The 90-Day Financial Checklist for Moving Abroad

Ninety days is the sweet spot: close enough that the move is real, far enough that every option is still open. Here is the money side of those ninety days — the free, condensed version of the system we build for clients.

Days 90–61: The moves only possible from inside the US

• Open your expat-friendly accounts NOW. A bank and brokerage that welcome foreign addresses (which ones, and brokerages). Opening later, from abroad, ranges from painful to impossible.
• Roll old 401(k)s into an IRA at that brokerage while your address is still American (why and how).
• …but roll deliberately. A 401(k) keeps strong creditor protection and sometimes cheaper institutional funds; an IRA gives you an expat-friendly custodian and control. If you roll, insist on a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer — a cheque made out to you carries 20% mandatory withholding and a 60-day clock to finish the job. Small old balances need attention too: a plan may force out $7,000 or less after you’ve left.
• Get your brokerage’s expat policy in writing for your destination country before touching your address.
• Set up a US VoIP number that receives texts, and migrate two-factor authentication to it (or authenticator apps) account by account.
• Test the VoIP number before you depend on it. Some institutions won’t send one-time codes to internet phone numbers, and you only discover which ones at the login screen. Log in to each account from the new number while you still have the old SIM to fall back on, and move the holdouts to an authenticator app.
• Decide your address strategy deliberately — family, mailbox service, or clean foreign address (the options compared).
• Check your life insurance and convert any employer group cover while the window is open (the checklist).

Days 60–31: Structure and paperwork

• Build the currency plan: a transfer-service account plus a multi-currency account with a euro IBAN (cutting transfer costs, the strategy).
• Arrange visa-compliant health insurance timed to start on arrival — and bridge cover for the moving weeks (health cover abroad).
• Subscription and account audit: inventory every recurring charge; kill the zombies; flag US services that won’t work abroad.
• Freeze your credit at all three bureaus and set up monitoring (credit protection).
• Update beneficiaries everywhere — retirement accounts, insurance, bank TOD designations. Ten minutes now versus a legal mess later (estate basics).
• Moving with children? Add the school decision, the 529, the child-tax-credit question and the kids’ own accounts to this block — each has a deadline of its own (the family money guide).
• Fix how you pay and receive money from the IRS. EFTPS stopped accepting new individual enrolments on 17 October 2025, and the IRS has been phasing out paper refund cheques since 30 September 2025. IRS Direct Pay and the IRS Online Account work from anywhere; make sure any refund has a US account to land in.
• Plan the state exit if leaving a sticky state: what ties to cut and document. (Your tax position itself: our sister brand eTaxNexus.)

Days 30–8: The switchover

• Automate everything US: all bills on autopay from your hub account (the hub system).
• Go paperless everywhere; download a full set of statements and tax documents while access is easy.
• Notify on your schedule: banks and brokerage last (after confirming policies), Social Security if drawing, insurers as policies change over.
• Pre-position cash: first months’ euros converted and sitting in your euro account — arrival week is a terrible time to negotiate exchange rates.
• Fund transfers from the account, not from cash. A transfer funded from the hub account or a US-issued card is exempt from the 1% remittance tax that cash-funded transfers abroad have carried since 2026 — one more reason the hub account exists (the transfer-cost guide has the detail).
• Assemble the document pack: IDs, account list, policies, contacts — digital and paper copies (the full organisation system).

Week 1 and beyond, abroad

• Open the local bank account (appointment booked in advance — how).
• Confirm every autopay fired correctly the first month; chase anything that didn’t.
• Calendar your new reality: FBAR threshold tracking, insurance renewals, the annual review.

The filing calendar you inherit

“FBAR threshold tracking” deserves its own explanation, because the first year abroad is when people discover the calendar changed.

• FBAR. Required once your foreign accounts together exceed $10,000 at any point in the year — a rent deposit plus a local current account gets there. Filed with FinCEN, not the IRS; due 15 April with an automatic extension to 15 October, no request needed.
• Form 8938. FATCA’s form on your side, filed with the return. For someone living abroad the thresholds are $200,000 of foreign financial assets at year-end, or $300,000 at any time, for a single filer, and $400,000 and $600,000 filing jointly. Different form, different agency, overlapping accounts.
• Your return. Americans abroad get an automatic two-month extension to 15 June. Interest on any tax due still runs from 15 April, so the extension is for paperwork, not payment.

Put all three on the calendar the week you arrive, with the FBAR as a running tally rather than a date: the threshold is measured at the highest point of the year, not at year-end, and the answer is usually “yes” by February.

Want this as a complete tracked system — every task, dated to your move, with the trackers and registers built in? That’s the International Move Financial Planner. Prefer it done with you? The Roadmap service, or start free: a 20-minute Money Check.

This article is general information, not financial advice. Sequence and requirements vary by destination — verify specifics for your country.