Treaty Passport

Passports slide onto your desk with a U.S. payment clipped inside, and you stamp the withholding rate: the statutory 30% or the treaty rate for that country and that kind of income. Blank claims, lowball claims and places with no treaty try to slip past, and a final rate duel asks which country's treaty cuts deeper.

You will learn the 30% default, when a treaty rate applies, and how rates differ by country and income typePrivacy runs in your browser; scores stay on your device

How to play

Press Open the desk. A foreign payee's passport lands in front of you with a U.S. payment slip: who is paid, the kind of income, the amount and the W-8 on file.
Stamp the withholding rate: the statutory 30% or the treaty rate for that country and that kind of income. Click or tap a stamp, or press 1 to 5.
Faster stamps score more, and every 3 right in a row raise your streak multiplier, up to x3. Stuck? Peek at the table (P) rules out wrong stamps for half the points, twice per game.
Stage 1 has 6 payees with valid treaty claims. Stage 2 has 6 more where the form or the country is the trap. The bonus stage is 5 rate duels: is the second country's treaty rate higher, lower or the same? (1 to 3 or the arrow keys.)
After each stamp the slip shows the rule and the tax to withhold. Press Next payee or Enter to move on.

The real rules behind the game

Treaty Passport drills the question a U.S. payer asks before paying a foreign person: withhold the full 30%, or a lower treaty rate? Every rate in the game comes from the IRS Tax Treaty Tables as this site shows them on the treaty rates by country pages, and you can check any single payment with the treaty rate lookup.

The 30% default

Under chapter 3 of the Code, U.S.-source fixed or determinable income paid to a foreign person, such as dividends, royalties, pensions and interest that is not otherwise exempt, is withheld on at 30% of the gross payment. That is the stamp whenever no treaty applies. The chapter 3 withholding guide covers the rest of the regime and the Form 1042-S reporting.

When a treaty rate applies

A treaty can reduce the rate or exempt the payment, but only if the payee is a resident of the treaty country, is the beneficial owner, meets any limitation-on-benefits article, and gives the payer a valid W-8BEN (Part II), W-8BEN-E (Part III) or Form 8233 treaty claim before the payment. A form with the treaty claim left blank still documents foreign status, but it claims nothing, so 30% applies. The rate the payee writes is not binding either: if the form claims 0% and the treaty rate is 10%, withhold 10%. The treaty claims guide lists the checks.

Rates differ by income type

One treaty sets different ceilings for different income. Dividends usually have a portfolio rate (income code 06) and a lower direct dividend rate (code 07) for a company that meets the shareholding test. Royalties split three ways on Form 1042-S: industrial (code 10), film and television (11) and other, including copyright and software (12), and treaties often treat them differently. Pensions and U.S. Social Security have their own lines; the Social Security rate applies to 85% of the benefit. Some treaties give no reduction for an income type at all, so the treaty rate is 30%, and older treaties such as the 1973 U.S.S.R. convention, which the IRS applies to nine former Soviet republics, exempt royalties but leave dividends and pensions at 30%.

Conditions

Many figures carry lettered IRS notes for shareholding, holding periods, the kind of interest or the type of payee. When a rate has notes, the game says it can depend on conditions; each country page lists them.

Places with no treaty

Hong Kong, Singapore, the Cayman Islands and the other jurisdictions with only an information exchange agreement have no income tax treaty. Croatia and Vietnam have signed treaties that are not in force, the Hungary treaty was terminated for payments from January 1, 2024, and most of the Russia treaty has been suspended since August 16, 2024. Payments to residents of all of them are withheld under the Code.

What the game simplifies

Each card assumes the payee qualifies for the treaty and the income is U.S.-source fixed income. Interest cards are general interest that no Code exemption covers: real portfolio interest and bank deposit interest are exempt treaty or not. The game skips figures the IRS lists as "n/a", the interest and direct dividend figures for Japan, where the table lags a 2019 protocol, and interest under the U.S.S.R. treaty. For pay for services performed in the United States, see each country page.

Sources

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