How many days can you spend in California before you’re a resident?

The rule in California

California residency is a facts-and-circumstances test: you are a resident if you are in the state for other than a temporary or transitory purpose. Anyone who spends more than nine months of the tax year in California in total is presumed a resident, rebuttable with satisfactory evidence. Less than nine months creates no presumption the other way; the Franchise Tax Board can still call you a resident on the facts.

Two people can have the same permanent home in another state and get different answers, purely on days. Keeping the count below the line, and being able to prove it, is the entire game.

Source: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

How long do you have to live in California to be considered a resident?

Two ways. You become a California resident the day you make it your domicile, however few days you have spent there. Or, even with a permanent home elsewhere, you are treated as a resident once you reach more than nine months in California in a single year. The second route is the one that catches people by surprise.

California residency requirements for taxes

California looks at domicile first, then at days. Domicile is where your permanent home is, judged on the facts below. On top of that, the day-count rule above can make you a resident regardless of domicile.

• Where your permanent home is, and where you spend more of your nights
• Driver’s licence, vehicle registration, and voter registration
• Where your spouse, children, and pets live and go to school
• Where your doctor, dentist, accountant, and bank are
• Where the things you would not want to lose are kept
• Day counts, which are the one factor the state can verify independently

What counts as a day

In most states any part of a day spent in the state counts as a full day, including the day you arrive and the day you leave. Layovers and driving through can count too. A few states exempt time in transit or days spent in a hospital, but the safe assumption is that if you were there at any point, the day counts.

The count is per calendar year and resets on January 1. Days do not have to be consecutive.

How California checks

The burden of proof is on you, not the state. In a residency audit the state asks for the records that show where you physically were, day by day:

• Mobile phone location and call records
• Credit and debit card transactions
• Flight itineraries, toll records, and parking receipts
• Calendar entries, social media posts, and photos with location data

Gaps in your records are usually resolved against you. A day you cannot place somewhere else is a day the state can argue you spent inside it.

Keep the proof automatically

Other states