United States Withholding tax rates
United States Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
The withholding taxes the United States levies on US-source payments to non-resident aliens and foreign corporations - dividends, interest and royalties (FDAP income) - each at its domestic statutory rate before any tax-treaty relief. Imposed by the Internal Revenue Code and collected by withholding at source; administered by the IRS.
Compare withholding tax rates across all 10 North American countries →
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | 1966-11-13 |
| Official source | Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C.), sections 871(a), 881(a), 1441 and 1442: 'there is hereby imposed for each taxable year a tax of 30 percent of the amount received from sources within the United States by a nonresident alien individual as - (A) interest..., dividends, rents... and other fixed or determinable annual or periodical gains, profits, and income' (s.871(a)(1)); mirrored for foreign corporations in s.881(a) |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. The United States uses one headline statutory rate - 30% - across dividends, interest and royalties paid to foreign persons (FDAP income), but the heads carry materially different statutory exemptions (most importantly the portfolio-interest exemption, which takes most cross-border loan and bond interest to 0%), so a caller must name the payment type and read withholding_rates rather than expecting one number to apply. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. A US income-tax treaty can reduce any of them, often substantially (dividends commonly to 15%/5%, interest and royalties often to 0%), and relief depends on the recipient's residence, beneficial ownership, limitation-on-benefits qualification and documentation (Form W-8BEN/W-8BEN-E). We do NOT serve treaty rates: they are bilateral and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. The tax is imposed on the foreign recipient by IRC ss.871(a) (non-resident alien individuals) and 881(a) (foreign corporations); the payer's obligation to withhold the same 30% at source comes from ss.1441 (individuals) and 1442 (corporations). It applies only to income NOT effectively connected with a US trade or business - effectively connected income is instead taxed on a net basis by return. The 30% rate has been unchanged since the Foreign Investors Tax Act of 1966.
Get it programmatically
curl https://usaref.dev/v1/us/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://usaref.dev/v1/us/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://usaref.dev/provenance/us/withholding-taxOther United States series: Federal funds target range (upper bound) · Value added tax · VAT registration threshold · State general sales tax rate · Federal minimum wage (FLSA) · Federal public holidays 2026 · Consumer Price Index (CPI-U), 12-month change · Federal corporate income tax rate · Federal post-judgment interest rate (28 U.S.C. § 1961) · Federal individual income tax brackets (single filer, tax year 2026) · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Canada · Costa Rica · Dominican Republic · El Salvador · Guatemala · all 10