Maintaining IRA When Abroad

What did you do with your IRA when you moved abroad. I’m getting some mixed messages and am finding contradictory info online. I have 2 IRAs held in the US and moved to UK 5 years ago.


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What did you do with your IRA when you moved abroad. I’m getting some mixed messages and am finding contradictory info online. I have 2 IRAs held in the US and moved to UK 5 years ago.


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I’ve left my IRA alone and done nothing with it. I can’t make any fresh contributions nor change investments unless I use a stateside address.

We have had no problems in managing our IRAs from abroad including doing Roth conversions.

I continue my Roth IRA contributions (I use the Foreign Tax Credit, so I have US taxable income - doesn't work if you use the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion). Works fine. For my existing brokerage I continue to use a US address, and as a backup I opened another IRA with Interactive Brokers using my UK address, which they're perfectly happy with.

I continue my Roth IRA contributions (I use the Foreign Tax Credit, so I have US taxable income - doesn't work if you use the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion). Works fine. For my existing brokerage I continue to use a US address, and as a backup I opened another IRA with Interactive Brokers using my UK address, which they're perfectly happy with.

That's really good info that you can still make Roth contributions from your earned income and the mechanism to to be able to do that.

My brokerage only has my UK address and everything was fine including withdrawals from the taxable account and Roth conversions.  However, this year I made my first withdrawal from my Roth and was required to have them withhold 10% for tax purposes, which is annoying because the other withdrawals, including IRA to Roth conversions, are not subject to tax withholdings even though those are taxable while Roth distributions are not.  This is Vanguard and I have checked with then plus with members of other brokerages including Fidelity and they are all required by law to do so for customers who reside overseas.  No problem for me as I have adjusted down this year's federal estimated tax payments. 

Thanks for the responses. I'm not having any issues relating to contributions or distributions from my IRAs. I've simply left them completely alone since moving overseas. I'm being told now by my investment advisor in the US (after 5 years in the UK) that I should have liquidated my IRAs when I became a UK resident (and paid the tax on that entire distribution.) Internet searches on the topic are confusing and contradictory. I'm stressing right now in that I may be facing a huge tax and interest consequence. Has anyone encountered issues with being a non-US resident and continuing to maintain an existing IRA stateside?

Thanks for the responses. I'm not having any issues relating to contributions or distributions from my IRAs. I've simply left them completely alone since moving overseas. I'm being told now by my investment advisor in the US (after 5 years in the UK) that I should have liquidated my IRAs when I became a UK resident (and paid the tax on that entire distribution.) Internet searches on the topic are confusing and contradictory. I'm stressing right now in that I may be facing a huge tax and interest consequence. Has anyone encountered issues with being a non-US resident and continuing to maintain an existing IRA stateside?

There is absolutely no reason to liquidate your IRAs just because you live overseas, your investment advisor must be late on his boat payments and needs some sales commissions.  As long as the brokerage(s) that hold your IRAs are not telling you they don't support overseas customers then you are fine.  I know for sure that major brokerages such as Fidelity and Vanguard  do support overseas customers although opening or transferring an IRA if you are not already a customer would be problematic.

Ask your investment advisor to cite some law or rule that says you have to sell your IRAs.  IRAs are even covered in the US-UK tax treaty as it is expected that people living in the UK will have IRAs in the USA.

Absolutely no need to 'cash out' the IRA. Fire your advisor.

Joining the chorus - zero reason to liquidate your IRAs, terrible advice with unpleasant tax consequences. Find a different advisor who knows what they're doing!