Following the July 31, 2017, deadline for renewing an FFI agreement, the IRS announced in a new FAQ that a participating FFI (including a reporting model 2 FFI) that renews its FFI agreement by October 24, 2017, will continue to be treated as a participating FFI.  Rev. Proc. 2017-16, which includes the current FFI agreement, provides that a participating FFI that fails to renew its FFI agreement by July 31, 2017, will be treated as having terminated its FFI agreement as of January 1, 2017, and will be treated as a nonparticipating FFI and removed from the IRS FFI list.  Registration FAQ #10, added only a few weeks ago, reiterated that result.

On August 1, the IRS added Registration FAQ #12 providing that a participating FFI that has otherwise complied with the terms of its FFI agreement (including the current FFI agreement since January 1, 2017), will not be removed from the IRS FFI list provided that it renews its FFI agreement by October 24, 2017.  Participating FFIs that fail to renew their FFI agreements by October 24, 2017, will be removed from the IRS FFI list in November.  The reprieve will be welcome news for participating FFIs that were unable to renew their FFI agreement before the July 31 deadline.  Those participating FFIs that still need to renew their FFI agreements should ensure they are complying with the new FFI agreement and take steps to renew their agreements sooner rather than later to avoid inadvertently missing the extended deadline.