Taxes for Brazilians on F-1 Student Visas in the U.S.

by | Jun 21, 2026 | International Students in the U.S. | 0 comments

The short version

If you are a Brazilian student in the United States on an F-1 visa, the U.S. tax system almost certainly does not see you the way it sees your American classmates. For your first five calendar years on that visa, you are usually a “nonresident alien” for tax purposes. That is a specific legal status, not a judgment about you. A nonresident alien is someone the U.S. taxes mainly on U.S. income, not on worldwide income.

That status changes three practical things. It changes which form you file: Form 1040-NR, not the Form 1040 that most consumer software steers everyone toward. It can keep Social Security and Medicare tax off your campus paycheck. And it can require you to file a form in a year you earned nothing at all.

It also carries one fact many Brazilians do not expect. Because there is no income tax treaty between the United States and Brazil, you do not get the treaty breaks that students from many other countries use to lower their U.S. tax. This article walks through what F-1 status actually means for your taxes, in plain English.

What the law actually says (primary authority first)

U.S. tax law sorts every non-citizen into one of two boxes. A “resident alien” is taxed by the United States on worldwide income, the same way a citizen is. A “nonresident alien” is taxed mainly on income from U.S. sources. Which box you land in is decided by Internal Revenue Code section 7701(b), the provision that defines both terms.

Most people become resident aliens by passing the substantial presence test, a day-counting test based on how much time you spend in the country. Here is the part that matters for students: section 7701(b)(5) creates a category called the “exempt individual,” and a student temporarily present on an F visa is one. For an exempt individual, the days you are physically in the United States do not count toward the substantial presence test. A student can exclude those days for up to five calendar years, counting any part of a year as a full year.

Read that five-year limit carefully. It counts prior calendar years in which you were exempt as a student, teacher, or trainee, even if those years were tied to an earlier program or a different F, J, M, or Q status, not just years in this degree program. A year you spent here earlier on a J-1 or F-1 visa as an exempt student can quietly use up one of your five. After the five years are gone, you keep counting days under the substantial presence test like everyone else, unless you can show you do not intend to live in the United States permanently and have complied with your visa.

Put plainly: a first-year F-1 student from Brazil is a nonresident alien by default, and usually stays one for the first five calendar years. The IRS lays this out in plain language in Publication 519, U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens, and on its Foreign Students and Scholars page. Everything below is how that one status plays out.

How it works in practice

The form is Form 1040-NR. As a nonresident alien you file Form 1040-NR, the U.S. Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return, not Form 1040. This is not a formality. Many consumer tax apps are built around the resident Form 1040 workflow, and some do not prepare Form 1040-NR at all, so filing through the usual app can quietly put you in the wrong box. A separate companion piece in this series covers why filing the resident Form 1040 by mistake is a real problem, and how it gets fixed.

Form 8843 is due even if you earned nothing. Every exempt individual files Form 8843, a short statement that explains why your days in the country do not count. You file it even in a year with zero U.S. income. Your F-2 dependents, a spouse or child here on your status, generally each file their own Form 8843 too if they are nonresidents for tax purposes, again even with no income. The deadline depends on whether you also file a return: if you have income and file Form 1040-NR, Form 8843 goes with it and follows the 1040-NR deadline (generally April 15 when you had wages); if you have no income and no return is otherwise required, Form 8843 stands on its own and is due June 15. This is the obligation Brazilians miss most often, because nothing about it feels like “doing taxes.”

Your authorized work is usually free of Social Security and Medicare tax. Service you perform as an F-1 student to carry out the purpose of your visa, on-campus work, Curricular Practical Training, or Optional Practical Training, is excluded from Social Security and Medicare tax (together called FICA) while you are a nonresident alien. The legal hook is your status, not the campus: Internal Revenue Code section 3121(b)(19) excludes authorized service by a nonresident F, J, M, or Q visa holder. If an employer withheld FICA by mistake, ask them to correct and refund it first; if they will not, claim it back from the IRS with Form 843 and Form 8316. The IRS explains the rule on its foreign-student Social Security and Medicare tax page.

Wages are taxed at graduated rates, with no standard deduction. The money you earn from authorized work is taxed at the normal graduated rates under Internal Revenue Code section 871(b). But nonresident aliens generally cannot claim the standard deduction that residents take (Internal Revenue Code section 63(c)(6)). That does not mean no deductions at all, some itemized deductions may still be available, but the standard deduction specifically is off the table. There is a narrow exception to that rule for students from India, and it exists only because of the U.S.-India treaty. Brazil has no such treaty, so the exception does not reach you.

Scholarships are split, and pay for work is not a scholarship at all. The part of a true scholarship or fellowship that pays tuition, required fees, and required books is a “qualified scholarship” and is tax-free under Internal Revenue Code section 117. The part that pays room, board, or a living allowance is taxable, and for an F-1 student that taxable, U.S.-source amount is withheld at 14 percent under Internal Revenue Code section 1441(b), a reduced rate Congress set for F, J, M, and Q students instead of the standard 30 percent. But money you receive in exchange for work, a teaching or research assistantship, or an on-campus job, is compensation for services, not a scholarship. Section 117 specifically does not shelter amounts you have to work for. That pay is treated as wages: graduated rates and graduated wage withholding, never the 14 percent scholarship rule. Taxable scholarship or fellowship income is usually reported to you on Form 1042-S, while wages are usually reported on Form W-2. Publication 515 and Publication 970 cover the two sides.

The Brazil-specific part: there is no treaty. Students from China, India, and dozens of other countries lower their U.S. tax by claiming benefits under their home country’s income tax treaty with the United States. Brazil is not on the IRS list of U.S. income tax treaty countries, and Publication 901 confirms it. So the treaty wage exemptions and scholarship exemptions you may read about, or that a classmate mentions, do not apply to you. (The United States and Brazil do have other arrangements, a Social Security totalization agreement in force since 2018 and a tax information exchange agreement, but neither is an income tax treaty, and neither creates a student wage or scholarship exemption. The totalization agreement covers Social Security coverage, not income tax, and while you are a nonresident F-1 student doing authorized work the student FICA exemption already handles most campus, CPT, and OPT wages.)

A worked example. Mariana is a first-year master’s student from São Paulo, in her first year of F-1 status. Her university gives her a 5,000 dollar tuition scholarship and a research assistantship that pays 12,000 dollars and requires her to work in a professor’s lab, and she also takes a 4,000 dollar on-campus job. The 5,000 dollar tuition scholarship is a qualified scholarship and is tax-free. The assistantship and the campus job are both pay for services, so they are wages: reported on a W-2, taxed at graduated rates, and, because she is a nonresident alien F-1 student doing authorized work, not subject to Social Security or Medicare tax. The 14 percent scholarship rule does not touch that pay, because it is compensation, not a grant. If instead the university had given Mariana a no-strings living stipend that required no work, the taxable part of that stipend would be the piece subject to 14 percent withholding. She files Form 1040-NR and Form 8843, and she cannot take the standard deduction. None of her income gets a treaty break, because Brazil has no treaty. (Figures are illustrative.)

The numbers

Every figure here is a rule, not an estimate, and each cites the controlling authority.

Item Rule for an F-1 Brazilian student Source
Tax status, first 5 calendar years Nonresident alien (“exempt individual”) IRC 7701(b)(5); Pub 519
Return filed Form 1040-NR, not Form 1040 Pub 519; Form 1040-NR
Required even with no U.S. income Form 8843 (you, and generally each F-2 dependent who is a nonresident) Pub 519; Form 8843
Social Security + Medicare (FICA) on authorized work Exempt while a nonresident alien IRC 3121(b)(19)
Pay for services (assistantship, campus job) W-2 wages, graduated rates, no standard deduction IRC 871(b); IRC 63(c)(6); IRC 117(c)
Taxable scholarship or fellowship, no services required (U.S. source) 14 percent withholding IRC 1441(b); Pub 515
U.S.-source FDAP income not effectively connected with a U.S. trade or business Generally 30 percent unless an exception applies IRC 871(a); Pub 519
Form 8843 alone, no return required Due June 15 Pub 519; Form 8843
Form 1040-NR with wages Due April 15 Pub 519; Form 1040-NR
U.S.-Brazil income tax treaty None IRS A-to-Z treaty list; Pub 901

What this means for you

  • Do not let consumer software file you as a resident on Form 1040 by default. If it never asked about your visa, it probably put you in the wrong box.
  • File Form 8843 every year you are an exempt individual, even a year you earned nothing, and remember your F-2 spouse and children generally each file one too.
  • Tell apart your money: a tuition grant is tax-free, a no-work stipend is scholarship taxed at 14 percent, and anything you work for (assistantship, campus job) is wages at graduated rates.
  • Check your pay stub for Social Security and Medicare withholding. If you are a nonresident alien F-1 student and it was taken out, you can get it back.
  • Keep your I-20, passport visa stamps, U.S. entry and exit dates, and every Form W-2 and Form 1042-S. You need them to count your five years and to prove your status.
  • Watch the five-year line, and count any prior F, J, M, or Q exempt years toward it. Year six is when the substantial presence test starts counting your days, and your status can flip to resident alien. That flip changes almost everything in this article, and it is worth planning for before it happens.
  • No treaty means no shortcuts. Be skeptical of tax advice written for students from treaty countries, because the best part of it does not apply to you.

Related reading

How Sheepdog Tax can help

I am Noah Green, a CPA and Certified Fraud Examiner, and Sheepdog Tax is a veteran-owned practice. F-1 student returns look simple until the year a scholarship, an assistantship, an OPT paycheck, or the five-year line turns them into something else. If you want a second set of eyes before you file, or you are not sure which box you belong in, start with a short intake at noah@sheepdogtax.com and I will tell you what your situation actually calls for. No promises about an outcome before I have seen your facts. This article is general tax information, not immigration or legal advice, and it covers federal tax only; your state may have its own residency and filing rules.

Sources (primary authority and IRS guidance)

  1. Internal Revenue Code section 7701(b), definition of resident and nonresident alien, substantial presence test, and exempt individual. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/7701
  2. Internal Revenue Code section 3121(b)(19), FICA exclusion for authorized service by F, J, M, and Q nonimmigrants. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/3121
  3. Internal Revenue Code section 117, qualified scholarship exclusion (and section 117(c), amounts paid for required services are not excludable). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/117
  4. Internal Revenue Code section 871, tax on nonresident alien individuals (graduated rates on effectively connected income; 30 percent on other U.S.-source FDAP income). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/871
  5. Internal Revenue Code section 1441, withholding on nonresident aliens (14 percent on taxable scholarship to F/J/M/Q students). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/1441
  6. Internal Revenue Code section 63(c)(6), nonresident aliens and the standard deduction. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/63
  7. IRS Publication 519, U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens. https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-publication-519
  8. IRS Publication 515, Withholding of Tax on Nonresident Aliens and Foreign Entities. https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-publication-515
  9. IRS Publication 901, U.S. Tax Treaties (Brazil is not a treaty country). https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-publication-901
  10. IRS Publication 970, Tax Benefits for Education. https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-publication-970
  11. IRS Form 8843, Statement for Exempt Individuals and Individuals With a Medical Condition. https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8843
  12. IRS Form 1040-NR, U.S. Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return. https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1040-nr
  13. IRS Form 843, Claim for Refund and Request for Abatement (used to recover wrongly withheld FICA). https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-843
  14. IRS Form 8316, Information Regarding Request for Refund of Social Security Tax Erroneously Withheld. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8316.pdf
  15. IRS, Substantial Presence Test. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/substantial-presence-test
  16. IRS, Foreign Students and Scholars. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/foreign-students-and-scholars
  17. IRS, Foreign Student Liability for Social Security and Medicare Taxes. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/foreign-student-liability-for-social-security-and-medicare-taxes
  18. IRS, United States Income Tax Treaties A to Z (Brazil absent). https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-businesses/united-states-income-tax-treaties-a-to-z

Prepared by Noah Green, CPA, CFE.

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

© 2026 Noah Green CPA CFE  |  All Rights Reserved