Residency Migration Reference
Moving from Indiana to New Hampshire: Residency, Taxes, and What to Prove
The top income tax rate drops from 2.95% (flat, state) + county income tax in Indiana to 0% in New Hampshire. Establishing New Hampshire residency correctly is what protects that benefit.
Residency Tests Side by Side
Indiana's statutory residency test uses a 183-day threshold. New Hampshire does not use a simple day-count threshold; it applies a facts-and-circumstances test instead.
| Factor | Indiana | New Hampshire |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory Residency Test | Indiana Code 6-3-1-12 and 45 IAC 3.1-1-21 define a resident two independent ways: an individual domiciled in Indiana during the tax year, or an individual who is not domiciled in Indiana but maintains a permanent place of residence in the state and spends more than 183 days of the taxable year in Indiana. Indiana guidance explicitly notes the 183-day/permanent-residence test is a separate, independent basis for residency, not itself a test for domicile. | New Hampshire has no day-count statutory residency test for income tax purposes, because it has no individual income tax to trigger one. 'Resident or inhabitant' is instead defined for general legal purposes (voting, jury duty, in-state tuition, and similar) under RSA 21:6 and RSA 21:6-a: a person domiciled or having a place of abode in New Hampshire whose actions demonstrate a current intent to make that place their principal place of physical presence to the exclusion of all others. |
| Domicile Test | Under 45 IAC 3.1-1-22.5, Indiana presumes a person has not abandoned Indiana domicile if they maintained a permanent residence in Indiana and satisfy at least one of: claiming a homestead deduction or military tax exemption on an Indiana home, voting in Indiana, occupying an Indiana residence more days of the year than any other single state, claiming a federal tax benefit based on Indiana being the principal residence, or having a place of employment or business in Indiana. Supplementary factors include driver's license and vehicle registration location, dependent claims, mailing address, bank accounts, organizational memberships, and where professional services and valuables are located. | Under RSA 21:6-a, 'residence or residency shall mean a person's place of abode or domicile... designated by a person as his or her principal place of physical presence to the exclusion of all others,' and that status 'shall not be interrupted or lost by a temporary absence... if there is an intent to return.' RSA 21:6 adds that the person must have, 'through all of his or her actions, demonstrated a current intent' to treat that place of abode as their principal residence, an actions-based test rather than a pure declaration of intent. |
| Day Count Threshold | 183 days | No fixed threshold |
| Any Part of a Day Rule | Indiana's statute uses 'more than 183 days,' which mirrors New York's and Illinois's phrasing; Indiana guidance does not publish a specific carve-out exempting partial days, and practitioners treat any day with meaningful Indiana presence as counting toward the total absent a documented exception like medical treatment or transit. | Not applicable. New Hampshire runs no day-count residency test of its own for tax purposes; day counts only matter when a former New Hampshire resident is being evaluated under another state's own statutory-residency rule. |
| Presumptions | 45 IAC 3.1-1-22.5 creates a presumption against abandonment of Indiana domicile whenever a person kept a permanent Indiana residence and meets at least one of the five primary factors listed above (homestead claim, voting, most-days-in-state, federal filing benefit, or Indiana employment); this presumption is rebuttable but places real weight on continuing to hold any one of those Indiana connections. | None published |
| Safe Harbors | None published | None published |
Leaving Indiana
Indiana is not generally characterized by practitioners as an aggressive residency-audit state compared with its neighbors; its flat, comparatively low income tax rate reduces the dollar incentive for the Department of Revenue to pursue contested domicile cases the way high-rate states do. The Department does issue individual Letters of Findings resolving residency disputes, including cases finding a taxpayer was not subject to Indiana tax because they had established domicile in another state based on objective evidence like a home purchase and filings there, showing Indiana does examine claims on a case-by-case basis rather than running the kind of broad, headline exit-audit programs seen in New York or Minnesota.
Trailing Income
Indiana has no convenience-of-the-employer rule, so a former resident who works remotely from another state for an Indiana-based employer is generally not taxed by Indiana on those wages once genuinely nonresident, since Indiana sources employee compensation to where the work is physically performed. Indiana does continue to tax Indiana-source income after departure, including gain on Indiana real property and a departing resident's share of Indiana business income for the period they operated in the state.
Part-Year Filing
Form IT-40PNR, Indiana Part-Year and Full-Year Nonresident Individual Income Tax Return, is used for the year a taxpayer moves into or out of Indiana. It allocates income between the Indiana-resident portion of the year and the nonresident portion, and also handles the county income tax allocation based on county of residence or principal work location as of January 1 or as of the move date, depending on the specific county tax rule that applies.
Enforcement Methods
Common Exit Mistakes
Establishing New Hampshire Residency
| Action | Agency | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Get a New Hampshire driver's license | NH Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) | within 60 days of establishing residency |
| Register vehicles | NH DMV / municipal clerk | within 60 days of establishing residency (NH RSA 261:45 and 263:35) |
| Register to vote (same-day registration available) | NH Secretary of State / town or city clerk | no advance deadline; you can register and vote on Election Day itself with proof of domicile |
Declaration of Domicile
New Hampshire has no formal declaration-of-domicile filing. Domicile/residence under RSA 21:6-a is established through conduct and documentation: a New Hampshire driver's license, vehicle registration, and voter registration all showing your New Hampshire address, each of which is explicitly accepted as domicile proof when you register to vote.
Homestead
New Hampshire has no broad homestead property-tax exemption comparable to Florida's or Maine's. It does provide the narrowly targeted Low & Moderate Income Homeowners Property Tax Relief program (RSA 198:57), which refunds a portion of the State Education Property Tax for owner-occupants with AGI at or below roughly $20,000 (single) or $40,000 (married/head of household), and separate age-based elderly exemptions set by individual towns. Neither functions as general domicile evidence the way a Florida or North Dakota homestead credit does.
Voter Registration
New Hampshire allows same-day registration: register in advance at your town or city clerk's office, or simply show up at the polls on Election Day with proof of identity, age, citizenship, and domicile (a NH driver's license, non-driver photo ID, or vehicle registration showing your domicile address all qualify). https://www.doj.nh.gov/bureaus/election-law-unit/establishing-domicileresidence-new-hampshire
Vehicle Registration Deadline
60 days
New Resident Tax Traps
There is effectively no individual income-tax trap on the way in, since New Hampshire taxes none of it. The real trap is the opposite of most states: New Hampshire's high property tax (roughly 2.1% average effective rate, the highest in New England) can offset a large share of the income-tax savings that drew someone here from Massachusetts, and anyone who continues working for a Massachusetts employer needs to separately confirm Massachusetts is no longer sourcing their wages.
What Changes on Tax
Indiana Top Rate
2.95% (flat, state) + county income tax
New Hampshire Top Rate
0%
Moving from Indiana to New Hampshire drops the top marginal income tax rate from about 2.95% to about 0%, a reduction of roughly 2.95 percentage points.
Withholding Reciprocity
Indiana and New Hampshire 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
Indiana and New Hampshire both use common law, equitable-distribution marital property rules, so no community property transition applies to this move.
Beyond Income Tax
Indiana
Capital gains: No preferential rate. Capital gains are taxed as ordinary income at the flat state rate plus the applicable county rate.
Estate or inheritance tax: Indiana has no state estate tax and no inheritance tax; Indiana repealed its inheritance tax effective 2013. Only the federal estate tax, with its roughly $15 million per-person exemption in 2026, can apply to an Indiana decedent's estate.
Property tax: Indiana's average effective property tax rate is around 0.8% of home value, among the lower rates in the Midwest. The Homestead Standard Deduction reduces assessed value by the lesser of $48,000 or 60% of assessed value for an owner-occupied principal residence, with an additional supplemental deduction on the remaining value; county auditors are directed to develop procedures specifically to catch owners whose actual principal residence is outside Indiana.
Sales tax: Indiana has a flat statewide 7% sales tax, sometimes called the Gross Retail Tax, with no additional local sales tax layered on top anywhere in the state.
New Hampshire
Capital gains: Not taxed at the individual level. With the Interest and Dividends Tax gone, New Hampshire has no mechanism left to tax an individual's capital gains, interest, or dividend income; only the state's business taxes (Business Profits Tax, Business Enterprise Tax) reach investment-type income earned through a business entity.
Estate or inheritance tax: None. New Hampshire has no estate tax and no inheritance tax; only the federal estate tax can apply to a New Hampshire domiciliary's estate above the federal exemption.
Property tax: New Hampshire funds most local and school services through property tax in the absence of income or sales tax, producing the highest average effective property tax rate in New England, commonly cited around 2.1% of home value. There is no broad homestead exemption; the state instead runs a targeted Low & Moderate Income Homeowners Property Tax Relief program (RSA 198:57) for the State Education Property Tax portion only, capped at roughly $20,000 AGI (single) or $40,000 (married/head of household).
Sales tax: None. New Hampshire has no general state or local sales tax, a major draw for cross-border shoppers from Massachusetts and Maine.
Who This Move Applies To
Travel Nurses
In Indiana
Indiana applies its ordinary domicile and 183-day/permanent-residence tests to a travel nurse the same as anyone else: a nurse not domiciled in Indiana who keeps a permanent Indiana residence and is present more than 183 days becomes an Indiana resident on worldwide income for that year, plus the applicable county tax. The more frequent exposure runs the other way, where a nurse claims a Florida or Texas tax home while actually renting in Indiana for most of an assignment; Indiana taxes nonresident wages for days actually worked in the state regardless of the claimed tax home.
In New Hampshire
New Hampshire has no state income tax to complicate a travel nurse's tax-home analysis, which makes it an attractive tax-home state to claim, similar to Florida or Texas, provided the nurse genuinely maintains and returns to a New Hampshire home between assignments under the general IRS tax-home rules (Publication 463). New Hampshire itself publishes no nurse-specific guidance because it has no individual filing requirement to trigger one.
Professional Athletes
In Indiana
Indiana taxes nonresident professional athletes using the standard duty-day formula applied across nearly all income-tax states: total season compensation multiplied by the ratio of Indiana duty days (games, practices, and mandatory team functions in the state) to total duty days for the season. This applies to visiting NFL and NBA teams playing the Colts and Pacers in Indianapolis, and Indiana's flat, comparatively low rate means the dollar amount at stake per game is smaller than in higher-rate states, though the filing obligation is the same.
In New Hampshire
New Hampshire has no major professional sports franchises, so it runs no state jock-tax regime of its own, and because it has no income tax, a New Hampshire-domiciled athlete owes zero state tax on the share of income attributable to New Hampshire duty days, unlike a player based in a state that both taxes and credits.
Snowbirds, Long Visitors, and RVers
In Indiana
The Indiana snowbird risk runs through the same domicile-abandonment presumption that protects year-round Indiana residents: a retiree who keeps a permanent Indiana residence, continues to vote in Indiana, or keeps the homestead deduction active while wintering in Florida is presumed not to have abandoned Indiana domicile. Separately, spending more than 183 days in Indiana in a year while maintaining a permanent Indiana residence independently triggers Indiana residency regardless of domicile intent.
In New Hampshire
New Hampshire places no day-count cap on long visitors of its own, since it has no statutory residency test. The exposure runs entirely the other way: someone who claims New Hampshire domicile to escape a high-tax origin state (most commonly Massachusetts) but still spends significant time and keeps a home in that origin state can be taxed there as a statutory resident regardless of the New Hampshire claim.
Remote Workers
In Indiana
Indiana has no convenience-of-the-employer rule. A nonresident who works remotely from another state for an Indiana-based employer is generally not taxed by Indiana on those wages, since Indiana sources employee compensation to where the work is physically performed rather than to the employer's location.
In New Hampshire
New Hampshire has no convenience-of-the-employer rule (it has nothing to source, having no income tax). The real friction runs the other direction: a remote worker who moves to New Hampshire but keeps a Massachusetts-based employer needs to confirm Massachusetts is not still asserting Massachusetts-source treatment of the wages under its own COVID-era sourcing rules, which New Hampshire itself challenged (unsuccessfully, at the Supreme Court) on behalf of its residents in 2020-2021.
Military
In Indiana
Indiana follows the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and Military Spouses Residency Relief Act. A servicemember whose domicile was Indiana before entering service remains an Indiana domiciliary regardless of duty station unless they affirmatively establish a new domicile, while a servicemember stationed in Indiana on orders, and a qualifying spouse, does not become an Indiana resident solely because of the posting; Indiana also allows a deduction for certain military retirement income.
In New Hampshire
New Hampshire follows the federal SCRA and MSRRA: a service member's home-of-record does not change solely because military orders station them in New Hampshire, and an accompanying spouse can generally elect the service member's domicile state under MSRRA. Because New Hampshire taxes no individual income, choosing it as home-of-record eliminates state income tax on military pay entirely.
Airline Crew
In Indiana
Federal law (49 U.S.C. §40116) limits states to taxing airline employee compensation only in the employee's state of residence and any state where more than 50% of pay is earned, protecting flight crew based at Indianapolis International who are domiciled outside Indiana from full-income Indiana taxation based solely on their duty station.
In New Hampshire
New Hampshire has no major hub airport for airline crew, but the federal carve-out (49 U.S.C. § 40116, taxing crew wages only in the state of residence or a state where over 50% of pay is earned) combined with New Hampshire's lack of any income tax makes it, like Florida and Texas, a common domicile choice for crew based at nearby Boston Logan who want to avoid Massachusetts income tax on their wages.
Tools for This Move
Indiana to New Hampshire FAQ
Does Indiana have a 183-day rule separate from domicile?+
Yes, and Indiana is explicit that the two are independent tests. Under IC 6-3-1-12 and 45 IAC 3.1-1-21, you're an Indiana resident if you're domiciled in Indiana, or separately, if you're not domiciled in Indiana but maintain a permanent Indiana residence and spend more than 183 days in the state during the year. Indiana's own guidance says the 183-day test is not itself a test for domicile, so you can fail one and still be caught by the other.
Does New Hampshire still tax my interest and dividends?+
No. New Hampshire's Interest and Dividends Tax, which had applied a declining rate down to 3% by 2024, was fully repealed for tax periods beginning January 1, 2025, under House Bill 2. New Hampshire now has zero individual income tax of any kind, on wages, dividends, interest, or capital gains.
If I move to Florida but keep voting absentee or in person in Indiana, does that hurt my case?+
Yes, directly. Indiana's domicile-abandonment rule under 45 IAC 3.1-1-22.5 presumes you haven't given up Indiana domicile if you keep a permanent Indiana residence and continue voting in Indiana, among other listed factors. Re-registering to vote in your new state, and actually voting there, is one of the more concrete steps that supports a genuine domicile change.
If I move to New Hampshire but keep working for my Massachusetts employer, will Massachusetts still tax my wages?+
Possibly, depending on how your employer sources the wages and how much you actually work from New Hampshire versus commuting into Massachusetts. New Hampshire itself sued Massachusetts over its pandemic-era rule taxing New Hampshire residents' wages as if earned in Massachusetts; the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2021, so the practical fight over sourcing happens on the Massachusetts side, not in New Hampshire, which has nothing to tax either way.
Will keeping the homestead deduction on my Indiana house hurt me if I claim I moved to Florida?+
Yes. Indiana law specifically directs the Department of Local Government Finance and county auditors to develop procedures to identify homestead deduction claimants whose actual principal residence is outside Indiana, so continuing to claim it while filing as a nonresident elsewhere is exactly the kind of contradiction those procedures are built to catch. If you've genuinely moved, notifying your county auditor to remove the deduction is one of the concrete steps supporting your new domicile.
Do I need to file a New Hampshire tax return once I move here?+
No individual income tax return exists to file. If you own a sole proprietorship, partnership, or other pass-through business with New Hampshire activity, you may still owe the Business Profits Tax (7.5% on business profits) and Business Enterprise Tax, filed on Form NH-1040, but that is a business filing, not a personal residency filing.
How does Indiana's county income tax work if I move counties or move out of state mid-year?+
On top of the flat 2.95% state rate, every Indiana county levies its own income tax, ranging roughly from 0.5% to over 3%, and your county rate generally depends on your county of residence. When you move into or out of Indiana mid-year, Form IT-40PNR handles both the state and county allocation for the split year, which makes Indiana's exit-year filing meaningfully more involved than a state with a single flat rate and no local layer.
How can I prove I actually live in New Hampshire and not just claim it on paper?+
Because New Hampshire has no income tax audit process to satisfy, the proof that matters is whatever your former high-tax state (commonly Massachusetts) demands to disprove its own residency claim: a New Hampshire driver's license and vehicle registration, voter registration under RSA 21:6-a's domicile standard, a day-count log showing more time in New Hampshire than the old state, and evidence the New Hampshire home is your actual principal place of physical presence.
I live in Kentucky and work in Indiana. Do I owe Indiana income tax on my wages?+
No, not on wages. Indiana has reciprocity agreements with Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, so a Kentucky resident's wages earned working in Indiana are taxed only by Kentucky, not Indiana, and Indiana withholding should not apply. Reciprocity covers wage income only; investment, rental, and business income from Indiana sources are still taxable by Indiana.
Is New Hampshire property tax really that high if there's no income or sales tax?+
Yes. New Hampshire's average effective property tax rate runs around 2.1%, the highest in New England, because property tax funds most local and school services in the absence of income or sales tax revenue. For a high-value home, that can offset a meaningful share of the income-tax savings that motivated the move, especially for someone leaving a state with a moderate income tax rate.
Does Indiana tax my Social Security or pension after I retire?+
Social Security is fully exempt from both Indiana state and county tax. Pension, 401(k), and IRA distributions are taxed as ordinary income at the flat state rate plus your county's local rate, since Indiana doesn't offer the kind of broad age-based retirement income exclusion that Illinois or Michigan provide, aside from a modest deduction for certain military and railroad retirement income.
How long do I have to get a New Hampshire driver's license and register my car after moving here?+
You have 60 days from establishing residency to do both, under RSA 261:45 and RSA 263:35. Most town clerk offices recommend registering the vehicle first and getting the license the same visit, since both can typically be handled together.
Considering the reverse move?
New Hampshire to Indiana
Moving the other direction is a different fact pattern, not a mirror image: exit risk and establishment mechanics both flip.
View the New Hampshire to Indiana guideAlso Consider, Leaving Indiana
Indiana to New Hampshire 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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