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ITIN for Your Colombian Spouse — Without Mailing the Passport

If you're a US citizen married to a Colombian national, at some point your tax preparer — or the IRS itself — has probably told you your spouse needs an ITIN. So you looked into how to actually get one, and ran straight into the part that makes most people stop cold: mail your spouse's original passport to the United States. If the idea of putting your husband's or wife's only piece of government ID in an international envelope and hoping it comes back is keeping you up at night, you're not overreacting — and there's a well-established alternative most people never hear about until they go looking for it.

What an ITIN Actually Is, and Why Your Spouse Needs One

An ITIN — Individual Taxpayer Identification Number — is a tax processing number the IRS issues to people who need a US taxpayer ID but don't qualify for a Social Security Number. It's not a work permit, it doesn't grant immigration status, and it doesn't make your spouse a US citizen or resident. It simply gives the IRS a number to attach a tax return to.

For a lot of American–Colombian couples, the ITIN question shows up the moment you want to file married filing jointly, or claim a tax position that requires your spouse to have a US taxpayer ID. Without one, the IRS has nothing to process a joint return against — so this single number, tied to a form called the W-7, ends up sitting between you and a filing status that could matter quite a bit for your household. Whether MFJ is actually the right call for your specific numbers is a separate conversation worth having — but you can't get to that conversation until the ITIN exists.

The Standard Process — and Why It Creates Real Anxiety

Here's where most people get stuck. The standard W-7 process requires proving your spouse's identity and foreign status with original documents — most commonly, an original passport. There are three ways that's normally handled:

  • Mail the original documents to the IRS's ITIN unit in Austin, Texas, and wait for them to be reviewed and returned.

  • Present the originals in person at an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center.

  • Have the originals reviewed by an IRS-authorized Certifying Acceptance Agent, or CAA (more on this below).

For a couple living in Medellín, Sabaneta, Envigado, or anywhere else in Colombia, the first option is usually the one that turns up first in a search — and it's the one that causes the most hesitation. Mailing an original passport internationally is a real risk, not a hypothetical one: international mail gets delayed, gets lost, and in the meantime your spouse is without their primary ID for who knows how long. That's not paranoia. That's simply what "put the original in an envelope and send it to another country" means in practice, and it's a completely reasonable thing to want to avoid.

The Better Way: You Don't Have to Mail the Original

This is the part most people don't find until they specifically go looking for it. The IRS's own W-7 process allows more than one way to verify identity without ever putting an original passport in an international envelope.

Certification through a US Embassy or Consulate. Many US embassies and consulates — including here in Colombia — offer document certification specifically for W-7 purposes: the original passport is reviewed in person, a true copy is certified, and the original is handed straight back. The certified copy goes to the IRS with the W-7 application; the original never leaves your spouse's hands beyond that one appointment.

An IRS-authorized Certifying Acceptance Agent (CAA). This is a separate, parallel path built into the same IRS program — a person specifically authorized to review original documents in person and forward certified copies instead of the originals, working the same way in principle: the original is verified and returned on the spot, never mailed.

Either path solves the actual problem: the original passport is examined, verified, and returned immediately — not mailed anywhere, and not out of your spouse's possession for longer than the appointment itself takes.

What Actually Happens

Your spouse brings the original passport (and any other required identity documents) to the appointment — embassy/consulate or CAA, whichever route fits your situation. The document gets reviewed, confirmed authentic, and certified copies are prepared to accompany the W-7 application. Those certified copies — not the original — go to the IRS. The original passport goes home with your spouse before you've even left the building.

The IRS still has to review the W-7 application either way, and that part of the timeline doesn't change based on submission method — it can take a number of weeks regardless of which path you choose. What changes is the part that actually causes the anxiety: whether the original document ever leaves the country, or your spouse's hands, at all. With either of these routes, it doesn't.

Why This Is Exactly Where a Locally-Based Preparer Earns Their Keep

Here's the thing about the ITIN process for a Colombian spouse specifically: it isn't just a US tax question. It's a US tax question sitting on top of Colombian documentation — a Colombian passport or cédula, a marriage recognized under Colombian law, sometimes a name-format or translation detail the average US-based preparer has simply never dealt with. A general tax office back home that files a handful of W-7s a year isn't necessarily set up to catch the small things that trip up a cross-border filing like this one.

I'm Sabih Shafi, an Enrolled Agent — licensed by the U.S. Treasury — and I live and work in the Medellín area, handling US federal filing, FBAR/FATCA reporting, streamlined catch-up filing, and IRS representation under Form 2848 for American clients and their families here. When your spouse's own Colombian tax situation needs attention — a DIAN filing, for example — that side is handled by our licensed Colombian accounting partner, and I coordinate between both so nothing gets double-counted or missed. For the ITIN question itself, my office prepares the W-7 package, helps confirm which certification path makes sense for your situation, and makes sure it's submitted correctly the first time, rather than coming back with a correction notice months later.

(If you want the fuller picture of what else tends to catch American–Colombian households off guard each year, grab our free Medellín Expat US Tax Checklist — it lays out US and Colombian deadlines side by side, plus a section on the state-residency red flags a lot of people don't think to check.)

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Frequently Asked Questions

In many cases, yes. Instead of mailing the original passport to the IRS, it can be certified in person — either through a US Embassy or Consulate offering W-7 document certification, or through an IRS-authorized Certifying Acceptance Agent — and a certified copy is submitted with the application instead of the original. Whether this route fits your situation depends on your specific facts, so it's worth a review before you decide how to proceed.

Mailing it yourself means sending the original passport to the IRS's ITIN unit in Austin, Texas (or presenting it at a Taxpayer Assistance Center) and waiting for its return — which is exactly where the fear of loss or delay comes from. Certifying it locally, through a US Embassy/Consulate or a Certifying Acceptance Agent, means the original is verified in person and certified copies are forwarded instead, so the passport never leaves your spouse's hands beyond that one appointment. Either path feeds into the same IRS review process; only how the identity verification happens changes.

Processing takes IRS review time no matter which submission method you use, and it can take a number of weeks — so it's worth applying well ahead of any filing deadline rather than the week you need it. We won't guess at a specific number of weeks for your case; the honest answer depends on the season and your particular application, and that's exactly the kind of detail worth confirming in a review rather than assuming.

Book Your Free Review

If you're staring down a W-7 for your spouse and don't want to put an original passport in the mail, let's talk through your specific situation before you file anything.

Or call or text (323) 900-0305.

 
 
 

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