← All tools
Sticky-State Residency Checker
California, New York, Virginia, New Mexico, and South Carolina are known as "sticky states": each applies an aggressive domicile or statutory-residency test that can keep treating you as a resident, and taxing you as one, years after you've become a Canadian resident, if you haven't cut the right ties. This walks through the factors that matter most. General information only, not tax advice; confirm your specific situation with a cross-border accountant or the state's own Department of Revenue.
Verified against state Department of Revenue & Franchise Tax Board guidance, September 2026Your inputs are saved in this browser automatically, so you won't lose them on refresh.Saved
Which state are you leaving (or did you leave)?
Pick the state whose residency claim you're trying to shake. Five states have a
reputation for being especially hard to leave; every other state is grouped as "Other," since the
underlying factors below still apply, just under that state's own specific rules.
What ties do you still have there?
These are the factors that show up first in almost every state's residency audit,
regardless of which state it is. Answer for today, not for how things were before you left.
What this could mean for you
What people commonly do about it
Not tax or legal advice
Residency rules are fact-specific and every state's is different: what's below is
general information about common approaches, not a recommendation for your situation. Talk to a
cross-border tax specialist before treating any of this as settled, especially if a state has already
contacted you.
Change the paper trail, not just your address
Driver's license, vehicle registration, voter registration, and your primary bank
and doctor are all things an auditor can check quickly and objectively. Updating each one the same
month you actually move is far stronger evidence than doing it later, or not at all.
Keep contemporaneous proof
A dated moving contract, a one-way flight, lease termination, and a Canadian address
on file with each of the institutions above are the kind of contemporaneous evidence that holds up
years later in an audit, when memory alone won't.
Don't count on physical presence alone
Falling below a state's day-count threshold helps, but every one of the five states
above also runs a separate domicile test that day count alone doesn't settle. Cutting the paper-trail
ties above matters even if you're rarely physically in the state at all.
❓ Glossary
- Domicile
- Your one true, permanent home: the place you intend to return to, even if you're currently living elsewhere. Unlike residency, domicile persists until you deliberately establish a new one; simply leaving isn't automatically enough.
- Statutory residency
- A separate test some states run alongside domicile: if you exceed a day-count threshold while maintaining a place of abode in the state, you can be taxed as a resident even though you're legally domiciled elsewhere.
- Closest connections test
- California's facts-and-circumstances approach (FTB Publication 1031): weighs roughly 19 factors, with no single one determinative, to decide where your strongest ties actually are.
Privacy & Data
Everything here is stored only in this browser (localStorage), never on a server:
see the footer for the full picture of what does leave your device. "Erase everything" removes every
input, saved scenario, and preference this site has saved here, including anything kept via the
"Remember immigration status" opt-in on Moving Back to Canada. This can't be undone.
Figures current as of 2026
- 2026: day-count thresholds and domicile-factor descriptions reviewed against current state Department of Revenue / Franchise Tax Board guidance.
- Last independently verified: September 2026.
- Full sourcing & citations for this page →