Does FIRPTA Apply to US Citizens?

No. FIRPTA withholding does not apply to a US citizen, including a citizen who lives abroad. The Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act tax is 15% of the amount realized, and it is collected only when a foreign person sells a US real property interest. The IRS withholding page states the 15% rate, and it says a foreign person does not include a resident alien. A citizen is a United States person in either case.

Closings still go wrong. Say the amount realized is $640,000, because the buyer pays $500,000 in cash and the property stays subject to a $140,000 loan. Fifteen percent of $640,000 is $96,000. A title company that treats a foreign mailing address as proof you are a foreign seller will hold that $96,000 unless you give the non-foreign certification before the funds move. The hold is a paperwork failure, not a tax you owe for living overseas.

The certification is the whole defense for a citizen: your name, your US taxpayer identification number, and your home address, signed under penalties of perjury, stating you are not a foreign person. The IRS exceptions page allows a home address. It does not require that address to be inside the United States. What you still owe on any gain is a separate return question, walked through in selling a US home from abroad.

Does FIRPTA apply if the seller lives overseas?

Living overseas does not make a US citizen a foreign person. Section 1445 of the Internal Revenue Code withholds on a disposition by a foreign person. The statute defines a foreign person as anyone who is not a United States person, with a narrow pension-fund carveout. Citizenship is what puts you on the United States-person side of that line, whether the closing packet shows a street in Ohio or an apartment overseas.

A green card holder who is still a resident alien is on the same side of the line. Publication 515 for 2026 says the foreign-person definition does not include a resident alien individual. Someone who has given up citizenship, or who no longer holds the green card and does not meet the residence tests, can be a foreign person. Signing the non-foreign certification in that case is a false statement. The certification also fails if the buyer, or the closer, already knows it is false.

The house itself is in the United States, so this sale is not the foreign-account test in the Form 8938 threshold for people living abroad. The foreign bank that later receives the wire can be. The building is not.

What is the 15% actually calculated on?

The buyer withholds 15% of the amount realized, not 15% of your equity and not 15% of the gain. On the IRS FIRPTA page, amount realized is three pieces added together: cash paid or to be paid, counting principal only; the fair market value of any other property the buyer transfers; and any liability the buyer assumes or that the property is subject to immediately before and after the transfer. A mortgage that stays with the house is inside the base. That is why a modest cash-out can still produce a large hold.

Seller	What the buyer withholds	What stops it
US citizen, any address	Nothing under FIRPTA	Non-foreign certification with name, TIN, and home address
Resident alien, including a green card holder who still qualifies	Nothing under FIRPTA	Same certification
Foreign seller, buyer will reside, amount realized $300,000 or less	Nothing, if the residence test is met	Buyer is an individual with definite plans to live there
Foreign seller, buyer will reside, amount realized over $300,000 and not over $1,000,000	10%	Withholding certificate only if the real tax is lower
Foreign seller, amount realized over $1,000,000, or the buyer will not use it as a residence	15%	Withholding certificate, or a nonrecognition notice that actually fits

Data note: rates are from section 1445 and Publication 515 (2026). The 15% general rate replaced 10% for dispositions after February 16, 2016.

The buyer is the withholding agent in a normal house sale. If the seller is a foreign person and the buyer fails to withhold, the buyer can be held liable for the tax, plus penalties and interest. That is why a cautious closer would rather escrow too much than too little. Your job, when you are the citizen, is to make the exception obvious before that escrow is set up.

When does a foreign seller pay 10%, or nothing?

Two residence rules sit under the 15% default, and both look at the buyer, not at the seller's visa. Publication 515 says that if the buyer acquires the property to use as a residence and the amount realized does not exceed $300,000, no withholding is required. The buyer has to be an individual. The buyer, or a member of the buyer's family, needs definite plans to reside at the property for at least 50% of the days any person uses it during each of the first two 12-month periods after the transfer. Days the house sits vacant do not count. The IRS FAQ counts a sibling, spouse, ancestor, or lineal descendant as family for this test.

Above $300,000, the residence discount is smaller. If the property is still acquired as a residence and the amount realized does not exceed $1,000,000, section 1445 substitutes 10% for 15%. Over $1,000,000, the rate goes back to 15% even when the buyer will live there. A $280,000 sale to a buyer who will actually live in the house can clear with no FIRPTA hold. A $640,000 sale to that same buyer is a 10% hold, $64,000 on the hypothetical above, not a free pass.

A foreign seller who qualifies for the home-sale exclusion under section 121 still faces withholding on the amount realized, which can be far larger than the tax on the gain. The IRS says a nonresident alien who meets the eligibility test in Publication 523 can exclude gain, and that the maximum excludable gain on a Form 1040-NR is $250,000 when the seller cannot file a joint return. The practical fix is a withholding certificate that lets the closer use a lower number, or zero, when the certificate says so. US citizens run the exclusion on their own return. The certificate is the foreign seller's tool.

How do you stop a wrongful hold at closing?

Give the certification to the person who can rely on it. The exceptions page lets you hand it to a qualified substitute: the attorney or title company responsible for closing, other than your own agent, and the buyer's agent. That substitute then tells the buyer, under penalties of perjury, that the certification is in hand. You do not need the buyer to become an expert in expatriate tax. You need the closer to have a signed statement with your name, your Social Security number or other US taxpayer number, and your home address.

1. Tell the listing agent and the closer, in writing, that the seller is a US citizen, and do it when the contract is signed, not the day of funding.
2. Sign the non-foreign certification. Include your legal name, your US taxpayer identification number, and your home address, even if that home is outside the United States. Sign under penalties of perjury.
3. Deliver it to the title company or closing attorney who is the qualified substitute, and keep a copy with the settlement statement.
4. If you are married and your spouse is also a US citizen or resident alien, both of you sign. If your spouse is a nonresident alien and is also on the title, expect withholding on the foreign share. The IRS treats a husband and wife as 50/50 contributors unless the capital contributions were different, and the buyer withholds on the foreign person's share.
5. Refuse a "just in case" FIRPTA escrow when the certification is already in the file. The exception is the certification, not a refund claim filed months later.

An agent who knows the certification is false and stays quiet can be liable, but only up to the fee that agent earns on the deal. The buyer's exposure is the full tax. That split is why some closers ask for a US address they can recognize. Give them the certification the statute describes. Do not invent a US mailing address you do not have.

What if your spouse is not a US person?

Joint title with a nonresident alien is the case where a citizen still sees a FIRPTA number on the settlement sheet. The IRS FAQ on joint owners says the amount realized is allocated by capital contribution, and for a husband and wife that contribution is treated as half and half. The buyer withholds on the half allocated to the foreign spouse. On the $640,000 hypothetical, half is $320,000. Fifteen percent of that half is $48,000, unless the residence rate of 10% applies, which would be $32,000. The citizen's half is not withheld if the certification covers that citizen.

If the foreign spouses want the IRS to credit the withheld tax in some split other than an even division, they have to request that credit by the 10th day after the transfer. Silence means the credit is divided evenly among the foreign transferors. There is only one foreign transferor in the usual couple, so the credit follows that spouse onto a US return.

Community-property states are less tidy. The IRS says that when the house sits in a community-property state, is titled only in the US spouse's name, and the other spouse is a nonresident alien, title does not decide the question by itself. Whether any of the property is community property depends on that state's law and the facts. Publication 555 is the IRS pamphlet for that mess. Get a local answer before you promise the buyer a clean certification for 100% of the deed.

What if the closer already sent the money to the IRS?

Then the citizen's problem becomes a credit, not a prevention. The buyer reports withheld tax on Form 8288 and attaches Form 8288-A. Publication 515 says Form 8288 is generally due by the 20th day after the transfer. The IRS stamps Copy B of Form 8288-A and sends it to the seller. You claim the credit by filing a US return and attaching that stamped copy. If your taxpayer number was left off the form, the IRS does not send the stamped copy. It writes to you for the number first. Put the number on the certification so this loop never starts.

A foreign seller who will owe less than 15% asks for a withholding certificate on Form 8288-B. The statute gives the IRS 90 days to act after it receives the request. The IRS FAQ describes the same window as 90 days from receipt of the information it needs. If the application is still open on the day of transfer, the buyer must withhold, but the payment to the IRS waits until 20 days after the IRS mails the certificate or the denial. Using the application mainly to delay that payment starts interest and penalties on the 21st day after the transfer. A seller who lives overseas can put the closing company's details in Box 5 of Form 8288-B so the IRS letter reaches the escrow agent instead of a foreign mailbox.

Mail for these forms goes to Internal Revenue Service Center, P.O. Box 409101, Ogden, UT 84409. A foreign seller who needs a taxpayer number generally cannot get one before a binding sale contract exists, absent some other reason the IRS already accepts. Once the contract is binding, Form W-7 under the real-estate withholding exception is the route, and the IRS says an identification-number request filed with the certificate is processed within 10 days of receipt. The 90-day certificate review is a separate clock.

Withholding that was too high is not a gift to the Treasury. It is a credit against the return for the year the sale actually happened. The IRS FAQ is explicit that the year of the sale is the year you report, even if a certificate denial later changes the date printed on Form 8288-A. File the year of the closing. Attach the stamped form when it arrives.

Before the closing statement is final

If you are a US citizen, the number on a FIRPTA line should be zero once the certification is in the file. Send that certification with your name, taxpayer number, and real home address as soon as the contract is signed. If your spouse is a nonresident on the title, compute 15%, or 10% when the buyer will live in a house at or under $1,000,000, on that spouse's share of the amount realized, and build the cash need into the payoff. If you are the foreign seller, decide before the inspection period whether you will live with the statutory rate or file Form 8288-B early enough for the 90-day review.

The cash that lands after closing still has to be reported on the US return for the year of the sale, and the wires that sit in a foreign account can cross a foreign-account reporting line even though the house did not. That return is part of the ordinary expat tax filing you already have for the year you sell.

Data notes and sources checked

• IRS, FIRPTA withholding: 15% of amount realized, what counts as a foreign person, buyer liability.
• IRS, exceptions from FIRPTA withholding: the non-foreign certification and the $300,000 residence exception.
• Publication 515 (2026): residence rates of zero, 10%, and 15%, and the 20-day Form 8288 deadline.
• 26 USC 1445: the 15% rule, the 10% residence substitution, and the 90-day certificate clock.

Checked November 2026 against Publication 515 for use in 2026 and the IRS FIRPTA pages. A closing agent can add document rules on top of the statute. The rates themselves are the statute's.