Form 3520-A: what it is, who files it, due date, extension, and penalties

Written by  Andrew Coleman, CPA

Last updated Mar 26, 2026

Form 3520-A is the annual information return of a foreign trust with at least one US owner. The foreign trust is the primary filer, but every US person treated as an owner must make sure a complete return is filed and that the required annual statements are furnished to US owners and beneficiaries.

If the trust does not file, the US owner generally has to file a substitute Form 3520-A with Form 3520 by the Form 3520 due date. Penalties can be severe, so this is one of the foreign trust filings that is worth handling early, not at the last minute.

• Who it applies to: Foreign trusts with at least one US owner under the grantor trust rules.
• Regular due date: The 15th day of the third month after the end of the trust’s tax year.
• Extension rule: A Form 3520 A extension is requested on Form 7004 using the trust’s EIN, not the owner’s SSN or ITIN.
• Penalty exposure: The starting penalty is generally the greater of $10,000 or 5% of the gross value of the US-owned portion if the filing is late, incomplete, or incorrect.

NOTE! For the 2025 tax year filed in the 2026 filing season, the current IRS Form 3520 A instructions are the December 2025 continuous-use, until a superseding revision is issued.

What is Form 3520-A, and why should you care?

What is Form 3520-A? It is the IRS annual information return for a foreign trust with a US owner. The form reports the trust’s activity, its financial position, and the required Foreign Grantor Trust Owner Statement and Foreign Grantor Trust Beneficiary Statement that US persons use for their own reporting.

It matters because this filing sits at the center of foreign grantor trust compliance. A late or incomplete return can trigger penalties even when the US owner was not the trustee, which is why the official rules place a compliance backstop on the US owner. For a broader overview, see the IRS guide about Form 3520-A.

IRS form 3520-A instructions: who’s on the hook?

The IRS form 3520-A instructions draw a sharper line than many summaries online. The foreign trust files the return, but the US owner is not off the hook just because the trustee is abroad.

• If the foreign trust files a complete return on time: the trust files Form 3520-A, includes the owner and beneficiary statements, and furnishes copies to the relevant US persons by the due date, unless the filing was properly extended. In that situation, the US owner usually uses the owner statement for their own reporting and keeps the trust filing consistent with the US return.
• If the foreign trust does not file Form 3520-A: the US owner must step in and attach a substitute Form 3520-A to Form 3520 by the Form 3520 due date. A late, incomplete, or incorrect trust return can still trigger penalties.
• If you are a US beneficiary and not a US owner: you generally do not file Form 3520-A itself. Instead, you should receive the Foreign Grantor Trust Beneficiary Statement if you received a distribution from a foreign grantor trust, and you may still have your own Form 3520 filing obligations depending on the facts.

Who must file Form 3520-A / who may not need to file

This filing is for a foreign trust with at least one US owner. If there is no US owner, Form 3520-A usually is not the form in play, though other foreign trust reporting may still apply.

There are also limited exceptions. The IRS says Forms 3520 and 3520-A are not required for Canadian RRSPs and RRIFs under Rev. Proc. 2014-55, and certain eligible individuals may be exempt for certain tax-favored foreign retirement trusts and nonretirement savings trusts under Rev. Proc. 2020-17 if all conditions are met.

The current instructions also reference proposed section 6048 regulations that certain eligible individuals may rely on for tax years ending after May 8, 2024, and beginning on or before the date final regulations are published, provided the taxpayer and all related persons apply the proposed rules in full and consistently from the first year of reliance until the final regulations take effect.

Even when Form 3520-A is not required, that does not automatically remove other reporting. FBAR and Form 8938 may still apply if the facts fit. That is one reason to review the structure first, not just the form title.

What is the difference between Form 3520 and Form 3520-A

In simple terms, Form 3520 is the US person’s reporting form, while Form 3520-A is the foreign trust’s annual information return.

If you want the difference between 3520 and 3520 A in one line,

• Form 3520 belongs to the US person and
• Form 3520-A belongs to the foreign trust.

The relationship between Form 3520 and 3520 A becomes especially important when the trust misses its filing, because the substitute filing moves onto the US owner’s Form 3520.

That is why questions about Form 3520 vs 3520 A usually are not just about labels. They are really about which deadline applies, who signs, and what happens when the trustee does not cooperate.

The anatomy of Form 3520-A: a section-by-section breakdown

Form 3520-A preview

The form itself is short. The work is in getting the attachments, statements, and filing mechanics right.

Part I: General information (the opening act)

Part I identifies the trust, its tax year, its EIN, and whether it has a qualifying US agent. This is also where many avoidable errors start. The trust must use its own EIN. The IRS form 3520A instructions are explicit that the trust should not use an SSN or ITIN in place of the trust’s EIN.

All information must be provided in English, and all amounts must be shown in US dollars. The US agent question is more than an administrative detail. If the trust has no qualifying US agent, the IRS may redetermine the amounts the US owner must take into account.

When the trust answers “No,” the filing also needs extra documents, including a summary of the trust terms, copies of trust documents and revisions, and an ownership chart. If those documents were provided within the previous three years, only relevant updates generally need to be attached.

Part II: Foreign Trust Income Statement (the financial tell-all)

Part II should reasonably reflect the trust’s income under US income tax principles, not just local bookkeeping. That means it is not enough to lift numbers from foreign accounts and stop there.

Typical items here include

• interest,
• dividends,
• partnership or fiduciary income,
• capital gains, and
• other income from both US and non-US sources.

Expense lines can include interest expense, foreign taxes, trustee and advisor fees, charitable contributions, and other expenses. If the trust made distributions, the attached statements around those transfers must line up with the amounts reported here.

This section also needs to reconcile with the owner statement. If the trust reports interest, dividends, gains, or expenses in Part II, the Foreign Grantor Trust Owner Statement should be consistent with those items. When the US owner or beneficiary treats items differently on a US return, the IRS instructions say Form 8082 may be required.

Part III: Foreign Trust Balance Sheet (the financial health check)

Part III is the trust’s year-end balance sheet. The IRS wants all assets and liabilities listed, including amounts attributable to portions of the trust not treated as owned by a US person. The balance sheet should reflect fair market value, and accumulated trust income should also be tracked.

This section seems mechanical, but it supports the penalty framework too. Because the main Form 3520-A penalty is tied to the gross value of the US-owned portion of the trust, weak balance sheet reporting can create bigger problems later.

The Statements (getting personal)

The statements are not optional add-ons. They are part of the filing.

The Foreign Grantor Trust Owner Statement goes to each US person treated as an owner of a portion of the trust. The Foreign Grantor Trust Beneficiary Statement goes to each US beneficiary who received a distribution from the trust during the year.

For a regular filing, both statements must be included with Form 3520-A and furnished to the relevant US persons by the Form 3520-A due date, unless the due date was properly extended.

If the trust does not file and the US owner makes a substitute filing, those same statements must be attached to the US owner’s Form 3520 and furnished to the US owners and US beneficiaries by the Form 3520 due date. The tax year should also be shown at the top of the statements, and a fiscal-year trust uses the calendar year in which the fiscal year begins.

Signing off (the grand finale)

A regular Form 3520-A is signed by the trustee. If the trustee is a partnership or corporation, the IRS instructions identify the appropriate signing person by role.

A substitute Form 3520-A is different. The US owner signs it, and the owner’s name and TIN go on the “Title” line in the signature box. When a paid preparer is used, the preparer completes the preparer section, signs, and provides a copy to the filer.

Form 3520-A due date, extension, and where to file

The 3520 A due date is the 15th day of the third month after the end of the trust’s tax year. Because the 3520 A filing deadline follows the trust year and not your Form 1040, a fiscal-year trust can be due on a very different schedule from your personal return.

• Regular due date: The foreign trust files Form 3520-A by the 15th day of the third month after the end of its tax year.
• Substitute due date: If the trust does not file, the substitute Form 3520-A is due with the US owner’s Form 3520, not on the regular Form 3520-A date.
• Extension form: A Form 3520 A extension is requested on Form 7004, filed by the regular Form 3520-A due date.
• EIN requirement: Form 7004 must be filed using the foreign trust’s EIN. An extension of an income tax return does not extend a regular Form 3520-A filing.
• Mailing address: Regular Form 3520-A filings and Paper Form 7004 filings for Form 3520-A are mailed to Internal Revenue Service Center, P.O. Box 409101, Ogden, UT 84409.

For a calendar-year foreign trust ending December 31, 2025, the nominal due date was March 15, 2026. Because that date fell on a Sunday, the practical deadline moved to Monday, March 16, 2026.

For expats, the substitute deadline can be later than the regular trust deadline because it follows Form 3520. For a US citizen or resident who qualifies for the abroad filing rule, Form 3520 is generally due June 15 if the filer includes the required statement. If the filer validly extends the income tax return deadline, Form 3520 is generally due October 15. That timing can save a late trust situation, but only if the substitute filing is complete.

What is a substitute Form 3520-A?

A substitute 3520 A is the US owner’s backup filing when the foreign trust does not timely file a complete and accurate Form 3520-A.

1. When it is needed. A substitute Form 3520-A is generally needed if the foreign trust does not file Form 3520-A. A late, incomplete, or incorrect trust return can still trigger section 6677 penalties.
2. What to attach. Attach the substitute Form 3520-A to Form 3520, along with the Foreign Grantor Trust Owner Statement and the Foreign Grantor Trust Beneficiary Statement. If you are trying to understand the phrase form 3520 attach a statement, this is one of the places it matters most: the owner and beneficiary statements travel with the substitute filing.
3. Who signs. The US owner signs the substitute return.
4. When it is due. The due date is the due date of the US owner’s Form 3520. The IRS says a substitute filing completed to the best of the US owner’s ability and attached to Form 3520 by that due date is treated as timely.

This is one of the most important practical differences between a regular trust filing and a substitute filing. The trust’s own March-style deadline can be missed, and the US owner may still avoid the Form 3520-A failure-to-file penalty by making a timely substitute filing with Form 3520.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

• Incomplete attachments. The IRS says only a complete Form 3520-A is treated as timely filed. That means the statements and any required supporting documents must be there. A return that arrives on time but is missing the owner statement, beneficiary statement, or required no-agent attachments can still create trouble.
• Using the wrong due date. A calendar-year trust, a fiscal-year trust, and a substitute filing can all have different deadlines. The 3520 A due date belongs to the trust’s tax year. The substitute filing follows Form 3520 instead.
• Assuming your personal tax extension covers everything. It does not. A regular Form 3520-A needs its own Form 7004 filed with the trust’s EIN. A personal income tax extension helps only because it can extend Form 3520, which in turn can extend the deadline for a substitute filing.
• Missing the substitute filing completely. This is the expensive one. The 3520 A penalty starts at the greater of $10,000 or 5% of the gross value of the US-owned portion of the trust, and additional penalties can apply if noncompliance continues after IRS notice. The IRS also says foreign confidentiality rules or a trustee’s reluctance to disclose information do not, by themselves, create reasonable cause.

Bottom line: what to do next

Form 3520-A is the foreign trust’s annual filing, but the US owner has to make sure it gets done correctly. The regular due date is based on the trust’s year-end. The extension is requested on Form 7004 using the trust’s EIN. If the trustee does not file, the US owner generally files a substitute Form 3520-A with Form 3520 by the Form 3520 deadline.

That is why the real compliance question is not just what is Form 3520-A. It is whether the trust, the US owner, and any US beneficiaries are all working from the same filing calendar and the same set of statements.

If you are not sure whether the trust will file a complete return, or if you are trying to sort out Form 3520 and 3520 A together, get help before the deadline rather than after a penalty notice arrives.

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If you searched for Form 3520A or tax form 3520 A, you are looking at the same return. You may also see IRS 3520A or IRS Form 3520A in search results, and a search typo like resp Form 3520-A still points to the same foreign trust filing.