H-1B Tax Filing Checklist
What actually goes wrong on these returns is rarely arithmetic. It is a residency question settled by assumption, a broker basis that was never right, or an Indian account nobody mentioned. Work through this before you file, not after.
Start here, not with the documents
One question decides most of this page: whether you are a resident, a nonresident, or dual-status for the year. It sets which form you file, whether your Indian income belongs on the return at all, and which sections below you can skip entirely. Unlike F-1 and J-1 students, who can be exempt individuals whose days do not count, days on H-1B generally do count toward the substantial presence test — so a full year on H-1B often means a resident return. The year you arrive is the one most likely to be dual-status. Settle that first; gather second.
Settle residency before you gather anything
US tax residency is not your visa. It is the result of a test. The substantial presence test counts all your days of US presence in the current year, a third of the days in the year before, and a sixth of the days in the year before that, and asks whether the total reaches 183 — with a separate minimum of 31 days in the current year. H-1B is not one of the exempt-individual categories, so your days count while you are on it.
That test produces one of three outcomes, and they are not interchangeable:
| Status for the year | Generally filed on | Income the US reaches | Foreign-asset reporting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resident for the whole year | Form 1040 | Worldwide income, including Indian salary, interest and capital gains | FBAR and Form 8938 can both apply |
| Nonresident for the whole year | Form 1040-NR | US-source income and income connected with a US trade or business | Generally outside the FBAR’s definition of a US person |
| Dual-status (common in an arrival or departure year) | One return with the other attached as a statement | Split at the residency start or end date | Follows the resident part of the year |
Elections complicate this in both directions — a first-year choice, a residency election where a spouse is involved, and a treaty tie-breaker can each move the answer. None of them is automatic, and none should be assumed. If your year included a change of status, a partial year of presence, or a move in either direction, treat the outcome as something to establish rather than something to infer. Our substantial presence test calculator will do the day count; it will not decide the elections for you.
Status and identity documents
These are the documents people skip, because they look like immigration admin rather than tax paperwork. They are the inputs to the test above.
- Passport and current I-94. The I-94 carries your admission dates and class of admission. The day count behind your residency status is built from these, not from memory.
- Every I-797 approval notice covering the year. An H-1B transfer, an extension or an amendment each has its own validity dates. A gap or an overlap changes the picture.
- The date of any change of status. An F-1 or J-1 to H-1B change part-way through a year is the single most common reason a year is filed on the wrong form.
- A travel log for the year. Days spent outside the US reduce the count. Long trips home matter; so do the ones you have forgotten.
- SSN card, and SSN or ITIN for anyone else on the return. An H-4 spouse generally has no SSN unless they hold their own employment authorisation, which raises an ITIN question rather than a blocker.
If anyone on the return needs an ITIN, start early. The application travels with the return rather than ahead of it, and it is a common cause of a delayed refund. See our ITIN service for what the application involves.
Income documents
Not all of these will apply to you. Gather the ones that do, and note that a missing form does not remove the income from the return.
| Document | Comes from | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Form W-2, one per employer | Each employer | Box 1 and boxes 3 and 5 routinely differ, and that is normal. Boxes 15 to 17 are what drive the state return. |
| Final pay stub of the year | Each employer | The cheapest reconciliation available. A missing bonus or an unreported equity vest usually shows up here first. |
| Consolidated 1099 (INT, DIV, B) | US banks and brokers | Often issued late and then corrected. Filing from the first version and getting a revised one afterwards is a common cause of an amended return. |
| Form 1099-NEC | Any payer who treated you as a contractor | H-1B employment is employer-specific, so work outside it is an immigration question before it is a tax question. Raise it with your immigration attorney, not only with your preparer. |
| Form 1099-G | A state tax authority | A state refund can be taxable federally, but generally only if you itemised in the year the tax was paid. |
| Forms 1098, 1098-E | Mortgage lender, student loan servicer | Worth gathering even if you end up taking the standard deduction, because you cannot compare the two without them. |
| Forms 1095-A, 1095-B or 1095-C, 1099-SA, 5498-SA | Insurer, employer, HSA custodian | Health coverage and HSA activity. The HSA forms matter in both directions: contributions and distributions. |
| Form 1042-S | An employer, university or payer | Turns up more often than people expect in a year that began on F-1 or J-1, or where a treaty position was claimed. |
If you changed employers
You will have a W-2 from each, and neither is wrong. Worth checking, though: each employer applies the annual social security wage base independently, so combined wages that crossed it can mean more social security tax was withheld than you actually owed. There is a route to recover the excess on the return, and it is easy to miss precisely because nothing on either W-2 looks out of place.
Equity compensation, if you have it
Only relevant if you hold RSUs, an ESPP position, or options. Where it does apply it is the most expensive thing on this page to get wrong.
- Vesting statements for every tranche that vested. For an RSU, vesting is the taxable event and the value at vest is wage income already inside your W-2. That same value is your cost basis afterwards.
- The broker's supplemental or corrected-basis statement. The 1099-B frequently shows no basis at all on shares that cost you nothing out of pocket. Filed as issued, that taxes the vest-date value twice.
- Form 3922, for an ESPP purchase. No tax is due in the year it arrives, which is exactly why it gets discarded — and why the dates and values on it are hard to reconstruct years later at sale.
- Where you were working across the vesting period. Equity is pay for services, and pay for services is sourced to where the services were performed. If part of a grant-to-vest window was worked in India, the income is apportioned — and the split is fixed at vesting, not at sale.
The apportionment, the India-side perquisite charge and the state trailing-liability problem are all worked through in our guide to RSUs and ESPP across India and the US.
India-side items, where they apply
Every row below is conditional. If you left nothing behind in India — no account, no property, no investments, no income — you can skip this section, and many people on H-1B genuinely can. If you did, these are the items that decide whether your return is complete, and each one has its own resolution:
| If you have | The question it raises | Where it is resolved |
|---|---|---|
| Indian savings, NRE, NRO or FCNR accounts | Aggregate balance against the FBAR threshold; interest is taxable if you are a US resident, and no 1099-INT arrives | NRE, NRO and FCNR accounts |
| Indian mutual funds, SIPs, ELSS or ETFs | Whether the PFIC regime applies, and a Form 8621 per fund per year if it does | The PFIC problem |
| Directly held Indian shares, or a stake in an Indian company or LLP | A Form 8938 item even where it is not an FBAR item | Form 8938 and Indian assets |
| EPF, PPF or NPS | Reporting is largely answerable; whether the annual accretion is income is genuinely unsettled | EPF, PPF and NPS |
| A let-out property in India | Schedule E on actual expenses, with depreciation mandatory and on a longer recovery period | Indian rental income |
| Property sold in India during the year | Gain computed in dollars, so rupee movement sits inside it; India’s indexation has no US analogue | Selling property in India |
| Money received from family in India | Not income, but potentially a Form 3520 reporting event above an aggregate threshold | Sending money to India |
| Indian tax actually paid on any of the above | A foreign tax credit on Form 1116, computed per income category | Foreign tax credit and Form 1116 |
The Indian paperwork worth requesting early
Form 16 from an Indian employer, Form 26AS, the Annual Information Statement, interest certificates from each bank, year-end statements showing the maximum balance during the year rather than the closing balance, and your Indian return if you filed one. All of it runs on India's April-to-March year, so none of it maps cleanly onto a US calendar year and all of it needs apportioning.
Conversion is not a detail. Pick a defensible basis — the IRS publishes yearly average rates, and FinCEN's FBAR instructions specify which rate that filing uses — then apply it consistently and keep a record of what you used. Different filings legitimately use different rates; the same filing should not.
State returns
States write their own residency rules, and they are not the federal test. It is entirely possible to be a federal nonresident and a state resident in the same year, and some states do not follow the federal treatment of treaty-exempt income at all.
- Boxes 15 to 17 of every W-2, which is where the state wages and withholding sit.
- The dates you moved, if you changed state during the year. That usually means two part-year returns rather than one.
- Days worked in a state you did not live in, including business travel and a remote arrangement across a state line.
- Last year's state return, for any carryforward the state tracks separately from the federal return.
Rates, brackets, forms and deadlines by state are in our state tax guides, including the multi-state and part-year cases.
What you paid, and what you can claim
Payments already made
Total federal and state withholding across every W-2, plus any estimated tax payments with the dates they were made. Under-withholding is common in a year with a large bonus or a significant equity vest, because supplemental withholding is not calibrated to your marginal rate. An underpayment penalty can apply even where the return is correct and the balance is paid on time; there are safe harbours based on the prior year's tax, which is one more reason the prior-year return matters.
Last year's return
Pull it before you start. It carries forward capital losses, unused foreign tax credit, and state-specific items, and the prior-year figures are also used to verify your identity when filing electronically. Reconstructing it later is the slowest part of a late return.
Deductions and credits, conditionally
Whether itemising beats the standard deduction depends on your numbers, so gather mortgage interest, state and local taxes paid, and charitable receipts before deciding rather than after. Credits involving a spouse or children depend on their identification numbers and residency status as well as your own, which is why the ITIN question above is not merely administrative. And if your spouse is a nonresident, the election to treat them as a resident and file jointly has consequences past this year — it is a decision, not a checkbox.
The pass before you file
Everything above is gathering. This is checking, and it is where most avoidable errors are still catchable:
- Every W-2 and 1099 you received appears on the return. Reconcile against the final pay stub and the broker’s year-end summary rather than against memory.
- Names and taxpayer identification numbers match the cards exactly, for you and for everyone else on the return.
- Cost basis on each equity sale reflects what was already taxed as wages, not zero and not the discounted purchase price.
- If you answered yes to the return’s foreign account question, the FBAR is separately filed with FinCEN. It is not part of the return and filing one does not file the other.
- Every Indian rupee figure was converted on a stated, consistent basis, and you have kept the rate you used.
- State returns match the moves you actually made, including a nonresident return for a state you worked in but never lived in.
- Refund bank details are a US account in your own name.
- Your day-count working is saved with the return, not discarded once the form is filed.
Where these returns actually go wrong
Not hypotheticals. These are the recurring ones, in roughly the order they cost the most:
Filing a full-year resident return for an arrival year
The year you moved to the US on H-1B is frequently a dual-status year, and a dual-status return carries restrictions — joint filing and the standard deduction among them — that a full-year resident return does not. Filing the wrong one is not a rounding error; it changes the tax.
Claiming the standard deduction on Form 1040-NR
The India treaty provision that lets students and business apprentices from India claim it is genuinely unusual, and it is genuinely limited to students and business apprentices. Someone working on H-1B is neither, so a colleague’s F-1 return is the wrong template to copy.
Treating Indian income as invisible
Neither "it was already taxed in India" nor "it never left India" removes income from a US resident return. Relief comes through the foreign tax credit, which is a computation, not an exemption — and it can leave a balance.
Assuming NRE interest is tax-free in the US
It is exempt in India, which is precisely the problem: exempt means no Indian tax was paid, so there is nothing to credit against the US tax on it. NRO interest, which suffers TDS, can leave you better off.
Accepting a zero basis on an RSU sale
Brokers frequently report no cost basis on shares that cost you nothing out of pocket. Filed as received, the vest-date value is taxed once as wages and again as capital gain. The return looks internally consistent and is simply wrong.
Filing the return and forgetting the FBAR
They are separate filings to separate agencies. Answering the return’s foreign-account question honestly and then never filing the FBAR is one of the most common single omissions in this population.
Missing a state return after an interstate move
A mid-year move usually means two part-year returns, and a remote arrangement can mean a nonresident return for a state you never lived in. Federal residency has no bearing on either.
Comparing an April-to-March Indian figure to a calendar year
Form 16, Form 26AS and the AIS all run on India’s financial year, so none of them lines up with a US return. The figures have to be apportioned, and a mismatch is expected rather than evidence of an error.
When this stops being a self-filing job
A straightforward full-year resident return with one W-2 and no Indian holdings is genuinely manageable alone. These are the facts that reliably change that:
- A change of status during the year, or a first or final year in the US — the dual-status cases.
- Indian mutual funds, because the PFIC regime is per fund, per year, and consumer software does not handle it.
- An equity vest spanning work in both countries, where the sourcing split and the credit limitation interact.
- Years already filed without the FBAR, Form 8938 or Form 8621 that should have been on them.
- Any position that depends on reading the treaty, rather than on reading a form's instructions.
None of the above is individual advice, and this page cannot be — the answers turn on facts specific to you. It is a checklist for arriving at that conversation prepared.
Where this comes from
IRS and FinCEN guidance. Thresholds, day counts and filing mechanics are worth confirming against the current instructions rather than any secondary summary, including this one:
- IRS — Determining an Individual’s Tax Residency Status
- IRS — Substantial Presence Test, including the day-counting formula
- IRS Publication 519 — US Tax Guide for Aliens
- IRS — Taxation of US Residents (worldwide income)
- IRS — Taxation of Dual-Status Individuals
- IRS Publication 525 — Taxable and Nontaxable Income (equity compensation)
- IRS — About Form W-7, ITIN application
- IRS — Nonresident Spouse election to file jointly
- FinCEN — Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR)
- IRS — Yearly Average Currency Exchange Rates
- IRS Topic 306 — Penalty for Underpayment of Estimated Tax
Reviewed by Teja K, CPA · last reviewed . General information, not tax advice for your situation. Which of these items applies, and which residency status your year falls into, depends on facts we cannot see from here. How we research and review this.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to report my Indian salary and interest on my US return?
It depends on your residency status for the year. A US resident for tax purposes reports worldwide income, which includes Indian salary, bank interest and capital gains even if the money never left India and even if India already taxed it. A nonresident generally reports US-source and US-connected income only. Settling status is therefore the first step, not the last.
I was on F-1 and changed to H-1B in October. Which form do I file?
That is the classic dual-status pattern, and it is genuinely fact-dependent: it turns on when your residency starting date falls, which depends on how your F-1 days were counted before the change. The outcome is often one return with the other attached as a statement, and a dual-status year restricts joint filing and the standard deduction. It is worth getting a second opinion on rather than guessing.
Can I claim the standard deduction on Form 1040-NR?
Generally not. The well-known exception in the India-US treaty reaches students and business apprentices from India, which does not describe someone working on H-1B. If you are filing Form 1040-NR for part or all of a year on H-1B, assume the standard deduction is unavailable unless a specific provision says otherwise.
My spouse is on H-4 and has no SSN. What do we do?
An H-4 dependent generally cannot get an SSN without their own employment authorisation, so the usual route is to apply for an ITIN on Form W-7. Whether you then file jointly is a separate question, and where one spouse is a nonresident there is an election that makes it possible. Both have consequences beyond the current year.
My Indian accounts are small. Do I still need an FBAR?
The threshold is measured on the aggregate of all your foreign accounts at any point in the year, not account by account and not at year end. Several small accounts can cross it together while none of them does alone. If the aggregate genuinely never crossed it, there is no FBAR obligation for that year.
I paid tax in India on the same income. Am I taxed twice?
Not usually, but the relief is a credit rather than an exemption, and it is limited. The foreign tax credit is computed separately for each category of income, so excess credit on Indian interest cannot offset US tax on Indian salary. Where India charged no tax at all, as on NRE interest, there is nothing to credit and the US tax stands in full.
Related to your India-US filing
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