Which W-8 form do I collect from each kind of foreign payee — BEN, BEN-E, ECI, or IMY?

The W-8 family sorts cleanly by who the payee is. A direct foreign individual who is the beneficial owner gives you Form W-8BEN. A direct foreign entity that is the beneficial owner gives you Form W-8BEN-E. A foreign payee asserting that the income is effectively connected with a US trade or business gives you Form W-8ECI, which can take the payment out of flat Chapter 3 withholding. A foreign intermediary, partnership, trust, or similar flow-through gives you Form W-8IMY, accompanied by a withholding statement and the underlying beneficial-owner documentation.

When treaty benefits are claimed through a fiscally transparent entity, the owner claiming the benefit completes its own W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E, and the transparent entity associates that owner form with a W-8IMY. Two cautions: W-8ECI is not the vehicle for a nonresident individual claiming a treaty exemption on US-performed personal services — that claim belongs on Form 8233. And a W-8IMY is incomplete without the withholding statement and owner forms behind it; the IMY by itself does not tell you the rate.

The point of getting the form first is that it lets you reliably associate the payment with valid documentation. If you fail to obtain a valid W-8 (or W-9) and do not withhold under the presumption rules, the IRS can assess tax at 30% under Chapter 3 or Chapter 4, plus interest and penalties. When documentation is missing or incomplete, the conservative move is to withhold at the presumption rate rather than guess. Our /guides/form-1042-s overview includes a payee-to-form cheat sheet.