🔄 Updated for 2026 — treaty rates and Form 8833 requirements verified current as of last review 📖 Reading time: 19 minutes  |  ✍️ ExpatWiki Editorial Team A software engineer from Bangalore noticed the discrepancy during her second year in Seattle. Her brokerage statement showed 30 percent withheld on dividends from her Indian mutual fund — a rate she'd assumed was fixed. Her treaty-country colleague from Germany was paying 5 percent on equivalent dividends from his European holdings. Same brokerage. Same account type. Different country of origin, different withholding rate, and a difference of several hundred dollars annually flowing to the IRS rather than staying in her account. The mechanism behind that gap was a US tax treaty — a bilateral tax treaty her home country had negotiated with the United States decades before she arrived, reducing the standard withholding rate for Indian residents and citizens on specific categories of income. She filed an amended re...

🔄 Updated for 2026 — all linked guides verified current, contribution limits and visa rules reviewed as of last update 📖 Reading time: 28 minutes  |  ✍️ ExpatWiki Editorial Team T he expat checklist started as a WhatsApp message. A software engineer from Hyderabad who'd been in Seattle for four years typed it out at midnight because a new colleague — just landed, H-1B in hand, completely overwhelmed — had texted asking where to even begin. Social Security Number first, the engineer wrote. Then bank account. Check whether your company does 401(k) matching next, because every month you skip that is money you're not getting back. Health insurance enrollment closes in two weeks so don't miss it. Then, when you've had a moment to breathe, credit card so you can start building a credit score. Then renters insurance because your landlord will ask for it and it costs almost nothing. The message turned into a document. The document got shared. Three years later a ve...

🔄 Updated for 2026 — mortgage rate figures and lending requirements verified current as of last review 📖 Reading time: 20 minutes  |  ✍️ ExpatWiki Editorial Team A product manager from Bangalore bought a four-bedroom house in Plano, Texas, eighteen months into his first H-1B. His American colleagues assumed he must have gotten permanent residency first. He hadn't. He had a valid visa, two years of US tax returns, a credit score he'd built from scratch, and a down payment he'd saved because his Houston-area rent had left room to save. Financing took six weeks. The confusion on his colleagues' faces took longer to clear up. Buying a house in the USA as a visa holder is one of the most misunderstood areas of expat financial life, with a persistent myth that permanent residency or citizenship is a prerequisite for property ownership. It isn't. This guide covers exactly who can buy on a temporary visa, what loan options exist for non-citizens, how to handl...