I left the US but kept my house, am I still a state resident?
Possibly, and that is the position this page exists for. Domicile is stickier than residence: it is the place you are treated as belonging to until you establish another and cut the ties the old state cares about. A retained home is the tie states look at first, particularly one kept available to you rather than let on a commercial footing. Some states add their own presence tests on top, counting days regardless of where you say you live. So a person who left the United States entirely can remain a resident of the state they left, still filing resident returns there, until those ties are actually cut.
Do I file a part-year state return the year I move?
Usually, if the state you left or arrived in taxes income and you were a resident of it for part of the year. A part-year return splits the year at the date residence changed, taxing what belongs to the resident period on the state's resident rules and anything sourced to the state afterwards on its non-resident rules. The date itself is the whole argument, which is why it is worth fixing with evidence at the time rather than asserting it later. Where two states are involved, both part-year returns have to tell the same story about the same date, or each state will read the other's return against you.
How do I prove I gave up domicile in a state?
By the pattern rather than by a single document. Changing a licence or a registration helps, and none of it is decisive on its own, because the state weighs the ties it has chosen to care about: where the home is, where the family lives, where the working life sits and where time is actually spent. Which of those carries weight is set by that state, and the tests are not uniform. What answers a questionnaire two years later is a file assembled at the time, recording the date, what was given up, what was taken on somewhere else, and a day record that supports both.
Can two states both treat me as a resident in the same year?
Yes. One state can hold you as domiciled there while another treats you as resident under its own presence test, and neither conclusion is wrong on its own terms. There is no treaty between states to break the tie, so the conflict is worked out state by state under each one's law and whatever relief it gives for tax paid to the other. The practical task is deciding which state you are prepared to be resident in, then building the ties and the day record to match, because a position held in both directions at once is the one that gets examined.
I moved abroad from the US, does my old state still tax me?
It can. Leaving the country answers the federal question and not the state one. A state that regards you as domiciled there continues to treat your income as its own, wherever it arises and whether or not any of it is connected with the state. Moving to a country that does not tax income does not change this, and if anything it makes the state's interest more durable, because you have taken on no new tax home that the state recognises. The filing to make is the departing-year return, on the date the ties were cut, supported well enough that the state does not simply pick a later date.
Do I have to file something with the state when I move out?
Sometimes the state asks for a specific statement or a day-count schedule, and sometimes the part-year return is the only document. Either way it is worth filing, because a state with no departing return has nothing on its record to show that you ever left, and its later questions start from the assumption that you did not. The papers that matter are the return for the year of the move, a schedule of days present in the state after the move, and whatever declaration that state provides for. Which of those exists depends on the state, so it is checked there.
Is there an exit tax when a green card holder leaves the United States?
Only for long-term residents — those who held the green card for long enough to be inside the expatriation regime — and then only if one of the covered expatriate tests is met. The step people skip is the formal one: the status has to be properly ended for tax purposes, and until it is, worldwide filing continues no matter where you live. Abandoning the card and forgetting the tax filing is the common, expensive sequence. See giving up a green card.
How is tax residency decided?
By facts, not by citizenship or the address on your post. Canada weighs your ties — a home available to you, spouse, dependants, then secondary ties like accounts and licences. The US adds a mechanical day-count test alongside its green-card test. India counts days present under its own thresholds. Where two countries both conclude you are resident, the treaty tie-breaker decides one residence: permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality. See tax residency.
