United States — Form 8840 and the Closer Connection Exception
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Summary
- Form
- 8840 — Closer Connection Exception Statement
- Condition 1
- Fewer than 183 actual days this year
- Condition 2
- Tax home in a foreign country all year
- Condition 3
- Closer connection to that country
- Not available if
- Green-card application or steps taken
- Due
- With Form 1040-NR, or alone by 15 June
- Authority
- IRS (IRC §7701(b)(3)(B), Treas. Reg. §301.7701(b)-2)
Meeting the Substantial Presence Test normally makes you a US tax resident, taxed on worldwide income. The closer connection exception is the statutory way out for people who pass the weighted three-year count but are plainly still based somewhere else. If you were in the US fewer than 183 actual days in the current year, kept a tax home in a foreign country for the whole year and can show a closer connection to that country, you file Form 8840 and are treated as a nonresident for the year.
The exception is claimed, not granted automatically. The form is your evidence file: day counts, the location of your home, family, belongings and paperwork.
Who it applies to
This is the form for non-citizens without a green card who:
- Spend a long season in the US every year — Canadian and European snowbirds wintering in Florida, Arizona, Texas or California are the textbook case.
- Travel to the US for business often enough that three years of visits add up under the weighted formula.
- Own a US holiday home and use it for several months a year while living, working and paying tax elsewhere.
If you spent 183 or more actual days in the US this year, the exception is closed to you regardless of your ties; your only route to nonresident status is a tax treaty tie-breaker (claimed on Form 8833, not Form 8840).
The three conditions
- Fewer than 183 days of actual presence in the current year. Every day or part of a day in the US counts, arrival and departure days included. 182 qualifies; 183 does not.
- A tax home in a foreign country for the entire year. Your tax home is your regular or principal place of business, or, if you have none, your regular place of abode. It must have been outside the US on 1 January and stayed there through 31 December.
- A closer connection to that country than to the US. Judged on the facts — where your permanent home, family, belongings, bank accounts, licences, voting registration and social life are. The IRS lists the factors it weighs; none is decisive on its own.
Why it exists: the weighted formula deliberately catches people who are in the US a lot over several years. Congress recognised that a mechanical count would sweep in seasonal visitors whose lives are clearly centred abroad, and wrote the exception into the statute — but tied it to a hard actual-day ceiling so it could not be stretched into a way of living in the US tax-free.
Actual days versus weighted days
Two different 183s are in play, and the form asks for both:
- 1Part I asks for your days of presence in the current year and the two prior years — the inputs to the weighted Substantial Presence Test that you have met.
- 2The exception itself looks only at the current year's actual days. Being under 183 here is a hard gate.
- 3Days excluded under Form 8843 (exempt individual, medical condition) are not days of presence for either count.
- 4Transit days under 24 hours between two foreign points and days commuting from Canada or Mexico to work in the US are also excluded.
Keep the two counts in the same log. The free Substantial Presence Test calculator shows both the weighted total and the current-year actual days, and how many more US days you can take this year before reaching 183.
Ties and documents to prepare
Part IV of the form is a questionnaire. For each item you name the country, and the IRS expects the answers to point the same way:
Permanent home.
Where it is, whether you own or rent it, and whether it was available to you all year. A rented-out US property is a weaker US tie than one kept ready for you.Family.
Where your spouse, partner and dependants live.Personal belongings.
Cars, furniture, clothing, jewellery — where the bulk of them sit.Social, political, cultural and religious organisations.
Memberships and where you take part.Business and banking.
Where you conduct business, hold accounts and earn income.Official documents.
The country whose driver's licence you hold, where you are registered to vote, and the country of residence you write on official forms — a W-8BEN given to a US bank says "foreign"; a W-9 says "US".
Gather the paper behind the answers before the year ends: lease or deed, foreign tax return or assessment, licence, voter card, insurance, club memberships. The form does not ask for attachments, but an examination will.
Filing the form
- With Form 1040-NR. If you must file a nonresident return — for example because you had US-source rental or business income — attach Form 8840 to it and file by the return's due date (15 April with wages subject to withholding, otherwise 15 June).
- On its own. If you have no return to file, mail the completed form to the Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service Center, Austin, TX 73301-0215, by 15 June of the following year.
- Every year. The exception is annual. A snowbird who meets the weighted test every winter files every spring.
- Late filing. Treas. Reg. §301.7701(b)-8 denies the exception when the statement is not timely filed unless you show by clear and convincing evidence that you took reasonable actions to comply. File late rather than never, and keep proof of mailing.
Use the current year's form from the IRS About Form 8840 page in the sources. Record preparation — the day log and the ties inventory — is the part you control; the filing itself is a few pages.
Worked example — a Canadian snowbird
Marie lives in Montréal, files a Canadian return every year and spends each winter in her Florida condo. Her US days:
- 2024 — 128 days. Weighted contribution to 2026: 128 × 1/6 ≈ 21.
- 2025 — 135 days. Weighted contribution to 2026: 135 × 1/3 = 45.
- 2026 — 140 days × 1 = 140.
Her weighted total for 2026 is 206 — well over 183 and over the 31-day floor, so she meets the Substantial Presence Test. But her actual 2026 presence is 140 days, her tax home was Québec all year, and her family, licence, doctor, bank and voter registration are Canadian. She files Form 8840 by 15 June 2027 and is treated as a US nonresident for 2026. She repeats the exercise every year she winters in Florida.
Had she stayed for 185 days in 2026 — a late spring — the exception would be unavailable, and she would need the Canada–US treaty tie-breaker on Form 8833 instead, with a full Form 1040-NR.
When the exception is not available
- 183 or more actual days in the year. A hard ceiling with no discretion.
- A pending green-card application or steps toward one. Filing Forms I-485, I-130, I-140, I-526, I-360, DS-230/DS-260, or an employer filing ETA-9089 or I-140 on your behalf, all close the exception for that year.
- No foreign tax home for the full year. Moving your principal place of business into the US mid-year, or having no regular abode abroad, fails the second condition.
- Green-card holders. Lawful permanent residents are US residents under a separate test and cannot use Form 8840; see the green card absence rule.
Common misconceptions
- "Under 183 days a year means I'm safe." Under 183 actual days is only the first of three conditions, and it does nothing by itself once the weighted test is met. Without the form you are a US resident.
- "Form 8840 is a tax return." It reports no income and calculates no tax. It is a statement of facts about where you live.
- "I filed it once; I'm covered." The exception is claimed year by year.
- "Form 8843 and Form 8840 are interchangeable." Form 8843 removes days from the count because of your visa status or a medical condition; Form 8840 accepts the count and argues your connection lies elsewhere.
- "My Canadian return proves my closer connection." It is strong evidence for the tax-home condition, but the IRS weighs the full list of ties. Keep the licence, the voter registration and the W-8BEN pointing the same way.
Häufige Fragen
Form 8840 is the statement a non-citizen files to claim the closer connection exception: even though the weighted Substantial Presence Test says you are a US tax resident, you are treated as a nonresident because you spent fewer than 183 actual days in the US this year, kept a tax home in another country all year, and have closer ties to that country than to the US.
Canadian snowbirds are the classic case: four to five months in Florida or Arizona every winter adds up to more than 183 weighted days over three years without ever reaching 183 actual days in one year. Frequent business visitors and people with a US holiday home fall into the same pattern.
No. The exception is unavailable to anyone who has applied for lawful permanent resident status or has taken affirmative steps toward it during the year — filing Form I-485, I-130, I-140 or similar, or having an employer file on your behalf. Those people must rely on a treaty tie-breaker instead.
Attach it to Form 1040-NR by the return's due date. If you have no return to file, mail Form 8840 on its own to the IRS Austin service center by the 1040-NR due date — 15 June for someone with no wages subject to US withholding. A late form can cost you the exception unless you show reasonable cause.
No. The SPT's 183 is a weighted total over three years. Form 8840's 183 is actual days in the current calendar year alone. You can be well over the weighted 183 and still under the actual 183 — that gap is exactly what the form is for.
The form allows it in one situation: you moved your tax home from one foreign country to another during the year, had a closer connection to each while your tax home was there, and were subject to tax as a resident in each (or in the second one for the rest of the year). Otherwise you must name a single country.
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