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Is your W-8BEN still valid?
The W-8BEN is the form that cuts US withholding on your dividends from 30% to 15% for a French resident. Its flaw: it expires — on 31 December of the 3rd calendar year after signature — and no broker is obliged to warn you. Enter the signature date: this checker tells you where you stand, and what to do if the full rate is already back.
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The validity rules
Three rules are all it takes to understand the W-8BEN
The form is simple; what costs money is forgetting one of these three rules.
Three calendar years, not three years
Validity runs until 31 December of the 3rd year after signature — not three years to the day. Signed in January 2026, the form lives almost four years; signed in December 2026, barely over three. Same rule, up to a year's difference.
A change in circumstances voids it immediately
Moving abroad, a new tax residence, a change of status: the form lapses before its theoretical expiry date, and a new one must be provided within 30 days. That is the rule this checker cannot see — it depends on your life, not the calendar.
One form per institution
The W-8BEN goes to each broker or custodian holding your account — not to the IRS. Two brokers, two forms, two expiry dates to track. Check each one here, one after the other.
FAQ
Your questions about W-8BEN validity
Where do I find my W-8BEN's signature date?
In the tax documents of your broker's client area (often under 'documents', 'tax' or 'forms'), or in Part III of the form if you kept a copy. If you find nothing, the most reliable test is your statement: the rate actually applied to your last US dividend tells the whole story.
Will my broker warn me before it expires?
Nothing obliges them to, and most don't. The first symptom is a dividend withheld at the full rate — sometimes discovered months later. This is exactly the kind of deadline our Monitoring & Alerts subscription tracks, though a calendar reminder works too.
What about the period when the form was expired?
Every dividend paid during that period was withheld at 30% instead of 15%. That over-withholding does not come back on its own: it is recovered through a refund claim with the US administration, within the statute of limitations — as a general rule 3 years per withholding. Our recovery service handles it, paid only on success.
Is renewing different from the first filing?
No: it is the same form, completed afresh, which replaces the old one upon delivery. Signed before the expiry, there is no interruption — your dividends never pass through the full rate. That is the whole point of checking the date now rather than at the first abnormal statement.
Does this checker also cover the corporate W-8BEN-E?
The three-calendar-year rule is the same for the W-8BEN-E, the version for companies and entities: the expiry date computed here holds too. Completing a W-8BEN-E, however, is a much heavier exercise (entity classification, chapter 4) — a separate fixed-fee service with us.
The form is only one piece of the file
The W-8BEN protects your future US dividends. For the rest — the tax already withheld in the US and elsewhere — the simulator puts a figure on your over-withholding in two minutes, country by country, no account needed. And if you would rather delegate the form: €49 fixed fee, published grid.