Free in-person help: VITA volunteers

The IRS runs a program called VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance). Trained volunteers, certified by the IRS, prepare tax returns for free at libraries, community centers, schools and universities all over the country. Most students never hear about it. It is real, it is free, and sites usually open from late January through mid April.

There is one catch for international students, and it is the whole point of this page.

The one thing you must check before you go

Not every VITA volunteer is allowed to prepare a student's return. Form 1040-NR and Form 8843 may only be prepared by a volunteer who holds the IRS Foreign Student and Scholar certification, a separate qualification on top of the regular one. A site without a certified volunteer on staff is not permitted to do your return, and a well-meaning volunteer who offers to "just file you as a resident" on Form 1040 instead is offering you the wrong return: it can cost you your treaty benefits and turn into amended returns later.

The rule is simple: if you are a nonresident alien, your return is Form 1040-NR, and only a Foreign Student certified volunteer may prepare it. The IRS locator below does not say which sites have one. That is why you call first.

Find a site near you

The IRS keeps the official list of VITA sites, with addresses, opening dates, hours, languages spoken and appointment phone numbers:

Open the IRS VITA site locator

You search it by ZIP code and distance. Prefer to talk to a person? Call the IRS at 800-906-9887 and ask for VITA sites near you. Sites are added as the filing season approaches, so if the map looks empty in the fall, check again in January.

Best first stop for most students: your own university. Many universities run a VITA site just for their international students and scholars, staffed with exactly the right certification. Ask your international student office (often called ISSS), or search your university's name plus "VITA international students". If your school has one, use it before anywhere else.

Call first: exactly what to say

One short phone call is the difference between real help and a wasted trip. Say this:

If the answer is yes, book the appointment and ask what to bring. If the answer is no, or "we can just do a regular 1040", thank them and try the next site. That is not rudeness; the rules genuinely do not allow them to prepare your return.

What to bring

What VITA cannot do

Volunteers work within set limits. Dual status returns (part resident, part nonresident in one year) are out of scope, and so are some complicated cases. A site may also be fully booked late in the season. If no site near you can take your return, our preparers cover the standard student cases on this site, free, and they run entirely in your browser: Form 1040-NR and Form 8843. And if your case is genuinely complicated, that is the honest moment to pay a tax professional who works with nonresidents.

Sources: IRS, "Free Tax Return Preparation for Qualifying Taxpayers" (VITA program) and IRS volunteer training and certification pages, including the Foreign Student and Scholar certification, checked October 2026.