Foreign-Derived Intangible Income Reference Guide

Enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (FDII) is an export tax incentive available to domestic C-corporations which allows for a permanent deduction on taxable income up to 37.5%.

To qualify, a domestic C-corporation should have the following types of foreign-derived income earned from its unrelated or related party customers:

• Sale of property to a foreign customer for foreign use or consumption; or
• Services provided to a foreign customer or with respect to any property outside of the United States.

The FDII deduction is calculated from the excess of export sales and services income above a 10% rate of return on the corporation’s tangible depreciable assets. Additionally, the deduction is available to those corporations with positive taxable income after applying available net operating losses.