Tax treaties
SOUTH SUDAN
No US tax treaty
The short answer
Your country does not have a tax treaty with the United States, so no treaty can lower your tax. Nothing is missing from your return — there is simply nothing to claim.
There is no income tax treaty between this country and the United States, so no treaty can lower your tax. Nothing is missing from your return — there is simply nothing to claim.
Check it yourself
Everything on this page comes from the treaty texts and the IRS tables. Publication 901 lists every country the United States has an income tax treaty with, along with the time limits and yearly caps — so you can check what we say here, including that your country is or is not on it.
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How to read any of this
Four things worth knowing before you look up your own country.
What a tax treaty is
A tax treaty is an agreement between the United States and one other country about which of the two may tax a particular kind of income, and at what rate. It sits on top of ordinary US tax law: where an article covers your situation, its rule takes the place of the ordinary one. A treaty cannot invent a refund — it can only lower or remove tax that US law would otherwise charge you.
The claim is yours to make
Under section 6114 of the tax code, a treaty position on a return is the taxpayer’s own assertion — you are the one telling the IRS that an article covers you. So we do the part that is work and not judgement: read your country’s treaty, work out which article fits your visa and your dates, and fill it in. Then we show it to you and you confirm it, in one tap, before it goes on the return. That last step is not a formality; it is what section 6114 asks for.
A treaty has two halves
They are different rules, they live on different parts of your return, and a country can have one without the other. That is the distinction the four groups in the country list are built on: which half of your treaty reaches your Form 1040-NR.
Exemptions for people — Schedule OI, item L
Articles for students, trainees, teachers and researchers. These take pay, a scholarship or a grant out of your taxable income altogether — usually with a dollar cap, a time limit, or both, and usually only while you hold a particular status. On a Form 1040-NR the claim is made on Schedule OI, item L, where you name the article and the amount.
Lower rates on investment income — Schedule NEC
Articles for interest, dividends, royalties, pensions and social security. These do not take the income off your return; they replace the flat rate US law charges on the gross amount with a lower one. On a Form 1040-NR they land on Schedule NEC, one line per rate.
Finding your country
The country list takes a name in English or Spanish, or the two-letter code the IRS uses. Two things to watch. The IRS’s country codes are not the ISO codes you may know — on the IRS table CN is Comoros, not China — so type the name if you are unsure. And if you hold more than one nationality, or you lived somewhere else before coming to the United States, ask us: which country’s treaty covers you is not always the country on your passport.
Start your 1040-NR
We ask where you are from, work out which treaty article fits, and show it to you to confirm before it goes anywhere near your return.