Your first U.S. tax season in France has its own kind of déjà vu. You know the process of filing US tax returns, and yet the whole thing feels different now that you're doing it from a Paris apartment or a tiny kitchen table in Lyon. The IRS still wants its yearly tax return from you, but France has its own ideas about how income should be taxed, how accounts should be reported, and how long a form is allowed to be. (Much longer, apparently.)
If you're gearing up for your first run-through, here are five practical, very human tips that people often wish they had heard earlier.
Many Americans abroad default to the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion because it sounds simple: you just exclude your foreign income, right? Not quite. If you're living in France full-time and paying regular French income tax, the foreign tax credit often gives you a better outcome. France tends to tax at higher rates than the U.S., which means the credit wipes out your U.S. tax bill more cleanly than the exclusion does.
Think about a simple example: a teacher in Toulouse earning €32,000 a year. She pays a decent chunk to France, so the credit handles most of the heavy lifting. If she uses the exclusion instead, she might lose the opportunity to claim certain credits or accidentally make her U.S. return more complicated down the road.
There’s no universal answer here, but deciding early saves you the headache of redoing the whole return when you realise you picked the wrong path.
French paperwork has a strange way of resurfacing months later, often right when your U.S. tax software asks for something oddly specific. Payslips, your avis d’imposition, proof of social contributions, bank statements from your Livret A, hang on to all of it.
You don’t need to become a scrapbooker, but a small folder (digital or physical) saves you from that moment in June when you’re digging through drawers trying to find a paper stamped by someone who definitely no longer works at your mairie.
If the combined value of your French accounts went over $10,000 at any point during the year—even for a single day—you’ll need to file the FBAR. Many first-time expats assume their local accounts don’t count because they’re “just normal checking accounts,” but the IRS is… less sentimental.
People often get tripped up by accounts they barely use: a Revolut card, a Wise account opened for a move, or even a nearly forgotten savings account their French employer helped set up. And that’s before you get into PEAs, assurance-vie contracts, and the whole PFIC world (those are deeper waters), but for now, just make sure you at least list your basic accounts correctly.
Oddly enough, leaving the U.S. doesn’t always mean you’re done with state taxes. Some states like California do not let go easily. They still consider you a resident until you sever ties pretty clearly.
People usually discover this after they’ve renewed a driver’s licence or kept a rental property back home. If you’re not ready to cut that cord, fine, but at least be aware that the state might expect a return even while you’re strolling along the Seine. It's one of those quietly annoying realities of U.S. expat life.
You automatically get until June 15 as an expat, but don't treat that as permission to start in June. You’ll end up waiting for French tax documents, checking whether certain French social charges count toward the foreign tax credit, converting euros to dollars using the IRS-approved yearly exchange rate, and, if Googling “is a Livret A considered a foreign financial asset?” more than once.
Starting early lets you think through things calmly. It also gives you a chance to ask questions before you’re forced to file something you’re not confident about.
Filing U.S. taxes from France isn’t inherently harder, it’s simply unfamiliar. And because it’s unfamiliar, it feels like you’re juggling two systems that weren't built with each other in mind. But once you get through the first round, it becomes far less intimidating. You start to recognize which forms matter, which questions repeat every year, and which parts of the French system actually help you on the U.S. side.
That said, if you reach a point where you’re staring at Form 1116 or trying to sort out whether your French social charges qualify for the credit, there’s no shame in calling in backup. A lot of Americans in France eventually pass the paperwork to a specialist. Expat Tax Online is one of the more popular choices because they work exclusively with expats and understand all the little France-specific quirks. Even getting a quick review from a pro can save you from redoing half the return later.
If nothing else, you’ll walk away from this first tax season with a strangely specific new skill: navigating two tax systems while sipping a noisette. And that’s something.
