Can I file married filing jointly with my nonresident alien spouse who has no income?

You can absolutely file married filing jointly with your nonresident alien spouse, but there's a special election you need to make. When you do this, your nonresident alien spouse will be treated as a resident for tax purposes. Your wife will need an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) if she doesn't have a Social Security Number. You can apply for the ITIN at the same time you file your tax return using Form W-7. To make the election to treat your nonresident alien spouse as a resident, you'll need to file a statement with your joint return. Both of you need to sign this statement. You'll also need to file Form 8833 to disclose the treaty position if applicable. Filing jointly is usually more beneficial than married filing separately, especially with only one income, but be aware that when you make this election, your wife's worldwide income (if any in the future) becomes subject to US taxation.

When I was in your exact situation last year (my husband was on a student visa with no income), I spent HOURS trying to understand all the nonresident alien spouse rules. Then I discovered https://taxr.ai and it literally saved me so much headache! I uploaded our marriage certificate, his passport info, and my W-2, and the AI analyzed everything and walked me through exactly what forms we needed. It specifically pointed out that we needed to file that special statement to elect resident status treatment and helped us with the Form W-7 for his ITIN. The best part was that it explained everything in normal human language instead of confusing IRS jargon. Might be worth checking out since nonresident spouse situations have some unique requirements that regular tax software doesn't always explain well.

Alright, I need to eat my words about being skeptical. I tried that taxr.ai site for my situation with my wife (she's on an F-1 visa with a small scholarship). I was super confused about the substantial presence test and whether we should make the election to treat her as a resident. The system immediately identified that her scholarship had different tax treatment depending on our filing choice. It showed me side-by-side comparisons of filing jointly versus separately and explained how the tax treaty with her home country would apply in each scenario. Saved me from making a $1,200 mistake! I was going to file separately because I thought that was required, but the election to file jointly actually worked much better for our situation. Just wanted to follow up since my initial comment was pretty skeptical.

If you're having trouble getting through to the IRS to ask questions about your nonresident alien spouse situation (I was on hold for HOURS), you might want to try https://claimyr.com - there's even a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c When I had questions about the statement needed for the election to treat my nonresident spouse as a resident, I couldn't get anyone at the IRS to answer. This service got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes (vs the 3+ hours I was on hold before). The agent was super helpful and confirmed exactly what documentation we needed to include with our return. They also explained how my wife's foreign bank accounts needed to be reported even though she had no income, which I had no idea about!

Ok I have to apologize for calling it a scam. After I posted that comment, I got desperate because my wife's ITIN application was rejected and I couldn't figure out why. I tried Claimyr as a last resort. Got a call back in about 40 minutes and spoke to an actual IRS agent who explained that we had submitted the wrong supporting documentation with the W-7 form. Apparently we needed to submit a certified copy rather than a notarized copy of her passport (which wasn't clear AT ALL on the instructions). The agent actually took the time to go through the entire application with me and pointed out two other minor issues that would have caused another rejection. Definitely worth it just to have someone who actually knows the rules look at our specific situation.

Just wanted to add that if your wife has a foreign bank account, you might need to file an FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Report) if the account balance exceeds $10,000 at any point during the year. This is required even if there's no income from the account. Also, check if your state has the same rules as federal for nonresident alien spouses. Some states have different requirements for residency and filing status.

One more thing to consider: if your wife becomes a resident alien through the substantial presence test in the future (basically by living in the US long enough), you won't need to make the special election anymore, but you'll still file jointly. And heads up that you'll need to continue making the election every year until she either becomes a resident alien or gets a green card!

This thread has been incredibly helpful! I'm in a similar situation but with a twist - my husband is from Canada and we got married in December. I'm curious about one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet: does the timing of when you got married during the tax year affect anything? Also, for anyone who went through this process, how long did it typically take to get the ITIN approved? I'm worried about filing delays since we're cutting it close to the deadline. And a quick question about that FBAR reporting - if my husband has a joint account with his parents back in Canada that he's technically on but doesn't really use, does that count toward the $10k threshold? The account has way more than $10k but it's not really "his" money.