you have been an exempt individual.
• SSN, or the ITIN question if you do not have one. Work authorisation is the usual route to an SSN. Without one, a filing obligation is met via an ITIN application on Form W-7.

Income documents

Gather what applies. A student year can easily produce a W-2 and a 1042-S and a 1098-T, and they are three different kinds of document.

Scholarships, fellowships and assistantships

Only relevant if you received funding, and where it applies the distinctions matter more than the amounts. Broadly, what a scholarship is spent on affects how it is treated: amounts applied to tuition and required fees are generally treated differently from amounts covering living costs. And payment for work — a teaching or research assistantship — is generally compensation rather than a grant, which is why it often arrives on a W-2 while a pure fellowship may arrive on a 1042-S.

• The award letter for every scholarship, fellowship or stipend, stating what it covers.
• Your student account statement, showing what was actually billed and what the award was applied against.
• Any 1042-S, including the withholding and the treaty code shown on it.
• Receipts for required course materials, which can matter to the analysis.

Education credits and deductions are a separate question again, and one where a Form 1098-T is frequently mistaken for an entitlement. Several of these benefits carry conditions that interact with nonresident status, so check eligibility against the rules rather than against the arrival of the form.

Social security, Medicare and the treaty

A nonresident alien student performing services permitted by their immigration status is generally exempt from social security and Medicare tax. Two practical consequences follow, and they point in opposite directions:

• If it was withheld while the exemption applied, boxes 4 and 6 of your W-2 will show amounts that should not be there. There is a route to recover them, and it starts with the employer. See our FICA refund service for how the claim works.
• If you have become a resident alien, the exemption generally no longer applies and the withholding is correct. Payroll departments do not always track the transition, so it is worth checking in the year your status changes rather than assuming either way.

On the treaty: the India-US treaty contains a provision under which students and business apprentices from India may claim the standard deduction on Form 1040-NR, and IRS guidance treats India as unusual in this respect. It is narrow — tied to being a student or business apprentice, not to nationality alone — and it does not follow you into a post-graduation role on a different status. What the treaty does and does not do more generally is set out in our guide to the India-US tax treaty.

Indian accounts and income

For most nonresident students this section is short, and that is the useful finding rather than an omission. The obligations below attach to US persons and to worldwide income, so whether they reach you follows your residency status:

• An Indian bank account. The FBAR applies to US persons, a definition a nonresident alien student is generally outside. If you become a resident for tax purposes, the aggregate of all foreign accounts at any point in the year is what matters — see our FBAR guide, which covers the student position directly.
• Indian mutual funds or a PPF account. Largely a question for the year you become a resident, not before. Both carry reporting regimes that consumer software does not handle: the PFIC problem and EPF, PPF and NPS.
• Money sent by your parents for fees or living costs. Receiving it is not income. There is a separate reporting regime for large gifts from abroad, and it too attaches to US persons — so it is another item that follows your status rather than your visa. See sending money between the US and India.
• Indian income, and Indian tax paid on it. Relevant once you are filing as a resident, when relief comes through the foreign tax credit rather than an exemption.

The year you switch from nonresident to resident is the year all of this turns on at once, which is why the residency question is worth settling deliberately rather than by habit.

State returns

Federal status does not decide the state position. States write their own residency rules, most tax wages earned in the state, and not every state follows a federal treaty exemption. A single on-campus W-2 can still carry a state filing obligation.

• Boxes 15 to 17 of each W-2, for state wages and withholding.
• The dates you were in each state, if an internship or OPT role moved you.
• Whether the state treats a treaty position the way the federal return does — some do not.
• Last year's state return, if you filed one.

Rates, forms and deadlines by state are in our state tax guides.

The pass before you file

Gathering is done. These are the checks worth making while everything is still editable:

• Form 8843 is completed for every year you were an exempt individual — filed with the return if you file one, and on its own if you have no filing obligation.
• The return is the right form for your status. Consumer software that only prepares resident returns is the most common route to a wrongly filed student year.
• Every W-2 and every 1042-S is on the return. A 1042-S arriving after a W-2 is easy to overlook.
• Boxes 4 and 6 of each W-2 have been checked against your status, rather than assumed correct.
• Any treaty position taken is one you actually qualify for, and is disclosed where disclosure is required.
• No credit or deduction has been claimed that carries a residency condition you do not meet.
• Your SSN or ITIN is correct and matches your documents exactly.
• State filing has been considered separately from the federal return, not inferred from it.

Where student returns go wrong

These recur every season, and most of them are cheaper to avoid than to amend:

When to get help

A single on-campus W-2 in a clear nonresident year is manageable alone. These facts reliably change that:

• The year your exempt-individual period ends, or the year you change status — the residency answer moves.
• Social security and Medicare withheld when the exemption applied, which needs a claim rather than a line on the return.
• A prior year filed on Form 1040 when it should have been Form 1040-NR, or the reverse.
• Trading activity in a year with heavy US presence, because of the flat-rate rule above.
• Any treaty position, which depends on reading the treaty rather than a form's instructions.

Nothing here is individual advice, and it cannot be — the answers turn on your own facts. Treat this as the list to work through before that conversation.

Where this comes from

IRS and USCIS guidance. Student rules are the ones most often repeated second-hand and wrong, so they are worth reading at source rather than trusting any summary, including this one:

• IRS — About Form 8843, Statement for Exempt Individuals
• IRS — Substantial Presence Test, including exempt individuals
• IRS Publication 519 — US Tax Guide for Aliens
• IRS — About Form 1040-NR, US Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return
• IRS — Foreign Student Liability for Social Security and Medicare Taxes
• IRS — Taxation of Nonresident Aliens, including the capital gains rule
• IRS Publication 970 — Tax Benefits for Education (scholarships and credits)
• IRS — About Form 1042-S
• IRS — Tax Residency Status Examples, including student cases
• IRS — India Tax Treaty Documents
• USCIS — Optional Practical Training (OPT) for F-1 Students
• IRS — About Form W-7, ITIN application

Reviewed by Teja K, CPA · last reviewed September 24, 2026. General information, not tax advice for your situation. Whether a particular year is a nonresident year, and which of these obligations reach you, depends on facts we cannot see from here. How we research and review this.