Yes, if you live outside the United States. You can ask the IRS for two more months, moving your filing deadline for the 2025 tax year from October 15, 2026 to December 15, 2026. There is no form. You request it by letter, and the letter has to reach the IRS by October 15, 2026.
The IRS calls it a discretionary extension because the agency decides whether to grant it. It is set out in IRS Publication 54, revised December 2025.
One condition matters more than the rest. The extra two months buy you time to file, not time to pay. Interest keeps running on any unpaid tax.
Who this applies to
You need to meet three conditions.
You are out of the country. Publication 54 describes this extension as available to taxpayers who are out of the country. If you filed Form 4868 from Bengaluru, Dubai or London, this is open to you. If you filed it from New Jersey, it is not.
You already hold the extension to October 15. The wording of the rule assumes the six-month extension came first. Treasury regulations reinforce the point: outside undue hardship cases, no extension is allowed under this provision until an automatic extension has already been granted.
You do not have an approved Form 2350. Publication 54 states this exclusion explicitly. Form 2350 is a separate route, covered further down.
Three groups reach for this most often:
- US citizens and green card holders living in India who are waiting on Indian tax documents
- Anyone whose return grew more complicated after April, through a property sale, a new business interest or a mid-year move
- People catching up on more than one year of returns at once
Where December 15 sits in the sequence
For the 2025 tax year, filed during 2026, the dates run in this order.
| Date | What it is | How you get it |
|---|---|---|
| April 15, 2026 | Regular due date | Applies to everyone |
| June 15, 2026 | Automatic two-month extension for taxpayers abroad | No form. Attach a statement to your return explaining which situation qualified you |
| October 15, 2026 | Six-month extension | File Form 4868, with the line 8 box checked if you are out of the country |
| December 15, 2026 | Discretionary two-month additional extension | Letter to the IRS, received by October 15, 2026 |
Form 2350, Application for Extension of Time To File U.S. Income Tax Return, is a fourth route with a different purpose entirely. It is for people who expect to qualify for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion but will not have met the bona fide residence test or the physical presence test by the time their return is due. It buys time to meet the test, and the IRS sets the new date based on when you expect to qualify. That is why the two routes do not combine, and why an approved Form 2350 rules out the December extension.
For the full sequence of dates that apply to Americans abroad, see our guide to 2026 US expat tax deadlines. For the earlier step, see the June 15 automatic extension.
How to request it
No form exists. The letter is the entire application.
Treasury regulations set out what a written extension application must contain. It must be in writing, signed by you or your authorised agent, and it must clearly identify the return and the tax year, and explain your reasons for requesting the extension.
In practice that means five things.
1. Write it before October 15, 2026. The date the letter must reach the IRS is the same October 15 you are trying to move. The request has to be made while your current extension is still live.
2. Give a specific reason. A few concrete sentences about what you are waiting for carry more weight than a general request for time. “I am awaiting the tax assessment for my Indian income, which will not be finalised before October 15” is a reason. “I need more time” is not.
3. Identify the return. Your name, address, taxpayer identification number, the form (Form 1040 for the 2025 tax year), and your signature.
4. Send it where you file your return. The regulations direct extension applications to the IRS office where the return is required to be filed. For taxpayers abroad filing a paper Form 1040 with no payment enclosed, that is the Austin, Texas service centre. Send it by a tracked method and keep the receipt.
5. Pay what you can first. The next section explains why this step matters more than the letter itself.
What happens after you send it
Nothing, if the answer is yes. Publication 54 states that you will not receive any notification from the IRS unless your request is denied. Silence means proceed toward December 15.
If a denial arrives, file as soon as you can. Interest and any failure-to-pay penalty are calculated from the earlier dates, not from the date of the denial.
It extends filing, not paying
Every US filing extension extends the time to file. None of them extends the time to pay.
Two separate charges can apply, and they behave differently for taxpayers abroad.
Interest runs on any unpaid tax from the regular due date of April 15, 2026, whatever extension you hold. The IRS sets the rate quarterly and compounds it daily. For individuals, the underpayment rate is 7% for the quarter beginning October 1, 2026. It was 7% for the third quarter and 6% for the second.
The failure-to-pay penalty is 0.5% of the unpaid tax for each month or part of a month it remains unpaid, capped at 25%. Here is the part most articles miss: if you qualified for the automatic two-month extension, Publication 54 states that penalties for paying late are assessed from the extended payment date of June 15, not from April 15. Interest still runs from April 15. The penalty clock starts two months later.
What the extra two months cost
Take a $5,000 balance that stays unpaid until you file.
| Filed October 15, 2026 | Filed December 15, 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Interest (from April 15) | roughly $165 | roughly $225 |
| Failure-to-pay penalty (from June 15) | $100 | $150 |
The two extra months add somewhere near $110 in total on that balance. These figures are estimates for illustration. Your actual charge depends on the exact rates in force each quarter and on daily compounding.
The 90% rule
There is a route to keeping the failure-to-pay penalty off the table. The Internal Revenue Manual, applying the relevant Treasury regulation, states that reasonable cause will be presumed for the period of the extension where an individual paid at least 90% of the tax shown on the return by the due date for payment, and paid the remainder with the return.
One caution. The regulation behind that presumption is framed around the automatic six-month extension. Whether it carries all the way through to December 15 is not settled by the plain text. If you are relying on it, confirm the position for your own facts before you file.
The India–US timing problem this solves
If you are a US citizen or green card holder living in India, the calendar itself works against you, and this extension exists for exactly that reason.
India’s financial year runs from April to March. The US tax year is the calendar year. One Indian financial year straddles two US tax years, so working out the foreign tax credit on your US return means pulling figures from two separate Indian filing cycles and apportioning them.
Three things commonly arrive too late for an October 15 filing:
- Indian return figures. The Indian filing cycle for a financial year sits well after the March 31 year end, and revised filings push it later still.
- Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement. These keep updating as deductors file their quarterly returns. Filing your US return against a version that is still moving means the foreign tax credit you claim may not match what India ultimately records.
- TDS certificates on a property sale. If you sold Indian property, the tax deducted at source by the buyer generates paperwork you need before you can compute the gain and the credit accurately.
There is also a technical choice underneath all of this: whether to claim the foreign tax credit on Form 1116 on a paid basis or an accrued basis. The two produce different answers when foreign taxes are assessed in a later year, and the choice has consequences beyond the current return. That is a decision to take with a tax professional rather than from an article.
Cross-border returns like these are the core of what we do. See our US federal and state tax filing service for how we handle them.
What this extension does not cover
The December 15 date moves your Form 1040. It does not move everything else.
FBAR does not move. FinCEN Form 114 is due April 15, and FinCEN grants an automatic extension to October 15. That extension is already the maximum. A discretionary extension of your income tax return does not extend your FBAR. If you hold NRE, NRO or other Indian accounts that crossed the $10,000 aggregate threshold at any point in 2025, that deadline is fixed. Our FBAR and FATCA reporting page sets out the requirement.
State returns are separate. If you still have a state filing obligation, the state sets its own extension rules. Check the state authority directly.
Forms filed with your return move with it. Form 8938, Form 5471 and Form 8621 are attached to Form 1040, so they follow the extended date. Forms filed separately from the return, such as Form 3520, keep their own deadlines.
If you will not make December 15 either
File as soon as you can, and pay what you can toward the balance.
Two penalties can apply to a late return. The failure-to-file penalty is 5% of the unpaid tax for each month or part of a month the return is late, capped at 25%. The failure-to-pay penalty is 0.5% per month on the same basis. When both apply in the same month, the combined charge is capped at 5% per month rather than 5.5%.
If your return is more than 60 days late, a minimum failure-to-file penalty applies: for returns required to be filed in 2026, the lesser of $525 or 100% of the tax required to be shown on the return. That can bite hardest when the balance is small.
Both penalties are calculated on unpaid tax. A year with no balance due generally carries neither. Separate reporting requirements such as the FBAR have their own penalty rules and are not affected by that.
If you are several years behind rather than a few weeks, the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures require you to come forward before the IRS contacts you. Starting early is what keeps that door open.
Frequently asked questions
What is the discretionary extension?
It is an additional two-month extension of time to file, available to taxpayers who are out of the country. For calendar-year filers it moves the deadline to December 15. You request it by letter by October 15, and the IRS decides whether to grant it.
Can I file another tax extension after October 15?
Yes, if you are out of the country. The letter has to reach the IRS by October 15, 2026, so the request is made before that date rather than after it. The IRS will contact you only if it says no.
Is it guaranteed?
No. Publication 54 describes it as discretionary, meaning the IRS grants it at its own judgment. A specific reason in your letter helps.
Does it give me more time to pay?
No. Interest on unpaid tax runs from April 15 in every case. If you qualified for the automatic two-month extension, the failure-to-pay penalty runs from June 15. Paying a sound estimate before October 15 keeps the cost of the extra two months down.
Does it extend my FBAR deadline?
No. FinCEN Form 114 is due April 15 with an automatic extension to October 15, and that is the end of it. File the FBAR by October 15 even if your income tax return is going to December 15.
If you are weighing up whether to request the extra two months, or you are working out what to pay before October 15, we can help. TheTaxBooks handles US tax filing for individuals and businesses across the India–US corridor, led by an Enrolled Agent admitted to practice before the IRS. Get in touch.
This article is for general information only and reflects US tax rules as of September 2026. It is not tax, legal or accounting advice, and it does not create a client relationship. Tax rules change and outcomes depend on your specific facts. Speak with a qualified tax professional before acting.
