What Is the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), and How Does It Affect U.S. Expats?

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is an OECD-developed framework that requires financial institutions in over 100 participating countries to identify account holders’ tax residency and automatically share that data with the account holder’s home tax authority each year. If you are a U.S. citizen living abroad, your foreign bank reports your account information to the local tax authority, which then exchanges it with the IRS through intergovernmental agreements.

• Over 100 jurisdictions participate in CRS, including every major expat destination (UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Singapore, UAE)
• Banks identify you through self-certification forms (W-8BEN, local equivalents) and due diligence on your nationality, address, and phone number
• Data exchanged includes account balances, interest, dividends, gross proceeds, and account holder identity
• CRS updated for 2026: the amended CRS now covers electronic money products, central bank digital currencies, and indirect crypto-asset investments

How CRS and FATCA work together:

What this means for you as an expat:

Your foreign bank reports your account data to the local tax authority under CRS, and separately to the IRS under FATCA. The IRS now receives your foreign account information from two independent channels. This makes it far more likely that unreported accounts will be detected, which is why filing your FBAR and Form 8938 on time matters more than ever.

Countries that previously had limited IRS data sharing (UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong) now participate in CRS, closing gaps that existed before 2018.