Using a 529 for International School: The 400+ College Answer

When your kid announces they’re heading to McGill—or to some university in Berlin you haven’t quite learned to pronounce yet—the next question lands fast: does our 529 work over there?

Short answer: yes, at the right schools. Here's the rundown on 529 international schools: how the federal eligibility list works, what counts as a qualified expense, and what to do when your kid's pick isn't on it.

529's for International School: One Federal List Decides

To pull money tax-free from a 529, the school has to qualify as an “eligible educational institution” under IRS Pub 970—meaning it can participate in a U.S. Department of Education student aid program (a.k.a. Title IV). That definition explicitly extends overseas to schools eligible for U.S. federal student aid programs. The actual list isn’t in Pub 970; it lives in the Federal School Code Lookup maintained by the Department of Education.

If the foreign school is on the list, your 529 works there. If it isn’t, only the earnings portion of any withdrawal taken for that school is taxed as ordinary income plus a 10% federal penalty. The contributions you made come out penalty-free for any purpose at all—an ineligible international school, a red sports car, a wedding, anything. And to keep the earnings tax-advantaged, you can use the funds at any other eligible school, change the beneficiary to another family member, save the balance for grad school, cover up to $20,000/year in K-12 tuition, or roll up to $35,000 into a Roth IRA under SECURE 2.0.

The List: 400+ Schools, One Source

Per Saving for College, more than 400 foreign colleges and universities are currently Title IV-eligible—concentrated in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and continental Europe, with a long tail across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The list shifts as schools are added or removed, so we won’t try to enumerate it; the Federal School Code Lookup is the source of truth. Saving for College also runs a 529-specific version of the same data; for a foreign school, pick “CN” for Canada, “MX” for Mexico, or “FC” for everywhere else.

If a school doesn’t show up in either tool, it’s not on the list. The IRS, alas, does not accept “but the library is gorgeous and I love gelato” as a counterargument.

What Expenses Qualify?

Once a school is confirmed eligible, the qualified-expense menu abroad is identical to the domestic one: tuition, mandatory fees, books, required supplies and equipment, and room and board (provided the student is enrolled at least half-time). What doesn’t count—and where families most often get tripped up—is the travel layer: airfare, trains, international health insurance, and personal expenses while abroad. Those come out of the family checking account, not the 529. For the full picture of what a 529 does and doesn’t cover, see our intro to 529 plans.

A Quick Example: The Iyer Family

The Iyer family in Brooklyn started contributing $400/month into a 529 when their daughter Asha was 6. Twelve years and 7% later, the account holds roughly $87,000—$57,600 in contributions and $29,400 in earnings. At a 15% federal long-term capital gains rate, the tax-free treatment of those earnings saves them about $4,400 in federal tax, plus a smaller benefit from avoided dividend taxes during accumulation.

Asha gets in to McGill, which charges international undergraduates ~CAD $49,000/year in tuition (locked in for the four-year program), roughly CAD $52,000/year all-in with mandatory fees per the McGill 2026-27 fee schedule. Add residence and food (~CAD $15,000–20,000/year), and total cost of attendance lands around CAD $67,000–72,000/year—roughly USD $48,000–52,000.

The 529 covers about the first two years of tuition and fees. The remaining two years and most living costs come from somewhere else: scholarships, parental cash flow, a part-time job, or some combination. The 529 is a meaningful chunk, not the whole bill—and that’s worth knowing before signing the deposit form, not after.

The Bottom Line

A 529 travels well—but only at schools the Department of Education has blessed. Two minutes with the Federal School Code Lookup tells you whether your kid’s school is on the list. If it is, the tax treatment abroad is identical to a U.S. university. If it isn’t, the funds still have plenty of useful homes; they just won’t go tax-free at that specific school.

If you’re still picking the right 529 to fund any of this, Hadley’s Find My 529 tool does the comparison for you in a few minutes.

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