FIR filters are routinely used in the implementation of modern digital signal processing systems. Their efficient implementation using commercially available VLSI technology is a subject of continuous study and development. This paper presents the residue number system (RNS) implementation of reduced-complexity and high-performance FIR filters, using modern Altera APEX20K field-programmable logic (FPL) devices. Index arithmetic over Galois fields and the Quadratic Residue Number System (QRNS), along with a selection of a small wordwidth modulus set, are the keys for attaining low complexity and high throughput in real and complex FIR filters. RNS–FPL merged FIR filters demonstrated its superiority when compared to 2C (two's complement) filters, being about 65% faster and requiring fewer logic elements for most study cases. Special attention was paid to an efficient implementation of the multi-operand modulo adders. The replacement of a classical modulo adder tree by a binary adder with extended precision followed by a single modulo reduction stage reduced area requirements by 10% for a 32-tap FIR filter. On the other hand, an index arithmetic QRNS-based complex FIR filter yielded up to 60% performance improvement over a three-multiplier-per-tap 2C filter, while requiring fewer LEs for filters having more than eight taps. Particularly, a 32-tap filter needed 24% LEs less than the classical design.