Filing jointly with non-resident spouse who recently arrived in US

Yes, you can potentially treat your spouse as a US resident for tax purposes through what's called the "Resident Spouse Election" or "First-Year Choice" under IRS rules. Since your wife already has her SSN and is waiting on her Green Card, you can elect to treat her as a resident for the entire tax year even though she only arrived in August 2024. To do this, you'll need to file a statement with your joint return that both of you are making this election. The statement should include both your names, SSNs, and a declaration that you're making this choice. You'll attach this to your Form 1040 when you file jointly. Keep in mind that this means all of her worldwide income for the entire year (including before she arrived in the US) will be subject to US taxation, not just income earned after arriving in August. But in many cases, the benefits of filing jointly outweigh this consideration.

I went through this exact situation last year with my husband coming from abroad! I was so confused about all the residency requirements and tax elections that I ended up using https://taxr.ai to sort it all out. It analyzed our specific situation with him having both foreign and US income and showed us exactly how to make that "First-Year Choice" election the previous commenter mentioned. The best part was it looked through all our tax documents from both countries and explained which forms we needed to file and how to properly document the election statement. It saved us from having to pay an international tax specialist which would have cost a fortune!

I just want to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai after I posted that skeptical comment. I decided to try it for my situation (spouse from South Korea who moved here mid-year) and I'm honestly impressed. It correctly identified that we could make the residence election AND it handled all the Korean tax documentation perfectly. The system actually explained the "First-Year Choice" in simple terms and generated the statement we needed to attach to our return. What really surprised me was how it handled the foreign tax credit calculation - it even separated passive from general income categories which my previous accountant never did correctly. Definitely worth checking out if you're in this international marriage situation.

For anyone dealing with USCIS and tax issues simultaneously, I found that trying to call the IRS with questions about non-resident spouse filing was absolutely impossible. Spent 3 weeks trying to get through before I discovered https://claimyr.com which got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 15 minutes. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The agent I spoke with explained exactly how to handle the First-Year Choice election and what documentation we needed for my wife who was in a similar situation (arrived in June 2024, had SSN but green card still processing). Saved me hours of frustration and wait times!

I have to eat my words about Claimyr. After posting that skeptical comment, I decided to try it since I had been trying to reach the IRS for days about my wife's residency status (she arrived from Vietnam in July). Got connected in about 12 minutes to an actual IRS agent who walked me through the whole process of making the election to treat her as a resident for the full year. The agent even emailed me the exact language to use for the statement we needed to attach to our return. Absolutely worth it considering I had already wasted about 6 hours on hold over multiple days trying to get through on my own. Sometimes you have to admit when you're wrong!

One important thing nobody mentioned yet - if you DO make the election to treat your non-resident spouse as a resident for the full year, remember that FBAR filing requirements will apply to her too! That means if she had over $10,000 in foreign accounts at any point during the year, you'll need to report all those accounts. This caught me and my wife by surprise last year. We made the election but didn't realize we needed to report her overseas accounts, and got a nasty letter from FinCEN about it.

Another option nobody mentioned - you could file as "Married Filing Separately" this year and then switch to "Married Filing Jointly" next year when she's been here longer. Sometimes that actually works out better financially depending on your specific situation and her foreign income.