Residency Migration Reference
Moving from American Samoa to Wyoming: 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 None in Wyoming. Establishing Wyoming residency correctly is what protects that benefit.
Residency Tests Side by Side
American Samoa's statutory residency test uses a 183-day threshold. Wyoming does not use a simple day-count threshold; it applies a facts-and-circumstances test instead.
| Factor | American Samoa | Wyoming |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Wyoming has no state income tax residency test to pass, because it has no individual income tax. There is no statutory day-count threshold, no permanent-place-of-abode rule, and no state agency that determines 'resident individual' status for income tax purposes the way California, New York, or the other states in this dataset do. The genuinely operative question for someone moving to Wyoming to change their tax domicile is not what Wyoming requires, it's whether the person's former state agrees the domicile actually left. Wyoming residency still matters for other purposes (voter registration, in-state tuition, hunting and fishing licenses, vehicle registration), each governed by its own separate statute. |
| 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). | Wyoming's own law does not need to define domicile for income tax purposes, since there's no income tax it applies to. What matters in practice is whether the taxpayer's prior state of domicile (California, New York, and other high-tax states are the ones that generate the most disputes) is satisfied under its own domicile test that a genuine change occurred. Evidence commonly used to support a Wyoming domicile claim mirrors what any state would look for: a real, used Wyoming home (not just a mailing address), Wyoming driver's license and vehicle registration, Wyoming voter registration, time actually spent in Wyoming, and severed or reduced ties to the old state. |
| Day Count Threshold | 183 days | No fixed threshold |
| 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. | Not applicable; Wyoming has no day-count residency rule of its own. A person's day count against another state's statutory residency threshold (for example, a former home state's 183-day test) is governed entirely by that other state's rules, not Wyoming's. |
| Presumptions | None published | None; not applicable in the absence of an income tax residency framework. |
| 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 Wyoming Residency
| Action | Agency | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Get a Wyoming driver's license | Wyoming Department of Transportation | commonly cited guidance is to obtain one within about a year of establishing residency, or upon expiration of the out-of-state license, though the timing is comparatively loosely enforced next to states with a strict 30- or 60-day window |
| Title and register vehicles in Wyoming | Wyoming Department of Transportation / county treasurer and clerk | within 30 days of establishing residency or gaining Wyoming employment |
| Register to vote | Wyoming Secretary of State / county clerk | 14 days before an election for advance registration; same-day registration is available at the polls on Election Day |
Declaration of Domicile
Wyoming has no formal declaration-of-domicile filing comparable to Florida's. Because Wyoming itself has no income tax stake in the question, the practical work of proving domicile happens entirely in the documentation a person builds and keeps for their former state's benefit: a genuine Wyoming home (owned or leased, not just a P.O. box or registered-agent address), Wyoming driver's license, vehicle registration, and voter registration, and a real, provable pattern of time spent in Wyoming.
Homestead
Wyoming's homestead exemption (Wyo. Stat. §1-20-101) automatically protects up to $100,000 of equity in an owner-occupied primary residence from most creditors while the home is occupied by the owner or family, with no filing required. Because it's automatic and requires no affirmative declaration, it's weaker as dated proof of a domicile change than a state requiring a recorded filing, so a genuine Wyoming mover should not rely on the homestead exemption alone as evidence of when domicile changed.
Voter Registration
Advance registration must be received 14 days before an election; Wyoming also allows same-day registration and voting at the polls on Election Day. https://sos.wyo.gov/Elections/State/RegisteringToVote.aspx
Vehicle Registration Deadline
30 days
New Resident Tax Traps
There is no Wyoming-side tax trap for new residents, since Wyoming taxes nothing at the individual level. The trap is entirely on the other end: a new arrival's former state may continue to treat them as a resident, and tax their worldwide income, until that state is independently satisfied domicile actually changed, regardless of how quickly or thoroughly the person establishes Wyoming ties. Wyoming is also well known nationally for its LLC and asset-protection trust laws; forming a Wyoming LLC or trust is a separate legal and tax planning tool from personal residency and does not, by itself, establish or evidence an individual's personal domicile.
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
Wyoming Top Rate
None
Moving from American Samoa to Wyoming drops the top marginal income tax rate from about 15% to about 0%, a reduction of roughly 15 percentage points.
Withholding Reciprocity
American Samoa and Wyoming 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 Wyoming 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.
Wyoming
Capital gains: Not applicable; Wyoming does not tax capital gains because it has no individual income tax of any kind. A capital gain realized while domiciled in Wyoming is untouched at the state level regardless of size or holding period.
Estate or inheritance tax: None. Wyoming has no estate tax and no inheritance tax.
Property tax: Effective rate is roughly 0.53% of value, low relative to most states. Wyoming's homestead exemption (Wyo. Stat. §1-20-101) protects up to $100,000 of equity in an owner-occupied primary residence from most creditors, automatically while the home is occupied by the owner or their family, with no filing required; older secondary sources still circulating online cite an outdated $10,000 or $20,000 figure from before the statute was amended.
Sales tax: 4.00% state rate, with an average combined state-and-local rate of about 5.36%, among the lowest combined rates in the country. Groceries for home consumption are exempt.
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 Wyoming
Wyoming's small, dispersed population (Cheyenne, Casper, and a handful of regional hospitals) makes it a minor travel-nurse market. A nurse genuinely domiciled in Wyoming who takes Wyoming or nearby-state contracts owes no Wyoming income tax on any of it and must still file nonresident returns in whatever income-tax states they actually work in. Because Wyoming has no income tax and no domicile test of its own, a nurse claiming a Wyoming tax home needs to satisfy the IRS's federal tax-home rules and, if their former state disputes the change, that state's own domicile evidence standards, not any Wyoming-specific requirement.
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 Wyoming
Wyoming has no major professional sports franchise in the four big US leagues. A Wyoming-domiciled athlete playing professionally elsewhere pays zero Wyoming tax on any of their income but is taxed by every other state they earn duty days in under that state's own jock-tax apportionment rules, making genuine Wyoming domicile more valuable for athletes with large contracts than for most other professions.
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 Wyoming
Wyoming's snowbird dynamic runs opposite the Sun Belt pattern: Jackson Hole and the areas around Grand Teton and Yellowstone draw wealthy second-home buyers who spend part of the year in Wyoming specifically to shift tax domicile away from a high-tax state, while much of Wyoming's own population may leave in the depths of winter without any risk of losing Wyoming domicile, since Wyoming has no day-count rule to violate. The entire exposure in these cases sits with the person's former state's day-count and domicile rules, not Wyoming's.
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 Wyoming
Wyoming has no convenience-of-employer rule and, having no income tax, nothing for such a rule to apply to. Wyoming has drawn a modest but real population of remote workers and business owners specifically for the zero-income-tax, zero-corporate-tax combination, but the tax benefit only materializes if the worker's former high-tax state actually accepts the domicile change; a remote worker who keeps living primarily in California while claiming Wyoming domicile purely on paper gains nothing and adds audit risk.
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 Wyoming
Wyoming follows the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and Military Spouses Residency Relief Act. F.E. Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne is Wyoming's major installation; because Wyoming has no income tax, a service member who is genuinely Wyoming-domiciled pays no state tax on military pay regardless of where stationed, which is part of why many service members from other states use a Wyoming posting or family ties to establish Wyoming as their state of legal residence for tax purposes going forward.
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 Wyoming
Wyoming's airports (Jackson Hole being the busiest, largely for seasonal tourist traffic) are not major airline crew bases. Federal law (49 U.S.C. §40116) limiting state taxation of air carrier employees to their state of residence and any state where they earn more than 50% of pay is most relevant here to Wyoming-domiciled crew who fly for carriers based elsewhere, since a genuine Wyoming domicile means no state tax on any of that income.
Tools for This Move
American Samoa to Wyoming 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 Wyoming have a 183-day rule or any residency test for income tax?+
No. Wyoming has no individual income tax, so it has no statutory day-count test, no permanent-place-of-abode rule, and no domicile test for tax purposes. The day-count and domicile rules that actually matter when you move to Wyoming are your former state's, since that state decides whether it agrees you've genuinely left.
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.
If I move to Wyoming, does my old state still tax me?+
Possibly, until your old state is satisfied you've genuinely changed domicile under its own rules. Wyoming imposes no requirements of its own to satisfy; the burden is entirely on proving to your former state, using real evidence like where you actually live and spend your time, that your center of life moved to Wyoming.
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 forming a Wyoming LLC or trust make me a Wyoming resident?+
No. A Wyoming LLC, registered agent address, or trust is a separate legal and tax-planning structure from your personal domicile. It doesn't establish, and doesn't need to establish, your individual residency, and relying on it as proof of a personal move is a common and risky mistake in a former-state audit.
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.
Does Wyoming tax Social Security or retirement income?+
No. Wyoming has no individual income tax at all, so Social Security, pensions, 401(k) and IRA withdrawals, and every other form of retirement income are untaxed at the state level once you're genuinely Wyoming-domiciled.
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 Wyoming have a capital gains tax?+
No. Because Wyoming has no individual income tax, capital gains realized while you're a genuine Wyoming domiciliary aren't taxed by the state regardless of the size of the gain or how long you held the asset.
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.
What form do I file for a part-year move to or from Wyoming?+
None, on the Wyoming side. Wyoming has no individual income tax return of any kind. If you moved from a state with an income tax, you'll file that state's own part-year resident return for the year of the move; Wyoming doesn't require anything comparable.
Considering the reverse move?
Wyoming 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 Wyoming to American Samoa guideAlso Consider, Leaving American Samoa
American Samoa to Wyoming Reading
Reviewed Against 14 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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