My foreign national without SSN and I live in Brazil under the Foreign Service. How do I file?

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
May 28, 2025
2 replies
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Hello,

I recently married a Spanish citizen who lives with me in Brazil while I serve as a Foreign Service Officer. I felt "boxed in" when filing taxes because when I tried to mark my husband as my dependent, I was required to provide a SSN for him. However, he doesn't have a U.S. income because he teleworks for a Spanish company while we are in Brazil so all his tax information is in Spain. I *had* to file as single, otherwise, the form was deemed incomplete and ineligible to submit. What should I do the next tax cycle?

Ask the Experts - W4 - May 2025

vithalanin

I am assuming that you are a US Citizen/Green Card Holder. You can file married filing jointly, but then you would declare your income as well as his income. In order to file jointly, he will need to get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). You would file a Form W7 and its supporting documents to get him this number. This return will be paper filed the year you apply for his ITIN. You maybe able to apply for this through the local US Embassy. The application goes with the tax return. Here are the Instructions for Form W7.

Mike9241

a spouse can never be claimed as a dependent. assuming that you are a US Citizen/Green Card Holder if you were married on 12/31/2024 you misfiled because without him having an ITIN the only valid filing status was married filing separately.