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FBAR and Venezuela Bank Accounts: What US Citizens Must Report

US citizens, green-card holders, and US tax residents with Venezuelan bank accounts have the same FBAR obligation as anyone with foreign financial accounts. The five banks below are among the largest in the country by assets. This post is education-only -- it explains the filing rule and names the banks; it does not estimate any penalty or guarantee any outcome. An Enrolled Agent can review your specific facts.

Sabih Shafi, EA - Enrolled Agent

The Venezuelan banks US filers report most often

These five institutions are among the largest banks in the country by assets:

  • Banco de Venezuela -- the largest bank in Venezuela by assets.

  • Banesco -- a major privately owned bank, formally Banesco Banco Universal.

  • BBVA Provincial -- the Venezuelan subsidiary of the international BBVA group.

  • Banco Nacional de Credito (BNC) -- a privately owned bank, formally Banco Nacional de Credito.

  • Mercantil -- formally Banco Mercantil, a long-established Venezuelan bank.

Use these exact names when you enter account information on FinCEN Form 114. Do not translate them, shorten them, or substitute an English version -- the form wants the bank's name as it appears on your statements.

The FBAR rule, plainly

FBAR is FinCEN Form 114, and the trigger is aggregate. The rule is not per-account and not per-bank. You must file when the combined maximum value of ALL your foreign financial accounts exceeds USD 10,000 at any point during the calendar year. "All" means every account in every country -- your Banco de Venezuela checking, a Banesco savings, a BBVA Provincial investment account, and any account anywhere else, all summed together.

Two details catch people off guard every year:

  • Maximum value, not year-end balance. FBAR asks for the highest balance each account reached at any moment during the year. A year-end statement is not enough. You may need monthly statements or the bank's own max-balance figure.

  • Filed separately from your tax return. The FBAR is filed through FinCEN's BSA E-Filing system, not with your Form 1040. The deadline is April 15, with an automatic extension to October 15 -- no extension request is needed, the extension is built in.

How Venezuela shares account information with the IRS

Venezuela is one of the countries that has NOT signed a FATCA intergovernmental agreement with the United States. Many countries in the region have; Venezuela has not. That surprises people, and it leads to a dangerous assumption.

Here is why it changes nothing about your obligation. The FBAR is not triggered by what your bank reports. It is a filing duty that falls on YOU as the account holder, and it applies identically whether or not Venezuela ever sends a single record to the IRS. The absence of an agreement is not a shield, it is only a difference in how the information travels. US persons remain fully required to report Venezuelan accounts, and failing to do so is non-compliance regardless of what Venezuela does or does not transmit.

It is also worth knowing that individual Venezuelan banks may still register with the IRS and report directly under FATCA even without a country-level agreement, and information can reach the IRS through other channels entirely.

FBAR and FATCA are separate regimes with separate purposes, but they overlap on the same accounts. Filing the FBAR does not satisfy FATCA reporting, and FATCA reporting does not replace the FBAR.

Start with the full picture

For a broader look at how foreign bank reporting works and how to pull the right numbers from your statements, read our main post on the topic, anchored to Banco de Venezuela:

Call or text (323) 900-0305.

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