SNOWBIRDS & STATE MOVERS

Don't accidentally become a resident of the state you left

If you spend part of the year in a high-tax state and part in a low-tax one, the high-tax state can still tax your entire income as a resident, even if you are domiciled elsewhere. The line between "visitor" and "resident" is usually a day count, and the burden of proving your days is on you.

Two ways a state can call you a resident

Almost every income-tax state can tax you as a resident under either of two independent tests:

• Domicile: your one true permanent home, the place you intend to return to. It is about intent and persists until you affirmatively establish a new one.
• Statutory residency: a mechanical test. Even if you are domiciled in State A, State B can tax you as a full-year resident if you (1) maintain a permanent place of abode there and (2) spend more than 183 days there in the year.

Both prongs must be met, and both states can end up taxing you as a full resident the same year, subject to credits. Statutory residency is the trap that catches people who "moved" but kept a home and kept spending time in the old state.

"183 days" usually means 184

The rule is popularly called the 183-day rule, but most statutes trigger at more than 183 days, meaning 184 or more. Spending exactly 183 days generally keeps you a nonresident. When you are managing a hard cap, plan around 183 as the last safe day, not the first unsafe one.

New York, and why "any part of a day" matters

New York runs the most aggressive residency audits in the country, and its counting rule is unforgiving: any part of a day spent in New York counts as a full day. You do not need to sleep there. Arrive at 11 p.m. and leave at 1 a.m. the next day, and that is two New York days from two hours of presence. A narrow exception exists for days merely spent in transit. This is exactly the kind of edge that a contemporaneous, timestamped record settles and memory does not.

The states with no day test

Nine states levy no broad-based income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. There is no residency day test to become taxable in them. For a mover, the day-counting job is the mirror image: proving you stayed under the old state's threshold while you establish domicile in the new one. (Note: Washington taxes some long-term capital gains, and a few states like California use a facts-and-circumstances test with no bright-line day count at all.)

How SpyglassBeacon helps

Beacon keeps an automatic, timestamped day count for every state you set foot in, warns you as you approach a threshold, and exports a day-by-day report in the format an auditor expects, using the same "any part of a day" standard the audits turn on. It is the contemporaneous record that turns "I think I was under 183" into evidence.

Popular moves, specific rules

The general rules above play out differently pair by pair. Guides for the most common moves: New York → Florida (the bright-line 183 trap and the audit machine), California → Texas (no bright line at all, which is worse), and California → Nevada (the border-day problem).

Related: Canadian snowbirds · Remote workers · Substantial Presence Test calculator