How Much Does FBAR Filing Cost?

Filing an FBAR yourself costs nothing. FinCEN charges nothing to accept the form, and individuals can file it online through FinCEN’s BSA E-Filing System. When a tax preparer files it alongside your return, the add-on we see quoted is $85 to $150 a year, and many cross-border packages, ours included, fold it into the return price. Where it gets expensive is late filing: catching up several years of missed FBARs is usually done inside a larger IRS compliance submission (our package for that starts at $2,745), and the civil penalty for a non-willful failure to file is now up to $16,536 per report.

What does it cost to file the FBAR yourself?

Nothing but time. You file FinCEN Form 114 online through the BSA E-Filing System, and the form asks for each account’s institution, address, account number, and highest balance during the year, converted to US dollars at the Treasury’s year-end exchange rate. With three or four accounts and the statements in front of you, it’s under an hour.

The risk in doing it yourself is scope. People leave accounts off because they don’t think of them as bank accounts: an RRSP, a TFSA, a brokerage account, a foreign pension with an account balance, a parent’s account you can sign on, a business account where you have signature authority. All of those count toward the $10,000 and all of them get reported. The FBAR filing requirements guide covers who has to file and which accounts count.

What does a CPA charge to file an FBAR?

As an add-on to a return the firm is already preparing, $85 to $150 a year is the range we see quoted for a filer with a handful of accounts. No fee survey breaks the FBAR out, so treat it as an estimate. The fee scales with the account count, since every account is a separate entry with its own highest-balance lookup.

Situation	Typical cost
Self-filed through BSA E-Filing	$0
Add-on to a professionally prepared return, up to about 10 accounts	$85 to $150 a year
Included in a cross-border return package	No separate charge
Large account counts (20, 50, or more)	Base fee plus a per-account charge
Several late years filed together	Priced as part of the catch-up submission

At Blue Cloud CPA the FBAR is included in every cross-border package, which start at $1,745 for both countries’ returns, and accounts beyond the first 10 are $10 each. The full rate card is on the cross-border tax page.

When a preparer files for you, you’ll sign FinCEN Form 114a, which authorizes them to submit the FBAR on your behalf. Per the IRS’s FBAR page, that form isn’t submitted with the filing. The preparer keeps it on file, and you should keep a copy too.

What does it cost to catch up on late FBARs?

It depends on whether the FBARs are the only thing missing. If you reported all the income from the accounts on your tax returns and only missed the FBAR itself, the fix is to file the late reports through the same BSA system with an explanation for the lateness. The IRS’s current guidance is short: file late FBARs as soon as possible to keep potential penalties to a minimum. A preparer will typically charge the per-year add-on fee for each late year, plus time for the explanation statement.

If income from the accounts also went unreported, the FBARs are one piece of a larger cleanup, and the usual route is the IRS’s Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures: three years of amended or original returns, six years of FBARs, and a signed certification that the failure wasn’t willful. Taxpayers living outside the US who qualify pay no penalty under the streamlined foreign procedures. Taxpayers living in the US pay a penalty equal to 5% of the highest aggregate year-end balance of the unreported foreign assets during the covered period. Our Streamlined Catch-Up package starts at $2,745, and the streamlined cost guide breaks down what moves that number.

Which route fits is a judgment call with real money on it, and the late FBAR guide walks through how the choice gets made.

What does it cost to not file?

Far more than any filing fee. The FBAR penalties in 31 USC 5321(a)(5) are adjusted for inflation, and the current figures, published by FinCEN in the Federal Register in January 2025, are a maximum of $16,536 for a non-willful violation and the greater of $165,353 or 50% of the account balance for a willful one. The 2026 inflation adjustment was cancelled government-wide, so those amounts still apply.

Many websites still show the original statutory figures of $10,000 and $100,000. Those are the pre-inflation numbers, and the IRS’s own Form 8938 comparison page gives only those older figures with a note that they’re adjusted annually.

How the non-willful penalty is counted changed in 2023. In Bittner v. United States, the Supreme Court held that non-willful penalties accrue “on a per-report, not a per-account, basis.” Someone who missed five years of FBARs covering 12 accounts faces a maximum of five penalties, where the government had argued for sixty. The penalty is also a maximum. The IRS can and does assess less, and the statute bars the penalty entirely where there’s reasonable cause and the balances were properly reported.

Is the FBAR the same as Form 8938?

No, and many people owe both. Form 8938 goes to the IRS with your tax return, covers a wider set of foreign assets, and has much higher thresholds: for a single filer living in the US, more than $50,000 on the last day of the year or $75,000 at any time, and for a single filer living abroad, $200,000 and $300,000. Joint filers get double those amounts. Missing it costs up to $10,000, plus up to $50,000 more if it stays unfiled after an IRS notice, per the IRS’s comparison of the two forms.

The add-on we see quoted for Form 8938 is $120 to $200. The Form 8938 versus FBAR guide explains which accounts go on which form.

What should I do next?

Add up the highest balance each foreign account reached during the year, in US dollars. If the total went over $10,000 at any point, file. If you’ve missed prior years, don’t file the late ones piecemeal before working out whether your tax returns also need correcting, because the order and the method matter.

• The FBAR penalty decision tree maps the options for late filers, from a simple late filing to voluntary disclosure.
• The domestic versus foreign streamlined guide explains which track applies and what the 5% penalty is measured on.
• The cross-border tax return cost guide covers what the full both-country filing costs with the FBAR included.

This guide is general information, not tax advice for your specific situation. Which points apply, and how, depends on your facts.