Which foreign accounts count toward the FBAR threshold?

Most accounts you'd recognize as financial accounts count: foreign checking, savings, NRE and NRO accounts, fixed deposits, brokerage and securities accounts, mutual funds, and many foreign retirement or pension accounts. Accounts where you have signature authority but no ownership — like a foreign employer's account — also count. You add up the maximum balance of every reportable account during the year, and if the total tops $10,000 even briefly, you report all of them, including small ones. What generally doesn't count: foreign real estate held directly, physical gold or jewelry, and personally held foreign stock certificates (though those may hit Form 8938). Accounts at a foreign branch of a U.S. bank are reportable, while a U.S. branch of a foreign bank is not. When unsure whether an account type qualifies, it's safer to include it than to guess it out.