Top of main content

FATCA overview

Retail Banking and Wealth Management – Türkiye

There are a number of substantial changes being made by financial regulators, governments and banks, to ensure the protection and long-term safety of both the financial system and our customers’ interests.

One of these regulations is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), effective date 1 July 2014. This is a new piece of legislation introduced by the United States Department of Treasury (Treasury) and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is to encourage better tax compliance by preventing US Persons from using banks and other financial organisations to avoid US taxation on their income and assets.

FATCA will affect many of HSBC’s personal and business customers. The degree to which customers will be affected will vary across the bank, depending on the type of account, policy or agreement they hold with HSBC.

Impact to HSBC and our customers

HSBC is proud of our commitment to becoming fully FATCA compliant in all countries where we operate. Other banks and financial organisations will also be affected. However their approach to adopting FATCA may differ to that of HSBC.

We are currently reviewing the effect of the legislation for our customers in order to identify where we need to report information to the IRS or local tax authority. We may be contacting you to request further information or documentation in order to verify your tax status under FATCA.

Please note that you may receive more than one request for information if you have multiple relationships with different members of the HSBC Group. Therefore, it is important that you respond to all requests, even if you believe you have already supplied the requested information.

Northern Cyprus Turkish Republic

In the scope of Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) between Türkiye and US, the process to be followed in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) has not been clarified yet. Therefore HSBC Branches in TRNC will comply with FATCA as an Limited Foreign Financial Institution (LFFI).

As we follow LFFI processes for FATCA in TRNC, we will not be able to open a new account for customers who have at least one address information other than TRNC and who are not resident in TRNC.

This implementation will be in force both for new customers and existing customers, however existing customers can use their existing HSBC accounts.

Further announcement will be made regarding any progress for TRNC implementation of FATCA.

Additional Information

W-9: This is a link to the withholding certificate referred to as a 'W9' on the IRS website. This form is completed to confirm US tax status. For the dual language form in Turkish, as well as the customer guidance created to assist in completing this form, please refer to the related content section.

W-8: This is a link to the withholding certificates referred to as 'W8s' on the IRS website. This is a series of forms that are completed to confirm non US tax status. For the dual language form in Turkish, as well as the customer guidance created to assist in completing this form, please refer to the related content section.

In order to provide customers with further support when completing IRS W Forms, we have provided some additional customer guidance for W-9 and W-8BEN.

Written Explanation of US Address/Phone (S3): This is an HSBC document which you may be able to sign to provide written explanation for any US address or US territory address found on the account and/or US phone number.

(Page last updated November 2022)