Question

My husband isn’t a U.S. citizen, but he has an SSN and permit to work in the United States. Do we use married to non resident alien filing status?

Answer

Assuming that you are a US citizen or resident alien, you can file several different ways.

If your spouse has been in the United States on a work visa for the entire year, he’s probably a full-year U.S. resident. If so, you can claim married filing
jointly on Form 1040.

However, if he arrived during the year, he might be treated as a nonresident or a dual status alien. In that case, you’d need to choose to treat him as a full-year U.S. resident to file jointly. If you don’t treat him as a full-year resident, your filing status would be married filing separately. You’d file on Form 1040, and he’d file separately on either Form 1040 or Form 1040NR. The form depends on his residency status at the end of the tax year.

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