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Nonresident Aliens — Personal Property: U.S. Taxes for Noncitizens (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Nonresident Aliens — Personal Property” within u.s. taxes for noncitizens. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 519 (2025), U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens, published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Context for these rules

Nonresident aliens are taxed only on their income from sources within the United States and on certain income connected with the conduct of a trade or business in the United States (see chapter 4).

The general rules for determining U.S. source income that apply to most nonresident aliens are shown in Table 2-1. The following discussions cover the general rules as well as the exceptions to these rules.

Nonresident Aliens — Personal Property

Personal property is property, such as machinery, equipment, or furniture, that is not real property.

Gain or loss from the sale or exchange of personal property generally has its source in the United States if you have a tax home in the United States. If you do not have a tax home in the United States, the gain or loss is generally considered to be from sources outside the United States.

Tax home.

Your tax home is the general area of your main place of business, employment, or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home. Your tax home is the place where you permanently or indefinitely work as an employee or a self-employed individual. If you do not have a regular or main place of business because of the nature of your work, then your tax home is the place where you regularly live. If you do not fit either of these categories, you are considered an itinerant and your tax home is wherever you work.

Inventory property.

Inventory property is personal property that is stock in trade or that is held primarily for sale to customers in the ordinary course of your trade or business. Income from the sale of inventory that you purchased is sourced where the property is sold. Generally, this is where title to the property passes to the buyer. For example, income from the sale of inventory in the United States is U.S. source income, whether you purchased it in the United States or in a foreign country.

Income from the sale of inventory property that you produced in the United States and sold outside the United States (or vice versa) is sourced where the property is produced.

These rules apply even if your tax home is not in the United States.

Depreciable property.

To determine the source of any gain from the sale of depreciable personal property, you must first figure the part of the gain that is not more than the total depreciation adjustments on the property. You allocate this part of the gain to sources in the United States based on the ratio of U.S. depreciation adjustments to total depreciation adjustments. The rest of this part of the gain is considered to be from sources outside the United States.

For this purpose, “U.S. depreciation adjustments” are the depreciation adjustments to the basis of the property that are allowable in figuring taxable income from U.S. sources. However, if the property is used predominantly in the United States during a tax year, all depreciation deductions allowable for that year are treated as U.S. depreciation adjustments. But there are some exceptions for certain transportation, communications, and other property used internationally.

Gain from the sale of depreciable property that is more than the total depreciation adjustments on the property is sourced as if the property were inventory property, as discussed above.

A loss is sourced in the same way as the depreciation deductions were sourced. However, if the property was used predominantly in the United States, the entire loss reduces U.S. source income.

The “basis of property” usually means the cost (money plus the fair market value of other property or services) of property you acquire. Depreciation is an amount deducted to recover the cost or other basis of a trade or business asset. The amount you can deduct depends on the property’s cost, when you began using the property, how long it will take to recover your cost, and which depreciation method you use. A depreciation deduction is any deduction for depreciation or amortization or any other allowable deduction that treats a capital expenditure as a deductible expense.

Intangible property.

Intangible property includes patents, copyrights, secret processes or formulas, goodwill, trademarks, trade names, or other like property. The gain from the sale of amortizable or depreciable intangible property, up to the previously allowable amortization or depreciation deductions, is sourced in the same way as the original deductions were sourced. This is the same as the source rule for gain from the sale of depreciable property. See Depreciable property, earlier, for details on how to apply this rule.

Gain in excess of the amortization or depreciation deductions is sourced in the country where the property is used if the income from the sale is contingent on the productivity, use, or disposition of that property. If the income is not contingent on the productivity, use, or disposition of the property, the income is sourced according to your tax home (discussed earlier). If payments for goodwill do not depend on its productivity, use, or disposition, their source is the country in which the goodwill was generated.

Sales through offices or fixed places of business.

Despite any of the earlier rules, if you do not have a tax home in the United States, but you maintain an office or other fixed place of business in the United States, treat the income from any sale of personal property (including inventory property) that is attributable to that office or place of business as U.S. source income. However, this rule does not apply to sales of inventory property for use, disposition, or consumption outside the United States if your office or other fixed place of business outside the United States materially participated in the sale.

If you have a tax home in the United States but maintain an office or other fixed place of business outside the United States, income from sales of personal property, other than inventory, depreciable property, or intangibles, that is attributable to that foreign office or place of business may be treated as U.S. source income. The income is treated as U.S. source income if an income tax of less than 10% of the income from the sale is paid to a foreign country. This rule also applies to losses if the foreign country would have imposed an income tax of less than 10% had the sale resulted in a gain.

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.

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