Residency Migration Reference
Moving from American Samoa to Nebraska: Residency, Taxes, and What to Prove
The top income tax rate drops from Secondary sources cite individual rates ranging from roughly 4% to 15%; the American Samoa Government Tax Office administers the schedule directly and does not publish an English-language bracket table online, so a filer should confirm the current-year schedule directly with the Tax Office in American Samoa to 4.55% in Nebraska. Establishing Nebraska residency correctly is what protects that benefit.
Residency Tests Side by Side
American Samoa and Nebraska both use a 183-day statutory residency threshold, so the day-count mechanics will feel familiar even though the underlying facts and enforcement differ.
| Factor | American Samoa | Nebraska |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory Residency Test | American Samoa uses the same federal IRC section 937 bona fide residency test that applies to all five territories: the presence test, the tax home test, and the closer connection test, all of which must be met for the same tax year. This federal test determines whether someone's American Samoa-source income is exempt from U.S. tax; American Samoa's own independent tax code separately determines what is owed to the territory itself. | Nebraska's residency test is set directly by statute, Neb. Rev. Stat. §77-2714.01(7): a resident individual is one who is domiciled in Nebraska, or who is not domiciled in Nebraska but maintains a permanent place of abode in the state and spends in the aggregate more than six months (commonly applied as more than 183 days) of the taxable year in Nebraska. This gives Nebraska two independent paths into residency, domicile or the permanent-abode-plus-presence test, similar in structure to New York's and Missouri's statutory residency frameworks. |
| Domicile Test | Closer connection functions as the domicile test, weighing permanent home, family, personal belongings, social/cultural/religious affiliations (which in American Samoa often includes matai title and extended-family/aiga ties), banking, business activity, and the jurisdiction of a driver's license and voter registration, against the total of U.S. and foreign-country contacts under Treasury Regulation 1.937-1(c). | Nebraska applies the standard facts-and-circumstances domicile factors: permanent home location, driver's license and vehicle registration, voter registration, family and employment location, and financial ties. No published Nebraska regulation lists a closed set of weighted factors comparable to New York's; the Department of Revenue and courts apply the general common-law domicile test. |
| Day Count Threshold | 183 days | 183 days |
| Any Part of a Day Rule | Any part of a day physically present in American Samoa counts as a full presence day, and a day spent in both American Samoa and the mainland U.S. counts toward American Samoa. Publication 570 includes an American Samoa-specific example involving a fishing-vessel worker: days spent on a vessel predominantly used in local and international waters do not count as a tax home outside the territory, a rule of particular relevance to American Samoa's tuna-fleet economy. | Nebraska's statute does not define whether a partial day counts toward the more-than-six-months threshold for non-domiciliaries maintaining a permanent Nebraska abode. No published Department of Revenue guidance sets a bright-line any-part-of-a-day standard comparable to New York's or California's, so this is treated as a facts-and-circumstances presence question rather than a strict per-day trigger. |
| Presumptions | None published | None published |
| Safe Harbors | 183-day presence test; 549-day / 3-year test; 90-day U.S. cap; Low U.S.-earned-income test; No significant U.S. connection | None published |
Leaving American Samoa
No widely published American Samoa-specific bona fide residency court case surfaced in research. Exit exposure runs through the same federal IRC section 937 framework used across the territories, but American Samoa's independent tax system and its status as one of the smaller, less economically active territories mean it has not attracted the concentrated IRS compliance-campaign attention that Puerto Rico's Act 60 program has.
Trailing Income
Bona fide residents of American Samoa may not exclude gain from the disposition of certain U.S.-connected property (stock in a U.S. corporation, U.S. real estate, and similar assets) held in the 10 years before becoming a bona fide resident; that gain remains U.S.-source and subject to U.S. tax under the special rules in Publication 570. This 10-year lookback applies the same way to Puerto Rico. For the mirror-code territories (CNMI, Guam, and the USVI), Publication 570 frames the same 10-year-lookback property differently: that gain simply will not qualify for the local tax-reduction or rebate mechanisms those territories otherwise offer bona fide residents on territory-source income.
Part-Year Filing
Form 390 is American Samoa's individual tax return. A bona fide resident generally files an American Samoa return reporting gross income from worldwide sources and files a U.S. return only if required, excluding American Samoa-source income using Form 4563 attached to Form 1040 or 1040-SR. A U.S. citizen who was a bona fide American Samoa resident for at least two years before the move can qualify as a bona fide resident for the part of the tax year before the move, under the same year-of-move framework Publication 570 applies across the territories.
Enforcement Methods
Common Exit Mistakes
Establishing Nebraska Residency
| Action | Agency | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Obtain a Nebraska driver's license | Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles | within 30 days of establishing residency |
| Title and register vehicles in Nebraska | County Treasurer's office (Nebraska titles and registers vehicles at the county level) | within 30 days of establishing residency |
| Register to vote | Nebraska Secretary of State, Elections Division | 18 days before an election for mail/online registration; earlier in-person deadlines apply at the county election office; Nebraska does not offer same-day registration |
| File a homestead exemption application if income- and age/disability-eligible | County Assessor | by June 30 of the assessment year |
Declaration of Domicile
Nebraska has no formal declaration-of-domicile filing comparable to Florida's county-recorded declaration. Nebraska domicile is established through conduct: home purchase or lease, driver's license, vehicle registration, voter registration, and the pattern of actual presence measured against the statute's permanent-abode-plus-six-month test.
Homestead
Nebraska's homestead exemption reduces the taxable value of a primary residence for qualifying elderly (65+), disabled, or disabled veteran homeowners, subject to income caps set annually by the Department of Revenue. It must be applied for annually with the county assessor, generally by June 30, and because eligibility requires the property be the applicant's principal residence, the exemption is meaningful domicile evidence and a standard cross-check point in a residency dispute.
Voter Registration
Register online or by mail at least 18 days before an election, or in person at the county election office by an earlier deadline set each election cycle; Nebraska does not offer same-day or Election Day registration. https://sos.nebraska.gov/elections
Vehicle Registration Deadline
30 days
New Resident Tax Traps
Nebraska taxes worldwide income from the date Nebraska residency begins, reported on the full-year Form 1040N or as a part-year filer using Nebraska Schedule III. New residents should also plan for Nebraska's above-average property tax rate (1.44% effective), which is a bigger ongoing cost driver in Nebraska than the income tax itself for many homeowners, and for county-level inheritance tax exposure on any Nebraska-situs property an heir might later inherit.
What Changes on Tax
American Samoa Top Rate
Secondary sources cite individual rates ranging from roughly 4% to 15%; the American Samoa Government Tax Office administers the schedule directly and does not publish an English-language bracket table online, so a filer should confirm the current-year schedule directly with the Tax Office
Nebraska Top Rate
4.55%
Moving from American Samoa to Nebraska drops the top marginal income tax rate from about 15% to about 4.55%, a reduction of roughly 10.45 percentage points.
Withholding Reciprocity
American Samoa and Nebraska do not have a wage-withholding reciprocity agreement with each other, so this move follows ordinary source-state and resident-state filing rules rather than a reciprocity exception.
Community Property Transition
American Samoa and Nebraska both use common law, equitable-distribution marital property rules, so no community property transition applies to this move.
Beyond Income Tax
American Samoa
Capital gains: American Samoa taxes capital gains under its own code, modeled on but not identical to the federal framework; no separate 0%-style preferential regime comparable to Puerto Rico's Act 60 has surfaced in research, and bona fide residents should confirm current treatment directly with the ASG Tax Office.
Estate or inheritance tax: No separate American Samoa territorial estate or inheritance tax was identified in research; because most land is communally held rather than individually owned and cannot pass through ordinary inheritance to non-Samoans, estate planning in American Samoa is governed as much by customary land law (matai/family succession) as by tax law.
Property tax: Effective property tax rates are described by secondary sources as very low, well under 1% of property value annually, but the more important fact for most people is that over 90% of American Samoa's land is communal land held by extended families under the matai (chief) system and generally cannot be purchased outright by non-natives, so 'property tax' is a minor issue for most newcomers compared to the land-access question itself.
Sales tax: American Samoa has no general state-level sales tax comparable to a mainland state; secondary sources describe local excise-style and business taxes rather than a broad retail sales tax, and current details should be confirmed with the ASG Tax Office.
Nebraska
Capital gains: Nebraska has no separate capital gains rate; gains flow through federal adjusted gross income into Nebraska taxable income and are taxed at the same graduated rates as ordinary income, aside from a narrow special election available to certain shareholders on the sale of stock in a Nebraska corporation held long-term.
Estate or inheritance tax: Nebraska is one of the few remaining states with an inheritance tax, administered at the county level rather than the state level. Rates and exemptions vary by the heir's relationship to the decedent: close relatives (spouses are fully exempt; children and other close family get a higher exemption and lower rate) pay less than distant relatives or unrelated heirs. LB 310 (2022) and later legislation raised exemptions and lowered rates in stages through 2025, softening what had been one of the more burdensome inheritance tax regimes in the country. Nebraska has no separate state-level estate tax.
Property tax: Effective property tax rate on owner-occupied housing runs about 1.44%, among the higher rates in the region and a persistent point of political pressure in the state. Nebraska's homestead exemption program reduces taxable value for qualifying elderly, disabled, and disabled veteran homeowners, subject to income caps that are adjusted annually.
Sales tax: State rate is 5.5%, with a statewide average combined rate (state plus local) of about 6.98%.
Who This Move Applies To
Travel Nurses
In American Samoa
American Samoa has essentially no travel-nurse assignment market comparable to the 50 states or even Guam; the territory's single hospital system (LBJ Tropical Medical Center) is not a typical travel-nursing agency placement, so this persona is largely not applicable here. The underlying federal tax-home principles would apply identically if it ever were.
In Nebraska
Nebraska has no statutory carve-out for travel nurses distinct from its general residency test; the federal tax-home question under IRS Publication 463 governs stipend treatment, and Nebraska's statutory permanent-abode-plus-183-day test then applies independently. Omaha's large hospital systems (Nebraska Medicine, CHI Health) draw a steady stream of travel nursing assignments, and a nurse who claims an out-of-state tax home while actually maintaining a Nebraska residence and spending more than six months in the state during the year risks Nebraska statutory residency regardless of the federal stipend question.
Professional Athletes
In American Samoa
No major U.S. professional sports franchise is based in American Samoa, and there is no jock-tax apportionment regime. American Samoa is, however, well known as an outsized per-capita source of NFL and college football talent; players who grew up there and later earn NFL income are taxed on that income under the ordinary duty-day rules of whatever states and teams they play for, not under any American Samoa-specific regime.
In Nebraska
Nebraska has no major professional sports franchise, though the University of Nebraska's athletic programs generate significant visiting-team and visiting-official travel. Nebraska applies duty-day apportionment to nonresident athletes and entertainers who earn income from events held in the state, consistent with how most income-tax states administer the jock tax for touring and visiting performers.
Snowbirds, Long Visitors, and RVers
In American Samoa
Long-term visitors face the same closer-connection analysis as anywhere else, complicated by the land-tenure system: without the ability to buy communal land outright, a snowbird-style arrangement in American Samoa typically means a long-term lease rather than home ownership, which changes the kind of documentary evidence (lease agreements, utility bills in the resident's name) that would need to substitute for a deed or homestead filing in a residency dispute.
In Nebraska
A Nebraska snowbird who is Nebraska-domiciled and winters in Arizona or Florida remains a Nebraska domiciliary unless they take affirmative steps to change domicile; simply spending part of the year away does not by itself end Nebraska residency. A non-domiciled owner of a Nebraska vacation or second home faces the statutory test directly: maintaining a permanent Nebraska abode and spending more than six months (roughly 183 days) in the state during the year makes them a Nebraska statutory resident regardless of where they consider their true domicile.
Remote Workers
In American Samoa
American Samoa has no convenience-of-the-employer rule, and because it runs a separate tax code rather than a mirror code, a mainland employer's payroll system is even less likely to be set up to handle American Samoa withholding correctly than for Guam or the USVI. A remote worker relocating to American Samoa should expect to actively manage employer withholding and filing status rather than assume standard mainland payroll processes will translate correctly.
In Nebraska
Nebraska has no convenience-of-the-employer rule, so a genuine Nebraska resident working remotely for an out-of-state employer is taxed as a Nebraska resident regardless of employer location, and a nonresident working remotely for a Nebraska employer generally is not pulled into Nebraska tax solely because the employer is headquartered there. Omaha's status as a regional corporate hub (Berkshire Hathaway, Union Pacific, several major insurers) means a meaningful population of remote and hybrid workers whose employer is Nebraska-based but who live in Iowa or elsewhere; Nebraska's statutory abode-plus-presence test, not the employer's location, governs whether they owe Nebraska tax.
Military
In American Samoa
American Samoa follows the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and Military Spouses Residency Relief Act (MSRRA), and Publication 570 specifically addresses active-duty members whose state of legal residence is American Samoa: their military pay is American Samoa-source income and follows the U.S. Government employee wage rules described above regardless of duty station, meaning it is taxable on the U.S. return even though they are American Samoa residents.
In Nebraska
Nebraska follows the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and Military Spouses Residency Relief Act. A servicemember whose home of record is Nebraska remains a Nebraska domiciliary and taxpayer regardless of duty station, and Nebraska does not tax a nonresident servicemember's military pay solely because they are stationed in Nebraska under orders. Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha is the state's major installation, and a nonmilitary spouse residing in Nebraska solely due to military orders can elect the servicemember's state of legal residence under MSRRA.
Airline Crew
In American Samoa
Pago Pago International Airport has limited scheduled service compared to Guam or the mainland, and American Samoa is not a significant airline crew base; the federal carve-out at 49 U.S.C. section 40116 for air carrier employees would apply the same way it does elsewhere if it became relevant, but this is a marginal persona for American Samoa specifically.
In Nebraska
Federal law (49 U.S.C. §40116) limits any state's ability to tax an air carrier employee's pay to the employee's state of residence and any state where more than 50% of pay is earned. Eppley Airfield in Omaha is not a major airline crew base, so this carve-out is less frequently in play for Nebraska specifically, but it still protects any Nebraska-domiciled crew member from having their full income pulled into a duty-station state's tax.
Tools for This Move
American Samoa to Nebraska FAQ
Is American Samoa's tax system the same as Guam's or the US Virgin Islands'?+
No. Guam, the USVI, and the CNMI use a 'mirror code' that applies the U.S. Internal Revenue Code word for word with the territory's name substituted in. American Samoa has its own separate and independent tax system: A.S.C.A. section 11.0403 incorporates much of the Internal Revenue Code by reference, so the law is modeled on federal law, but rates and specific rules are set independently by the American Samoa Government, not automatically updated when Congress changes the federal code.
Does Nebraska use a 183-day rule?+
Effectively yes, but only for people who aren't Nebraska-domiciled. Nebraska statute treats you as a resident if you're domiciled in Nebraska, full stop, or if you're not domiciled in Nebraska but maintain a permanent Nebraska home and spend more than six months (in practice, more than 183 days) in the state during the year. If you're Nebraska-domiciled, the day count doesn't save you; you need to actually change your domicile.
Can I buy a house in American Samoa the way I would in any other U.S. territory?+
Generally, no. Over 90% of American Samoa's land is communally owned by extended families under the matai (chief) system, and non-natives cannot acquire that land outright; transferring communal land to individual ownership requires Land Commission recommendation and Governor approval, or 30 years of adverse possession. Most non-native residents live under a long-term lease rather than owning a home, which changes what proof-of-residence documentation looks like compared to anywhere else in this guide.
I moved out of Nebraska but still own the house and visit often. Am I still a resident?+
It depends which side of the domicile line you're on. If you're still Nebraska-domiciled, occasional visits don't change anything, you're still a resident regardless of day count. If you've genuinely changed your domicile elsewhere but kept the Nebraska house available and usable, you become a Nebraska statutory resident anyway if your total days in Nebraska for the year exceed roughly 183, so frequent return visits to a retained property are exactly what trips this test.
Do I pay U.S. federal income tax on income I earn in American Samoa?+
If you're a bona fide American Samoa resident under the federal presence, tax home, and closer connection tests, your American Samoa-source income is generally exempt from U.S. federal tax. You do need to report worldwide income on your American Samoa return, and if you have non-American Samoa-source income above the filing threshold, you'll still need to file a U.S. return excluding the American Samoa income using Form 4563.
Does Nebraska tax Social Security benefits?+
No, Nebraska fully exempts Social Security benefits from state income tax as of tax year 2024, following a multi-year phase-in of the exclusion.
I work for the U.S. Government in American Samoa. Is my pay exempt like other residents' income?+
No, and this is a common and costly misunderstanding. Publication 570 specifically requires that wages and cost-of-living allowances paid by the U.S. Government for services performed in American Samoa be included in gross income on both your U.S. and American Samoa income tax returns, regardless of whether you are a bona fide American Samoa resident. A foreign tax credit is available for the American Samoa tax paid on the same income to avoid double taxation, but the U.S. filing obligation itself does not go away.
What form do I file if I only lived in Nebraska part of the year?+
Part-year residents and nonresidents file Nebraska Form 1040N along with Nebraska Schedule III, which allocates Nebraska-source income and computes the appropriate ratio to apply to your Nebraska tax.
What if I'm not a U.S. citizen born in American Samoa? Can I still vote?+
People born in American Samoa are U.S. nationals, not automatically U.S. citizens, unless a parent was a U.S. citizen or they separately naturalize. This status allows a U.S. passport and mainland residency rights, but American Samoa residents, whether national or citizen, do not vote in U.S. presidential elections, and the territory's Congressional delegate is non-voting. Local territorial elections are separately administered by the American Samoa Election Office.
Does Nebraska really still have an inheritance tax?+
Yes, Nebraska is one of the few remaining states with an inheritance tax, and it's collected at the county level rather than by the state. Rates and exemptions depend on how closely related the heir is to the decedent, spouses are exempt and close family gets a lower rate and higher exemption than distant relatives or unrelated heirs. Legislation in 2022 and after (LB 310 and subsequent bills) raised exemptions and cut rates in stages through 2025, making it meaningfully less burdensome than it used to be, but it hasn't been repealed.
How many days do I need to be in American Samoa to count as a bona fide resident?+
183 days in the tax year is the cleanest path under the federal presence test, but there are four alternatives, including 549 days across the current and two prior years with at least 60 days each year. Meeting a presence prong alone is not enough; you also need to pass the tax home test and the closer connection test, which for American Samoa often weighs matai title, extended-family (aiga) ties, and lease-based home arrangements rather than conventional homeownership.
Is Nebraska an aggressive state for residency audits?+
No, Nebraska is not on the short list of states practitioners and taxpayer forums consistently flag as aggressive, a list dominated by New York, California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Minnesota. That said, Nebraska's statutory permanent-abode-plus-183-day test is a real, objective trigger for anyone who keeps a Nebraska home after claiming to have moved.
Considering the reverse move?
Nebraska to American Samoa
Moving the other direction is a different fact pattern, not a mirror image: exit risk and establishment mechanics both flip.
View the Nebraska to American Samoa guideAlso Consider, Leaving American Samoa
American Samoa to Nebraska Reading
Reviewed Against 12 Primary Sources
ResidencyIQ organizes public residency research into a reviewable reference. It does not provide legal or tax advice. Consult a qualified professional before making a residency decision.
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