Updated 24 October 2026
A pension built up while working abroad is easy to forget at FBAR time: you may never log in to it, and it doesn't feel like a bank account. The published guidance is short, and narrower than many people expect. Here is all of it that we could find, quoted, with what it leaves open.
The plans FinCEN and the IRS name
IRS Publication 5569, the FBAR reference guide, gives one example: "Canadian Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), Canadian Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA), Mexican individual retirement accounts (Fondos para el Retiro) and Mexican Administradoras de Fondos para el Retiro (AFORE) are foreign financial accounts reportable on the FBAR."1
The Internal Revenue Manual, which guides IRS examiners, says the same of RRSPs and accounts managed by Mexico's AFORES: they "are normally reportable on an FBAR".2
The retirement exception covers US plans
The FBAR regulation does exempt some retirement accounts. It covers participants and beneficiaries in plans under sections 401(a), 403(a) and 403(b) of the Internal Revenue Code, and owners and beneficiaries of IRAs under section 408 and Roth IRAs under section 408A, for foreign accounts held by or on behalf of those plans.3
Those are US plans, and the Internal Revenue Manual says so directly: "This exception is for U.S. plans only."2
The IRS's FBAR page shortens the exception to accounts "Held in a retirement plan of which you're a participant or beneficiary".4 Read on its own, that line can sound like it covers any pension. The regulation and the manual above set out which plans it means.
FinCEN considered a broader exemption
When FinCEN wrote the current rule in 2011, commenters asked for a broad exemption for pension and welfare benefit plans. FinCEN declined: "Because the purpose of the FBAR is broader than tax administration, FinCEN does not believe that it is appropriate to exempt entities from the FBAR requirement based on their tax-exempt status."5
It also answered a request for an exemption covering all pension plan participants. Its reply: "Participants and beneficiaries that are not covered by this exemption should look to the 50 percent ownership indicia to determine whether a filing obligation exists."5
Those indicia are part of FinCEN's tests for a financial interest. Besides being the account's owner of record or holding legal title, you have a financial interest when, among other cases, the owner of record is a trust in which you have "a greater than 50 percent present beneficial interest in the assets or income".6 So for the FBAR, who holds legal title to a pension account, you or the plan's trustees, is one of the facts that matters.
Treaties don't change it
Publication 5569 is blunt about treaties and the FBAR: "Tax treaties with the U.S. do not affect FBAR filing obligations."1
Foreign state pensions are a different thing
A pension account is not the same as a government social security entitlement. The IRS's comparison of the FBAR and Form 8938 lists "'Social Security'- type program benefits provided by a foreign government" as reportable on neither form.7 The Form 8938 instructions add a limit: the foreign social security category "does not include an interest in a foreign pension plan".8
UK, Australian and European pensions
We looked for FinCEN or IRS guidance that names a UK pension (a SIPP, a personal pension or a workplace scheme), Australian superannuation, or German, Spanish or French pension schemes, and found none. The plans named in the sources above are Canadian and Mexican.
For everything else, the published guidance is the general rules on this page: what counts as a financial account and whether it is located abroad, whether you have a financial interest in it, the US-only scope of the retirement exception, and FinCEN's refusal to exempt pensions as a class. A cross-border tax professional who knows the plan's structure is the right person to apply them to it.
Form 8938 treats pensions differently
Form 8938 has its own rules for foreign pensions, separate from the FBAR. The instructions say:
- You report your interest in a foreign pension plan in Part VI, and don't separately report the assets the plan holds.8
- Its maximum value is the fair market value of your beneficial interest on the last day of the tax year. If you don't know and can't readily find out that value, use what the plan distributed to you during the year, and if it distributed nothing, use zero.8
- Retirement and pension accounts that an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) leaves out of its definition of a financial account still go on Form 8938 for anyone who files it.8
- Rev. Proc. 2020-17 exempts certain tax-favoured foreign retirement trusts from Forms 3520 and 3520-A, but the instructions say it "does not affect any reporting obligations under section 6038D", the reporting Form 8938 carries out.8
Whether you file Form 8938 at all depends on thresholds that start at $50,000 and reach $600,000 for married couples filing jointly who live abroad.7 The FBAR and FATCA explainer sets them out.
Working out a pension's FBAR value
For an account that does go on the FBAR, the value is the same as for any account: the highest value during the calendar year in the account's own currency, converted at the Treasury's rate for 31 December and rounded up to the next dollar. If your pension reports only once a year, note that FinCEN lets you rely on periodic statements only if they fairly reflect the account's maximum value.6 The maximum account value guide explains the steps, and the FBAR calculator converts and rounds the figures for you.