Tax residency rules by state

Most states treat you as a statutory resident if you keep a permanent place of abode there and spend more than 183 days in the state during the tax year, even if your domicile is elsewhere. The details vary widely: some states count any part of a day as a full day, and several states use different thresholds entirely, such as 200 days in Hawaii, 270 in Idaho, or a 9-month presumption in California.

Almost every state applies two independent tests. The domicile test asks where your one true home is, weighing factors like where your family lives, your home sizes, business ties, and licenses. The statutory residency test is mechanical: a day count plus a place of abode. Meeting either test generally makes you a resident taxable on your worldwide income.

Nine states levy no tax on wage income: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. Washington does tax high capital gains, and several of these states have estate or business taxes, so moving there still requires establishing residency you can defend against the state you left.

Yes. Dual residency happens when one state considers you domiciled there while another counts you as a statutory resident on days and abode. Both can tax your worldwide income, and credits for taxes paid to the other state often do not fully eliminate the double tax, especially on investment income. Careful day tracking is the main way to avoid it.

Domicile is your permanent legal home, the place you intend to return to, and you keep it until you establish a new one and abandon the old one. Residency for tax purposes is broader: you can be a tax resident of a state that is not your domicile just by spending enough days there with a place to live.

States look for a genuine move, not a paper one: a real home in the new state, your family with you, more days spent there than in the old state, and the paper trail moved over, including driver's license, voter registration, vehicles, doctors, and banks. A contemporaneous day-by-day location log is the strongest single piece of evidence in a residency audit.