If you are a U.S. citizen living abroad and married to a nonresident alien, you may still qualify to use the Head of Household (HOH) filing status. HOH status provides more favorable tax rates and a higher standard deduction than filing as Married Filing Separately.

You are considered unmarried for HOH purposes if your spouse was a nonresident alien at any time during the year and you do not elect to treat your spouse as a U.S. resident for tax purposes. However, your nonresident alien spouse cannot be your qualifying person for HOH. You must have another qualifying person and meet the normal HOH requirements.

Who Can Qualify You for Head of Household?

You may qualify for HOH if either of the following applies:

1. You Support a Parent

You paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home that was the main home for your parent for the entire year. Your parent does not need to live with you, but you must be able to claim your parent as a qualifying relative.

2. You Support a Qualifying Child or Relative Who Lives With You

You paid more than half the cost of keeping up the home where you lived and where one of the following also lived for more than half the year:

• Your unmarried child, stepchild, adopted child, foster child, or grandchild (a foster child qualifies only if you can claim the child as a dependent)
• Your married child, stepchild, adopted child, or grandchild whom you can claim as a dependent, or whom you could claim except that you released the claim to the noncustodial parent, or the noncustodial parent claims the child under a pre-1985 agreement
• Any qualifying relative who lived with you more than half the year, such as a parent, grandparent, brother, sister, half-sibling, step-sibling, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or in-law (mother-, father-, brother-, sister-, son-, or daughter-in-law)

Key Points to Remember

• Your nonresident alien spouse cannot be your qualifying person.
• You must pay more than half the cost of maintaining the household.
• The qualifying person must meet dependency rules, even if you do not actually claim them in certain cases.
• HOH status is often beneficial for U.S. citizens abroad who cannot file jointly with a foreign spouse.