The states with no income tax, and what residency means in each

Nine states levy no tax on personal income, and the search phrase people reach for — the residency requirements for Florida, Texas or Nevada — contains a hidden assumption worth dismantling before anything else. These states set no residency requirements for income tax purposes, because they levy no income tax for a residency test to serve. There is nothing to qualify for.

That sounds like good news and mostly is. But it relocates the whole problem. If nobody in your new state is going to certify that you live there, then the only place your residency will ever be adjudicated is the state you left — under its rules, on its evidence, with the burden on you.

The states, and the fine print in each

Florida. No personal income tax, no estate tax, and the most developed set of domicile formalities of the group: a statutory Declaration of Domicile, and a homestead exemption that doubles as a sworn assertion of permanent residence. The practical steps are set out separately.

Texas. No personal income tax, and a constitutional amendment approved in 2019 that makes introducing one materially harder. Property taxes are correspondingly high, which is the trade being made rather than an accident.

Nevada. No personal income tax and no corporate income tax, though businesses face a gross receipts levy. Nevada’s appeal to people leaving California is obvious, and California’s Franchise Tax Board is correspondingly attentive to moves in that direction.

Tennessee. No tax on wages, and since the Hall income tax was repealed for tax years beginning 1 January 2021, no tax on interest and dividends either. Tennessee is a genuinely clean case now, which was not true a decade ago.

Wyoming. No personal or corporate income tax, funded historically by mineral extraction. Small population, low administrative friction, and a strong trust and asset-protection statute that attracts people for reasons adjacent to the tax position.

South Dakota. No personal income tax, and, like Wyoming, a favourable trust regime. It is also a common domicile of choice for full-time travellers, who use its mail-forwarding and vehicle registration infrastructure — an arrangement that works, but which produces a thin evidential record precisely because there is little presence to record.

Alaska. No personal income tax and no state sales tax, and the only state that pays residents an annual dividend from its permanent fund. Eligibility for that dividend has its own presence and intent conditions, which is the one place in this group where a state does test residency, and it does so for a benefit rather than for a tax.

Washington. No tax on wages. It does, however, impose an excise tax on long-term capital gains above an annually adjusted standard deduction, introduced in 2022 and upheld by the state supreme court, with a higher rate tier on very large gains added by 2025 legislation. Anyone relocating in anticipation of a liquidity event should treat Washington as a special case rather than as a member of the group.

New Hampshire. No tax on wages, and no longer any tax on investment income: the interest and dividends tax was repealed for taxable periods beginning after 31 December 2024. Guidance and advice written before that repeal is now wrong on this point, so check the date on anything you read.

What “residency requirements” means when there is no test

In a state with an income tax, residency is a status with legal consequences and a definition to match. In these nine, the phrase means something narrower — the conditions attached to specific benefits and obligations, each administered by a different body:

• A driving licence, with its own timing expectations for new residents
• Vehicle registration and titling
• Voter registration, which is a sworn statement about where you live
• In-state tuition, which typically requires a fixed period of prior domicile
• Property tax reliefs such as Florida’s homestead exemption

Satisfying all of these tells you nothing about whether the state you left has released you. Failing to satisfy them, on the other hand, tells that state a great deal. The registrations are useful mainly as evidence, and evidence is what the departing state’s audit runs on.

The burden runs the other way

Departing states test two things independently, and the distinction matters.

The first is domicile: whether you abandoned your old permanent home and acquired a new one with the intention of remaining. This is qualitative, judged on where your life actually sits. California’s version is domicile plus closest connections, with no day threshold at all.

The second is statutory residency: presence in the state combined with a dwelling maintained there, applied without any enquiry into intent. New York’s test is the most aggressively enforced in the country, and it can attach even where the new domicile is beyond argument. It requires a permanent place of abode maintained for substantially all of the year, together with more than 183 days spent in the state, counted on a part-day basis. The abode limb was tightened recently, so treat older guidance with caution.

There is a third exposure that survives a clean move entirely. Income sourced to a state can be taxed there regardless of where you live: rent from property, a share of a partnership operating there, and workdays physically performed there. Some states go further and tax workdays attributed to an in-state employer even when you were never present, which is the convenience of the employer rule. Moving to Texas does not switch off a nonresident filing obligation.

What Residay tracks

Residay tracks state-level presence for California, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas and Washington as advisory presence evidence. Advisory is the operative word: none of those states runs a test those counters could decide. They exist so that the positive half of the record is already built — a dated, contemporaneous account of the days actually spent in the new home state, held ready for the day some other state asks.

For the states that do run determinative tests, the app computes them properly and holds the evidence behind each attributed day, including the part-day conventions that make certain jurisdictions count more harshly than travellers expect.

Planning notes

• Do not read “no residency requirements” as “no residency risk”. The absence of a test in the new state is exactly why the old state’s test is the only one that matters.
• Verify the current position rather than relying on a list: New Hampshire’s investment income tax and Tennessee’s Hall tax both disappeared within recent memory, and Washington’s capital gains excise appeared.
• If a liquidity event is in prospect, look at the destination’s treatment of gains specifically, not just its treatment of wages.
• Complete the registrations promptly and keep the dated confirmations. They are worth more as evidence than as compliance.
• Start the day record from the date of the move, not from the date somebody first asks about it.