Foreign Nationals

The IRS mandates that any foreign national claiming tax treaty benefits on wages or salaries earned in the U.S. must file a Form 8233 each year they wish to claim the benefit. Virginia Tech’s Payroll Office assists eligible individuals in preparing tax treaty documents. You can find the schedule of available appointments here.

To help ensure international students, faculty, and staff remain in compliance with Federal regulations, any international visitor employed by Virginia Tech is required to provide Payroll certain non-immigrant documentation depending on Visa type. Payroll uses the Foreign National Information System (FNIS) and the Foreign National Drop Box to securely collect this data. Payroll runs daily reports to identify employees with outstanding document needs and sends out initial emails via the FNIS system. 

The link for the Drop Box will be emailed to each foreign national new hire and each employee should complete each step with as much detail as possible. The newest version of the Drop Box is separated by Visa classification. Each newly hired employee should complete this information within 5 business days of the work start date. This new version of the FNIS drop box is now available.

There is training documentation available on the Controller’s website under training/opportunities/Payroll