spouse non res alient

have a client - us citizen

got married in 2020

his wife is a non-resident alien

going to file married filing separately so none of her income gets included on the 2020 return

she doesn't have an ssn or itin

i thought i could just write 'nra' where the social security number is and mail in the tax return since couldn't be efiled

does this sound correct?

Correct. Some software will let you efile this, too.

Writing nra where spouse SSN appears would be correct if filing separately. For joint filing, I believe an ITIN application would be required.