Most FBAR problems don't come from deliberate concealment — they come from small, avoidable errors repeated year after year. Here are the seven that show up most often.
1. Reporting Year-End Balance Instead of Maximum Value
The FBAR asks for the highest balance during the year, not the balance on December 31. Filers who are used to tax-return thinking often default to a year-end snapshot out of habit, understating the true maximum if the account was higher at some point earlier in the year.
2. Forgetting Accounts Where You Only Have Signature Authority
People frequently file for accounts they own but forget accounts where they merely have signature authority — for example, a foreign account tied to an employer or a family member's account they can sign on. As covered in our guide to who must file, signature authority alone can create a filing obligation even without ownership.
3. Missing Jointly Owned Accounts
Each U.S.-person owner of a joint account generally needs to report the full account value, not a proportional share. Filers sometimes assume that because a sibling or spouse "already reported it," their own obligation is satisfied — usually incorrect absent a specific joint-filing arrangement.
4. Assuming Small or Old Accounts Don't Count
A dormant account from years abroad, a small inherited account, or a foreign pension with modest value can still push the aggregate total over $10,000 when combined with other accounts. The threshold looks at the combined value of all foreign accounts together, not any single account in isolation.
5. Using the Wrong Exchange Rate Source
Converting foreign currency using a random online converter checked mid-year, rather than the appropriate year-end Treasury exchange rate applied to the identified maximum value, is a frequent and easily avoidable inconsistency. See our filing checklist for the correct method.
6. Confusing FBAR Compliance With Form 8938 Compliance
Filing Form 8938 with your tax return does not satisfy the FBAR requirement, and vice versa. They're separate filings with separate thresholds — our side-by-side comparison lays out exactly where they diverge.
7. Waiting Instead of Using Available Catch-Up Procedures
The costliest mistake isn't a data-entry error — it's discovering a past gap and doing nothing, hoping it goes unnoticed. The IRS's voluntary catch-up programs are generally only available before the IRS identifies the issue independently. Once discovered, options narrow considerably. See delinquent and streamlined filing procedures for the available paths.
A pattern worth noticing
Almost every item on this list stems from applying tax-return habits to a form that follows different rules. Treating the FBAR as its own distinct filing — with its own definitions of value, timing, and scope — avoids most of these mistakes automatically.