A person is considered a nonresident not a citizen of the United States if he or she, at the time the gift is made, (1) was not a citizen of the United States and did not reside there, or (2) was domiciled in a United States possession and acquired citizenship solely by reason of birth or residence in the possession.
Under certain circumstances, nonresidents who are not U.S. citizens are also subject to gift (and GST) taxes for gifts of intangible property. See sections 2501(a) and 2511(b).
If you are a nonresident not a citizen of the United States who made a gift subject to U.S. gift tax, you must file a gift tax return (Form 709 United States Gift (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return) when any of the following apply:
- You gave any gifts of future interests.
- Your gifts of present interests to any done other than your spouse
total more than $19,000 in 2025. - Your outright gifts to your spouse who is not a U.S. citizen total more than $190,000.
Joint Accounts
The U.S. views joint accounts as co-owned, so if a U.S. citizen adds funds to a joint account that their non-U.S. partner can access, then the IRS could view it as her gifting half (or more) of that money to her partner.
This only matters if the partner is not a U.S. citizen – spousal gifts to U.S. citizen spouses are unlimited, but gifts to non-citizen spouses are limited to $190,000/year (as of 2025).
For unmarried partners it’s only $19,000. If she exceeds that, she’s supposed to file Form 709 (U.S. Gift Tax Return) – though folks almost never actually pay tax unless they exceed the lifetime gift/estate exemption (currently over $13 million). But this is only relevant if its the U.S. citizen that is putting in more money than the non-US Citizen.
If the non-U.S. citizen is contributing more to the joint account than the U.S. citizen, that’s ok – U.S. citizens can receive money from non-U.S. citizens without paying tax up to $100,000 a year (2025 threshold), but in excess of this amount, the gift should be declared via Form 3520.
