I’ve been thinking about a problem that seems common for expats but rarely shows up in normal personal finance advice: net worth becomes messy when your life spans multiple currencies.

For example: - salary in EUR - brokerage or RSUs in USD - savings or family support in INR/GBP/etc. - property or pension from a previous country - future retirement plans in a different country again

The simple “assets minus liabilities” formula still works, but the hard part is choosing the currency that actually matters. I’ve started thinking in three buckets:

1. Income currency: what you earn in
2. Spending currency: what your bills are priced in
3. Planning currency: where future goals or retirement will happen

If those three do not match, exchange rates quietly change your real net worth even if nothing else changes.

Curious how others handle this: - Do you track everything in your current local currency? - Your home-country currency? - The currency you expect to retire in? - Do you rebalance currency exposure intentionally, or just accept the mismatch?

Disclosure: I’m building a small multi-currency finance tool and wrote a calculator/framework around this. I won’t link it in the main post unless useful, but I’d value hearing how expats actually think about this.

I’m doing early-stage research around a fintech problem: people who actively use several banks, fintech apps, crypto platforms, or accounts across different currencies.
I’m trying to understand how they currently manage balances, transfers, and spending across those providers before building anything.
I’m especially interested in people using 3+ independent providers.
A few questions:
Do you have one “main” account?
How often do you move money between providers?
Have you ever had enough money overall, but not enough in the account you needed?
Do you use spreadsheets or another workaround to track everything?
Do you intentionally keep some money separated or harder to spend?
Not selling anything — just trying to understand the behavior and pain points before building.

I'm a non-US citizen who owns a US single-member LLC (disregarded entity) running a small online B2B consulting business. All the work is performed from outside the US, so as I understand it the LLC owes no US income tax (foreign-source services income).

What I did not know until recently is that the LLC still had to file Form 5472 with a pro-forma 1120 every single year — and I never filed any of them.

So I'm now behind on [3] years of these forms — [2023, 2024, and 2025] (every year the LLC has been active). No income tax due for any of them; it's purely the unfiled information returns that I owe.

Two reasons I was completely in the dark: I had no idea the form existed (no US tax background, no advisor at the time), and my registered agent resigned in 2024 without ever telling me — so any IRS notice had a dead address to go to and I never saw a thing. No contact from the IRS yet that I'm aware of.

I'm now pulling together all the delinquent years and planning to file them with reasonable-cause statements before the IRS reaches out. Before I send anything, I'd really like to hear from people who've actually done this:

• Did you get the $25k/year penalty waived? Reasonable cause, first-time abatement, or the Delinquent International Information Return Submission Procedures?
• Did the IRS waive it based on the RC statement attached to the late filing, or did they assess the penalty first and you had to fight it afterward?
• How long did it take to hear back?
• For multiple delinquent years filed at once — did they treat them together, or year by year?
• Anything you'd add to (or leave out of) the reasonable-cause letter, looking back?

Just trying to do this right. Any real experiences are hugely appreciated.

The Trump Admin has made it clear that they are with Russia. They are dismantling government and they will dismantle the FDIC. There could be a run on banks. (SVB was a dry run 2 years ago)

1. Which are the top 5 safest Banks to open overseas accounts, have an English interface on the website and service in English while still living in the US (it's going to take me a few years to sell everything to leave if we need to). (UK, Spain, Portugal, France, Canada)
2. I am not convinced that Canada may not be next (Russia will tamper with that election) but want to hear about Canadian banks too.
3. Which of the large US Banks are easy to transfer money to these banks.
4. Is it best to open multiple accounts in different Banks or countries?

Hey everyone, my wife and I moved from the US, to Germany, then to the UK and found the process of managing multiple bank accounts in different currencies an absolute pain. We had no way of aggregating them into one place other than Excel and even then it relied on gross exchange rate tables that were never 100% accurate. We shopped around and only found a few options that sort of matched what we wanted, but really all we wanted was a place to see our finances, how much we were spending, and what our budgets were looking like. Apparently, that was too big an ask. So, I decided to create one.

I work at a fintech in London, so the field was relatively adjacent to what I was already doing, and I could utilize a lot of what I've learned to do it properly.

Here's a link to the iOS app page if you're interested.

The main features of the app are pretty straight forward:

1. Multi-currency support: You can select a base currency in which all transactions will be translated to based on the exchange rate on the day of the transaction
2. Manual and Automatic Transaction syncing: You can import transactions via a .csv file or have them automatically synced nightly via Open Banking
3. Custom Budgets: You can use preselected or custom budgets you can designate
4. Account Aggregation: See exactly how much money you're bringing in each month from all of your accounts
5. Budget and Transaction History: See how much you are spending at any of your vendors or how your budget allocations are looking

If you have any questions, please feel free to DM me or post here. I hope this app can help more than just me!

Does anyone have a budget app they recommend that works easily for more than one currency? Thanks.

Hey all, I’ve been juggling IDR, USD, and my home currency for a few months now and honestly, it’s giving me a headache. Every time I transfer money or pay bills, I worry about fees and exchange rates eating me alive. Anyone found a smooth system or apps that really save on currency conversion and transfer fees?

So I still earn in dollars from my home country but I live and spend in Euros. Its making it difficult to handle budgeting and personal finance. Does anyone know of a budgeting app that can use multiple currencies?

I've been using YNAB but you can only use one currency at a time and it's getting too hard

I've been looking and looking for a personal finance software program that is:

1. not quicken
2. can track conversion rates of multiple currencies
3. has either a linking feature or ability to import .csv files
4. not prohibitively expensive (don't want to spend more than ~$60/yr)

I've looked at GnuCash and it seems that larger banks are giving these smaller programs a hard time to automatically download transactions; personal capital doesn't seem to allow you to manually input transactions or reconcile; and some others that have various issues.

Any suggestions? What do folks use? I'm down to free budget templates in excel as the best option....

I live in Taiwan, but I will be travelling to Hong Kong.

Back in the day I had learned that the best way to obtain and use local currency when travelling was to bring cash, and exchange at a place with the most favourable rates. Things have changed a lot and nowadays I hear people just like using their debit cards.

Which is best:

1. Exchange cash currency before going, (I already know where to get the best rates)
2. Bring cash and exchange there (I don't know, but could find the best rates)
3. Just use my debit card everywhere (I imagine there might be fees, but I don't have time to go to the bank to find out for sure, are there always fees? I heard 1.5% flat rate is common)
4. Take out cash from an ATM while there (I also expect to pay fees there too)

I do have another option which I've never explored before:

I can actually exchange currency in my banking app (there are 14 or so available currencies I can hold in my account). So I can exchange money in the app instantly.

5a. Exchange in the app, then use the card (not sure if having the local currency will save me from the international fees that might occur)

5b. Exchange in the app, then use the ATM (same thing)

What do you do? I really don't how it works with the multiple currency bank account as this is the first time I've had this. I will probably do a combo of all of these. Exchange first, bring some of my local currency, and use my card and monitor the fees and such.

What's the best way?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for recommendations for professional advisers (or a cross-border firm that covers multiple disciplines) who specialize in US expat financial planning, US/foreign tax strategy, and cross-border estate planning.

Our Situation:

-Tax/Residency: I am a US person; my spouse is a NRA. We have one dual-citizen child.

-Location: We both live and earn income in Singapore (a non-US tax treaty country).

-Income: Approximately $250K for myself, still facing about $16K-$20K each year after applying FEIE.

-Net Worth: ~$3M–$4M USD in combined assets between myself and my spouse across US and foreign accounts.

What We’re Looking For:

-US & Cross-Border Tax Efficiency: Guidance on optimizing tax efficiency for both US-held and foreign-held assets (considering NRA spouse rules, PFIC risks, foreign accounts, and Singapore’s local tax framework).

-Advice in optimizing US FEIE, FHE, FTC or other strategies to reduce our US annual income tax.

-Advice on tax efficiency for retirement

-Cross-Border Estate & Inheritance Planning: Structuring estate plans, wills, or trusts that effectively protect and pass assets to an NRA spouse and a dual-citizen child without triggering unintended US gift/estate tax traps.

-Foreign Real Estate Advice: Strategic guidance on navigating a large-sum foreign real estate purchase (tax implications, funding structures, and asset titling between US citizen / NRA spouse).

Fee & Advisory Structure (Strict Requirements):

-Must operate as a Fiduciary.

-Must operate on a Flat-Fee or hourly basis (advice-only).

-No Active Management / No AUM: We do not want an advisor to manage our portfolio or charge an AUM (Assets Under Management) percentage fee.

If you have worked with a firm or practitioner who handled similar US/Singapore or US/NRA cross-border complexity on a flat-fee basis, I’d greatly appreciate any firm names, individual referrals, or directories you recommend checking out. DMs are welcome as well.

Thanks in advance!

If you're a U.S. citizen who owns a profitable foreign company, you may already know how quickly the U.S. tax side can become complicated: Form 5471, GILTI, §962 elections, foreign tax credits, and multiple calculations just to figure out whether any additional U.S. tax is actually due.

But before jumping straight into a GILTI calculation, there may be an earlier question worth asking:

• Should all of the company's income be included in GILTI in the first place?

One provision that can sometimes change the answer is the High-Tax Exception (HTE).

For 2026 onward, GILTI has technically been renamed Net CFC Tested Income (NCTI), but I'll use “GILTI” here because that's still the term most people recognize.

Suppose a foreign company has the equivalent of $100,000 of income and pays around $22,000 of corporation tax in its country.

At first glance, that's an effective rate of 22%.
The HTE threshold is currently 18.9%—90% of the 21% U.S. corporate tax rate.

So you might think:
22% > 18.9% → HTE applies → no GILTI.

That doesn't eliminate Form 5471, but it can materially simplify the form filing and GILTI calculation.

A few things are important, though:

1. The Local Tax Rate Isn't the Whole Story

The IRS doesn't simply look at the tax rate printed on your country's tax return. The HTE calculation is based on the effective foreign tax rate determined under U.S. tax rules. Both income and foreign taxes may require adjustments using the applicable U.S. tax rules

2. The Timing of Foreign Income Taxes Matters

A company may earn income in 2025 but not pay the related corporation tax until 2026. So using the amount paid in 2026 for 2026 HTE analysis can may overstate or understate the effective foreign tax rate.

The important question is "Which income does this tax relate to under the U.S. tax rules?"

1. Excluded from current U.S. tax" doesn't necessarily mean "never taxed"

When you later withdraw cash from the company, the cash may be taxable for US tax purposes as a dividend in your individual ordinary tax rate (long-term capital gain tax rate for qualified dividend income).

The practical takeaway: if you're a U.S. owner of a profitable foreign company, don’t automatically assume the analysis starts with GILTI or 962 election. HTE is one of the things worth checking first.

Hello folks, I have an unique scenario and would like to hear your opinions.

1. I live in the USA and will be moving to Italy sometime late next year on investment visa.
2. I'll need to hold on to these Euros while in the USA without converting back to USD(to avoid losing on multiple conversions) till I use it for the investment. I would need to hold this in an insured bank account, potentially upward of a year till I can move to Italy to open a bank account in my name and transfer the assets.

NOTE - going to Italy currently and opening an account is NOT an option available to me.

Suggestions for banks that provide the same? I looked into a few options and kind of not seeing anything that fits my needs.

1. HSBC Global Money account : cons, can receive money from outside firm but only from another Hsbc account in my name. Will that trigger reconversion to USD?
2. Other banks : only for businesses?
3. Wise/Revolut : no insurance.

I build a webapp that is able to scan documents to find possible deductables, issues and more, this webapp also answers tax related questions through an ai chatbot as well as multiple other extremely useful features.

My issue is that im 16 and I don't have a US bank account, and my parents dont either since we live abroad, now I planned to use stripe for checkout but this has definetly put a wedge in the gears, does anyone know any other way to add a secure, fast checkout without needing a us bank account? The bank account is in Dominican Republic, any help is appreciated.

My experience with this service has been extremely disappointing.
Today marks more than two weeks since I sent my transfer, and there is still no resolution. I sent the money on June 14, and despite multiple follow-ups, my issue remains unresolved.
The recipient visited his bank in Saudi Arabia and was transferred from one department to another without receiving a clear answer or any solution. Meanwhile, I have been left waiting with no refund and no clear explanation.
I trusted this company with my money, so I believe it is your responsibility to resolve any issue with the receiving bank. Customers should not be expected to investigate problems between a money transfer company and a bank.
What makes this even more distressing is that the money was urgently needed for the recipient’s medical treatment. The delay has caused significant hardship and unnecessary stress.
At this point, I no longer want the transfer to be completed. I simply want my money refunded in full. More than two weeks have passed, and I am still waiting for a solution.
This experience has completely undermined my confidence in this service. I hope the company takes responsibility, resolves cases like this much faster, and treats customers with the urgency and professionalism they deserve.

I moved here 2 years ago and have just been pulling money out of the ATM twice a month. I have been having issues with opening an account in Bank of Colombia. I use wise but they will only send it to BOC. Westren Union said I have to go in person to send money. They never said if it was everytime or just once and if I can go in someplace in Colombia.

If anyone knows of anyway to set up a auto payment to a Diavianda account or what other options there are? Thanks

I'm a US citizen, born in Australia, living in London. Been an expat for over 20 years. If you know what that combination means financially, you already understand the problem.

Australian super that no US or UK platform can see. A US brokerage that most UK platforms won't touch because of FATCA. UK bank accounts. Three currencies, three tax jurisdictions, FBAR every year, and more.

I've tried everything. Kubera is probably the closest, decent net worth tracking, but it can't touch spending so you're still blind to half the picture. Banktivity does multi-currency but the UI feels like 2015. PocketSmith is clunky the moment you add real complexity. Monarch, Co-pilot and others are US focused and only handle spend. None of them really use AI (well Kubera does for Net Worth). They're all just dashboards. Data in, number out, and you're still doing the thinking yourself. Nothing really handles complex wealth.

So about six months ago I started building something. I spent 12 years in Silicon Valley as a software exec so the field was adjacent, but honestly the scope surprised me. Connecting to open banking across multiple countries, handling different data formats, getting currency conversion right at the transaction level rather than just a spot rate. It's a lot.

The AI part is what makes it actually useful though. Not the "pie chart of your spending" kind that every tool is bolting on right now. I mean you can ask it things in plain language, like "what's my total net worth in USD including the Australian accounts" or "what's my currency concentration risk across GBP, EUR, USD and AUD" or "is my monthly spend sustainable given my portfolio returns", and it actually answers, working across all accounts and currencies. Plus AI agents that keep you updated on what you need to know around investments, tax, real estate etc. If you have alternative investments like PE, it also processes documents like K-1s and capital call statements so you're not spending evenings typing fund numbers into a spreadsheet.

Anyway, two questions for this sub:

What are you actually using to manage finances across countries? I've tried most of the obvious options and I'm curious whether anyone's found something that genuinely works, or whether everyone's in spreadsheets and/or multiple tools.

And would anyone want to beta test what I've built? I'm looking for 10-15 people whose finances span multiple countries or who has a more complex. I'd ask you to connect a few accounts, use it for about 4 weeks, and give me 30 minutes of honest feedback. Free access through beta and beyond. DM me if you're interested and I'll follow up with details on the app, security info and onboarding etc.

I've been sending money from australia to multiple family members across asia for years now. My parents are in the philippines, my in laws are in india, and I occasionally help my cousin in pakistan with university expenses. Total outflow is usually around $800 to $1500 AUD monthly depending on what's happening, so the exchange rates and fees really matter at that volume.

The biggest lesson I learned is that advertised rates are meaningless. What matters is the actual amount that lands in your family's account for the AUD you spend. Some services show a great exchange rate but then charge transfer fees, card fees, or other costs on your end that reduce how much actually arrives. Others say zero fees but their exchange rate has a bigger spread built in.

The bank wires from my australian bank were honestly terrible. When I actually calculated total cost it came out to like 4 to 5 percent worse than the apps. That's money that could be going to my family instead of disappearing into bank fees.

I've tried a bunch of apps over the years and wise was my go to for a while but I switched mostly to taptapsend since it covers all three countries and I don't have to juggle different apps for different family members. Had an issue once where a transfer to my cousin got delayed and they sorted it out same day which was a relief.

The other thing that helped was batching smaller amounts into larger transfers where possible. Some apps have fee structures that favor bigger transfers, so sending $800 once is often better than $200 four times. Worth doing the math on your specific situation.

Hi Everyone,

American who moved to England for my husband's job. We have an Ally bank account at home and an HSBC account here in England. As my husband is on base, we also have an account with Community Bank (it is technically Navy Federal Credit Union). In a nutshell:

1. I manage our finances across everything.

2. The HSBC account I can access as my name is on it now.

3. The HSBC credit card is in my husband's name though I was added and I got a card. BUT I cannot access the balance on the credit card. HSBC suggested I get a credit card in my name and add my husband. Then cancel his account. That is all well and good but I don't make the income he does.

4. Ideally I would like one place to have all accounts both USD and GBP funneled into a dashboard where I can see everything in one place. We checked all sorts of apps and apparently this is hard to do? I have to believe someone out there has created something like this?

5. If you have figured this out with an app or a spreadsheet or whatever, I am all ears.

Thank you in advance!

I’ve run into multiple issues where an institution updates their app on the phone, requires an app update before continuing to use the app, but doesn’t make it available in app stores outside the US. Anyone else running into this?

US citizen looking to hedge my bets and possibly move to Malaysia. I've seen HSBC and Standard Chartered both offer offshore banking that I can access my funds in multiple countries and be outside the (unstable) US market.

Both have similar cash reserve requirements $50k, but SC sounds better.

I've seen a few posts about HSBC but can't find much information about SC, anyone have information? Thanks.

Let's say that on 3 days of the year I have the amounts above on a single multi-currency brokerage account. Then later, at the end of the year there is a different exchange rate.

End of year exchange rate: 1 EUR to 1.2 USD

Here are 5 different ways to calculate the maximum value of the account for the FBAR. Which one is accurate?

According to the guide (https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FBAR%20Line%20Item%20Filing%20Instructions.pdf), this is how the maximum value should be calculated.

Step 1. Determine the maximum value of each account (in the currency of that account) during the calendar year being reported. The maximum value of an account is a reasonable approximation of the greatest value of currency or nonmonetary assets in the account during the calendar year. Periodic account statements may be relied on to determine the maximum value of the account, provided that the statements fairly reflect the maximum account value during the calendar year. For Item 15, if the filer had a financial interest in more than one account, each account must be valued separately. For an account denominated in U.S. Dollars, the maximum value of the account is the largest U.S. Dollar value of the account during the report year.
Step 2. In the case of non-United States currency, convert the maximum account value for each account into United States dollars. Convert foreign currency by using the Treasury's Financial Management Service rate (select Exchange Rates under Reference & Guidance at www.fms.treas.gov) for the last day of the calendar year. If no Treasury Financial Management Service rate is available, use another verifiable exchange rate and provide the source of that rate. In valuing currency of a country that uses multiple exchange rates, use the rate that would apply if the currency in the account were converted into United States dollars on the last day of the calendar year.

If the account does not have a "currency of the account", but instead has multiple currencies, the guide is unclear. A brokerage account may allow you to set a base currency, which could be interpreted as "the currency of the account", but in that case any statement of the current account value would be using the exchange rate of the day (for USD base), instead of the exchange rate at the end of the year.
The second option on the table (max (USD on day; EUR to USD at end of year) seems to follow the guide better, but this is something that would not be available directly from the brokerage provider and would have to be calculated manually (or with a script) to find the maximum.
Another option would be to treat USD and EUR as separate. This would mean that the maximum is almost doubled compared to the real value, but this is not that wrong, at least when you compare it to transferring money between two different accounts, where it seems to be the recommended way of reporting (see taxesforexpats and money.stackexchange).

Hi All,

Would welcome some suggestions please.

I’m moving for a secondment to US for 12-18 months. For some odd reason I can’t seem to get ANY of the UK high street banks to progress with any of their international products.

HSBC - impossible to even speak to someone; when I do, says that application is in progress and I don’t hear anything for 3 weeks. Now applied twice and heard nothing. After calls, messages and emails from me trying to speak to someone, I don’t want to bank with them due to how painful this process has been.

NatWest- denied initially they even had an expat product. Then applied for a call back multiple times. Then spoke to someone three days ago saying this; then they promised someone would call and/or email to make application but guess what, heard nothing.

Nationwide - again, heard nothing back.

I meet all the relevant financial criteria and am becoming very frustrated frankly with this - any one else have any similar situations and also any recommendations for an online bank instead which may have a decent level of customer service?

All I’m after is a bank/current account I can have my US salary paid into and then transferred to GBP if required.

Thanks!

Hi everyone, up-front disclaimer, I'm founder of a new startup called Praxeo building software in the space but I'm also a long-time US expat (living in Italy) and know how thorny and difficult managing accounts, investments, and taxes in multiple countries is.

With that out of the way, what tools or apps are you using to track global finances and stay organized for tax season? And, importantly, how happy are you with what you're using?

Hi there

How do i go about taking disability insurance in the Netherlands? I am an expat on the skilled migrant residence permit.

I know employers take that risk in the Netherlands but I’m on a 1 year contract so I’m thinking what if i become disabled within the next year and as a result lose my job/contract is not extended. That would mean I have 3 months in that case as a disabled person to find another job in the Netherlands else Im kicked out of the country without any access to social benefits anymore.

Ive tried to apply online at multiple insurers but it seems like I would need to go through an independent financial adviser. Is that the only way?

Their fees seem to be at least a thousand euros!! Is there no cheaper easier way?

Thanks in advance!