Need advice on getting an ITIN for my non-US citizen spouse without sending her passport

The good news is you can definitely get an ITIN for your Australian spouse! Here's what you need to know: 1. Yes, your wife can get an ITIN without income or a tax return of her own. Since you'll be filing married jointly, you'll attach her W-7 application to YOUR tax return - that's what creates the tax filing requirement needed for the ITIN. 2. You have several options to avoid sending her original passport: - Visit an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC) in person with your wife and her passport. They can verify her identity and documents on the spot. - Use an IRS Certified Acceptance Agent (CAA) who can certify her identity documents. - If your wife has a passport with a U.S. visa, you can send a copy of both instead of the original. 3. Yes! This is exactly what Certified Acceptance Agents do. They'll complete the W-7, verify your wife's identity documents, and provide a Certificate of Accuracy. Then you only submit copies with your application. 4. Absolutely - IRS TAC offices provide this service. Bring all original documents and they'll verify them and make the certification. Just be sure to make an appointment first as they don't take walk-ins for this service. Besides the passport, you should include your marriage certificate to prove your relationship, especially since you're filing jointly. You'll also need to complete your tax return and attach it to the W-7 application.

After struggling with almost the exact same situation last year (American married to a Brit), I found this amazing service called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that made our ITIN application process so much smoother. My wife also had only her passport as ID, and we were terrified of mailing it. What I liked about taxr.ai is they have specialists who review all your documents before submission to check for any potential issues. They pointed out that we needed to include our marriage certificate (which we hadn't realized) and explained exactly how to get her documents certified without sending originals. They also helped us understand the timeline and what to expect. The whole ITIN process can be confusing, especially with non-resident spouses, but having someone check our application before submitting saved us from making mistakes that would have delayed everything.

Just wanted to update after taking the advice about taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai). I was the one who asked about document certification for my Mexican husband's passport. Their guidance was incredible! We were totally overthinking the process. They reviewed our situation and explained that since my husband has a visa stamp in his passport, we could actually submit a copy of his passport AND visa pages instead of the original. This is apparently a special exception in the ITIN rules that most people don't know about. They also caught a mistake on our W-7 form that would have definitely caused a rejection. My husband had been in the US both as a student and now on a spouse visa, and we had filled out the visa information section incorrectly. We just got confirmation that our application was accepted - only took 6 weeks! Super grateful for the recommendation.

I had a nightmare situation with my ITIN application last year. My Portuguese wife's application was rejected TWICE because of documentation issues. We couldn't get through to anyone at the IRS for weeks to figure out what went wrong! Finally discovered Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) from another immigration forum and it changed everything. They got us connected to an actual IRS representative in under 15 minutes when we'd been trying for days. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The IRS agent we spoke to explained exactly what was wrong with our application (we needed specific certification language on the passport copy) and walked us through the correction process. Having a real person explain the requirements made all the difference. We also learned that we could have an in-person appointment at a TAC office to have the documents certified instead of using a Certified Acceptance Agent, which saved us about $200 in fees.

I need to apologize for being so skeptical about Claimyr. After posting my doubtful comment, I was desperate enough to try it anyway. I seriously can't believe how well it worked. I had been trying for MONTHS to get answers about my spouse's ITIN application that seemed to disappear into a black hole. Used Claimyr yesterday afternoon, and they got me connected to an IRS agent in about 20 minutes. The agent was able to look up our application status right away and found that it had been rejected because we submitted a notarized copy of the passport instead of having it certified by an Acceptance Agent or TAC office (apparently those are NOT the same thing). The agent actually gave me a direct fax number to resubmit the documentation and told me exactly what certification language was needed. This would have been impossible to figure out without speaking to someone. Went from completely stressed to having a clear plan forward in one phone call. Wish I had known about this service months ago!

One thing nobody mentioned yet - if your spouse already has a visa that allowed entry to the US (like B1/B2, F1, etc.), check if they have a visa number! My Ukrainian wife had a visa number in her passport that we could use instead of an ITIN for the first year while waiting for her SSN processing. Also, if you're not in a rush for the ITIN, you can file your taxes as "married filing separately" this year, then amend later once she gets the ITIN to capture any benefits from filing jointly. Sometimes this approach is less stressful if you're up against the filing deadline.

One thing that saved us last year: if your spouse has a foreign driver's license, you can sometimes use that as supporting documentation along with the passport. My wife is Brazilian and we included her Brazilian driver's license with a certified translation, which seemed to help our application go through faster. Also, FYI for anyone reading this thread, processing times vary WILDLY depending on when you submit. Our first application (submitted in April) took nearly 4 months. When we had to resubmit some documents in November, that processing only took 3 weeks. The IRS is massively backlogged during tax season.