How to fill the W-8BEN-E form?

Affiliates that receive commissions from our American based company and are not American citizens or business entity should provide the appropriate W8 form. For non-US individuals, the W-8BEN form is incorporated in the Payout Details section in your Client Area.

For business entities, the W-8BEN-E form should be downloaded, filled in, scanned, and uploaded in your Client Area  > Affiliate > Payout Details > Tax Documents. Note that you need to make sure that the details in the form should match the information in the Affiliate > Payout Details > Payout Details section because any discrepancies will make the form invalid.  

The W8BEN-E form consists of multiple pages and 30 different parts. However, most people only need to fill in 4 parts depending on the type of their business entity. Below are some easy instructions on how to fill the required parts in the form in less than 5 minutes.

Part I – Identification of Beneficial Owner

This is the part that will take most of your time filling the form. It has most of the required fields, but they are quite easy to fill in.

1. Name of your organization

Just write your full Company name.

2. Country of incorporation of your organization

Fill in the Country where your Company is registered.

3. Name of a disregarded entity, receiving the payment

You may skip this. It is used only if the payment we make is not directly done to your organization, but goes through a third party accounting institution.

4. Your Entity Chapter 3 Status

The most common choice here is Corporation. The majority of our affiliates that are business entities fall either under the Corporation or the Partnership status. These are the most common types of privately owned businesses. So if you do not see any of the other categories as something describing your organization, choose Corporation (if the company is only yours) or a partnership (if the company is owned by you in partnership with several people).

5. Your entity FATCA status

The most common choice here is Active NFFE. Your FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) status determines which part of the form you should fill in after. Most probably your company is not a Foreign Financial Institution (FFI) — bank, insurance, investment fund, or other. Thus all the options containing the FFI abbreviation are not applicable to you. For the majority of privately owned businesses, the Active NFFE is the most common choice, which means you are an Active Non-Financial Foreign Entity. So if you do not see any of the other categories as something describing better your organization, choose Active NFFE.

6. Permanent residence address

Just fill in your Company address.

7.Mailing address

Skip if the same and the company address.

8,9,10 – Tax Identification Information

Provide your local Tax Identification Number (TIN). As a non-US entity, you probably do not have a US taxpayer ID, so you need to provide the local tax identification number of your company. This is the number your local tax authorities use to identify your business.

Part III – Claim of Tax Treaty Benefits

In this part you just need to cross 2 checkboxes and fill in the name of the country where your company is registered:

• 14a – check the box and fill in the Country
• 14b – check the box only

Part XXV – Active NFFE

In this part of the form you simply need to check one box:

• 39 – check the box only

Part XXX – Certification

Here we need your signature in handwriting, your first and last name, and the date on which you fill in the form. Also, please check the Certification box under the Signature. If you want to see full instructions refer to the original instructions provided by IRS (Internal Revenue Service of US)