Research-backed guide

Investment Portfolio Tracker for Digital Nomads: A Practical Guide

Updated April 28, 20266 min readBy Dennis Vymer

An investment portfolio tracker for digital nomads has to handle FEIE add-backs, FBAR triggers, and brokerages that close on you — not just account aggregation

Quick answers

Can I still contribute to a Roth IRA as a digital nomad using the FEIE?

Sometimes — your FEIE'd income gets added back into MAGI for Roth phase-out, so a higher-earning nomad can be fully phased out even when AGI looks small.

What's the FBAR threshold and does my US Schwab account count?

FBAR is triggered when foreign-account aggregate value exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year; a US-based Schwab account does not count toward that aggregate.

Will US brokerages close my account when I move abroad?

Several large US brokerages — including Vanguard, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Edward Jones — restrict or close accounts after a foreign-address change; Charles Schwab International and Interactive Brokers are the commonly cited exceptions.

A US digital nomad's portfolio looks normal until you read the tax footnotes: a chunk of foreign-earned wage income gets excluded for income-tax purposes but added back for Roth IRA eligibility, and the brokerage holding everything may quietly restrict the account the moment a foreign address goes on file. About 18.5 million Americans worked as digital nomads in 2025 — roughly 12% of the US workforce — and that number is up 153% since 2019,^[] so this is no longer an edge case for personal-finance tools to ignore. An investment portfolio tracker for digital nomads has to surface decisions that a generic tracker hides.

The single most expensive blind spot most generic trackers have is the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) interaction with Roth IRA eligibility. The 2026 FEIE cap is $132,900 per qualifying person^[] — and that excluded amount is required to be added back into modified AGI for Roth contribution phase-out purposes.^[] If your tracker silently watches AGI and flashes a green checkmark on Roth eligibility, it is wrong for a large slice of nomads.

Why a nomad's portfolio is different

Three structural differences separate a US-citizen nomad's situation from a domestic investor's. First, your earned income may be partially excluded for income tax but fully counted for retirement-account math, and the resulting MAGI can disqualify Roth contributions even when AGI looks small. Second, several major US brokerages — Vanguard, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Ameriprise, TIAA, Edward Jones, USAA, and UBS among them — restrict or close accounts when the address on file changes to a foreign one; Charles Schwab International and Interactive Brokers are the routinely-cited exceptions. Third, foreign mutual funds and most foreign ETFs trigger the Passive Foreign Investment Company (PFIC) regime, with per-holding Form 8621 filings and punitive tax treatment.

A tracker that treats your accounts as a generic sum of holdings misses all three. The interesting numbers are the ones that say "this configuration is about to cost you something."

The numbers that move when you go nomadic

Five numbers reshape almost every nomad's portfolio decision in 2026. The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion is capped at $132,900 of foreign-earned wage income per qualifying person, and the foreign housing exclusion base is $39,870 with location-adjusted ceilings on top.^[] The IRA contribution limit rises to $7,500 in 2026, with a $1,100 catch-up for filers 50 and over.^[] The Roth IRA phase-out runs $153,000 to $168,000 MAGI for single filers and $242,000 to $252,000 for joint filers — and the FEIE you used gets added back into that MAGI calculation.^[] FBAR is triggered when foreign-account aggregate value exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year, filed on FinCEN Form 114, due April 15 with an automatic extension to October 15.^[]

Form 8938 — distinct from FBAR, attached to your 1040 — kicks in for taxpayers living abroad above $200,000 of specified foreign assets on the last day of the year (or $300,000 at any time), $400,000 / $600,000 for joint filers.^[] A nomad with a foreign brokerage plus a foreign rental deposit account hits this faster than expected.

What an investment portfolio tracker for digital nomads should surface

The portfolio view that matters for a nomad is not "total balance, line goes up." It is a small set of decisions ready to be made:

Roth eligibility flag (FEIE-aware): the tracker should compute MAGI with FEIE add-back and tell you the actual allowed contribution, not the optimistic AGI version
Account-type drift vs. target: allocation across taxable brokerage, Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, 401(k), and HSA — knowing which account a rebalancing trade should hit matters more than knowing the total drift
Foreign-account aggregate watcher: a running max of (USD-equivalent foreign account values) so you know whether you've crossed $10,000 for FBAR or are nearing the 8938 thresholds
PFIC exposure tag: any foreign ETF or mutual fund holding flagged for Form 8621 review^[]
Brokerage status snapshot: the address on file at each US brokerage and a note on whether the brokerage is known to restrict expat accounts

That last item sounds soft, but it is the difference between a forced fire-sale during a market dip and a planned migration to Schwab International or Interactive Brokers on a calm Tuesday.

How MFFT fits the nomad case

MFFT's investment-portfolio view is a snapshot model — you record account balances and holdings monthly, the dashboard shows allocation drift versus your target, and the data lives in your account, not in a third-party aggregator. That model is unusually well-suited to nomads for a specific reason: aggregator-based trackers depend on continuous read access to brokerage logins, which gets messier the moment you change residency or your brokerage adds two-factor through a US-only phone number. A snapshot tracker keeps working when you are sitting in a Lisbon coworking space and your aggregator just lost the connection again.

For nomads also wrestling with day-to-day spending in multiple currencies, the expense-tracker view of the same problem covers the spending side that the portfolio view doesn't. The two together give you the cash-out and cash-in halves of a balance sheet that travels.

What I'd actually do this quarter

The calculation rendered below is the one I think every nomad should run on themselves at least once: take your projected 2026 foreign-earned income, subtract the FEIE you intend to claim, then add the FEIE back to MAGI and check whether you are still inside the Roth phase-out. For a single filer earning $200,000 abroad with the full FEIE, the answer is $0 of allowed Roth contribution — the entire $7,500 of room evaporates because of the add-back, even though AGI of $67,100 is well below the phase-out floor.

The concrete takeaway: a tracker that does not show "Roth allowed: $0 (FEIE add-back)" prominently is misleading you on the single biggest tax-advantaged-account decision of your year. Build the calculation into your monthly review, even if your tracker does not, and migrate brokerages to one that explicitly serves US persons abroad before the closure notice arrives, not after.

Run your own numbers — in 2 minutes.

Open free planner

Frequently asked questions

Can I still contribute to a Roth IRA as a digital nomad using the FEIE?

Sometimes — your FEIE'd income gets added back into MAGI for Roth phase-out, so a higher-earning nomad can be fully phased out even when AGI looks small.

The IRS requires you to add the foreign earned income exclusion amount back into modified AGI when computing Roth IRA eligibility, per Publication 590-A. The 2026 FEIE cap is $132,900 per qualifying person, and the 2026 single-filer Roth phase-out runs $153,000 to $168,000 MAGI ($242,000 to $252,000 for joint filers). A single nomad earning $200,000 of foreign-earned income who claims the full FEIE has AGI of $67,100 but MAGI of $200,000 — above the phase-out top, so the allowed Roth contribution is $0 (citation 3, citation 1).

What's the FBAR threshold and does my US Schwab account count?

FBAR is triggered when foreign-account aggregate value exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year; a US-based Schwab account does not count toward that aggregate.

FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) requires US persons to report foreign financial accounts when the aggregate value exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. A US-domiciled Schwab account is not a foreign financial account, so it does not count toward the threshold — but a foreign bank account opened to receive local rent or pay utilities does. The trigger is 'at any time,' not 'on December 31,' so a single peak above $10,000 is enough to require filing. FBAR is filed separately from your 1040, directly with FinCEN, due April 15 with an automatic extension to October 15 (citation 4).

Will US brokerages close my account when I move abroad?

There is no US law requiring brokerages to close expat accounts; this is internal policy at each firm, driven largely by FATCA-era compliance overhead. Vanguard, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Ameriprise, TIAA, Edward Jones, USAA, and UBS are repeatedly named in industry coverage as restricting or closing US-citizen accounts after a foreign-address change. Charles Schwab International and Interactive Brokers are the two firms routinely identified as continuing to serve US persons abroad. Migrating proactively, before a closure notice forces a sale during a bad market, is the safer path for any nomad whose primary brokerage is on the restricted list.

When does Form 8938 kick in for a single filer living abroad?

Above $200,000 of specified foreign financial assets on the last day of the year, or $300,000 at any time during the year, for a single filer who qualifies as living abroad.

Form 8938 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets) attaches to your annual 1040 and is separate from FBAR. For a single filer who is physically present in a foreign country for at least 330 days during a 12-consecutive-month period, the threshold is more than $200,000 on the last day of the tax year or more than $300,000 at any point during the year. For joint filers in the same situation the thresholds double to $400,000 / $600,000. A nomad with a US brokerage plus a foreign brokerage and a local bank account can hit the any-time threshold faster than expected (citation 5).

What's a PFIC and do I have to worry about it as a nomad?

Most foreign mutual funds and ETFs are PFICs under IRC Section 1297, with punitive tax treatment and a separate Form 8621 required for each holding each year.

A Passive Foreign Investment Company (PFIC) is a foreign corporation where most income is passive or most assets produce passive income — almost all foreign mutual funds and most foreign-domiciled ETFs qualify. The default tax regime taxes excess distributions and gains at the highest ordinary rates plus an interest charge, and Form 8621 is required for each PFIC each year. The practical implication for a nomad: buying a Spanish UCITS ETF inside a local brokerage triggers PFIC reporting per fund, per year — usually it is cleaner to hold US-domiciled ETFs in a US brokerage that still serves expats.

What should an investment portfolio tracker show that a generic one misses?

FEIE-aware Roth eligibility, foreign-account aggregate watcher, PFIC exposure flagging, account-type drift, and the brokerage's expat-account status — not just total balance.

A nomad-aware tracker surfaces decisions: it computes MAGI with the FEIE add-back to flag actual Roth eligibility, tracks the rolling maximum of foreign-account values to warn before crossing the FBAR or Form 8938 thresholds, tags any foreign-domiciled fund as a potential PFIC, shows allocation drift by account type so rebalancing trades hit the right account, and notes which brokerages on file are known to restrict expat accounts. A snapshot-based tracker (where you record balances yourself rather than aggregating logins) is more resilient when residency or two-factor methods change mid-year.

Sources

[1] 401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500 — Internal Revenue Service (Nov 13, 2025)
[2] IRS releases tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2026 — Internal Revenue Service (Oct 9, 2025)
[3] Publication 590-A: Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) — Internal Revenue Service (Dec 1, 2025)
[4] Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) — Internal Revenue Service / FinCEN (Apr 1, 2025)
[5] Do I need to file Form 8938, Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets? — Internal Revenue Service (Apr 1, 2025)
[6] 2025 Digital Nomads Trends Report: A Niche Workforce Becomes Mainstream — MBO Partners (Nov 1, 2025)

About the author

Dennis Vymer

Dennis Vymer is the founder of My Financial Freedom Tracker, a budgeting and FIRE planning platform. He writes about personal finance grounded in public-data sources and transparent math.

Published by My Financial Freedom Tracker.