Residency Migration Reference
Moving from New York to Illinois: Residency, Taxes, and What to Prove
New York scrutinizes departures closely, so this move is as much an exit-documentation project as a tax question: the top income tax rate drops from 10.9% (state); NYC residents add up to 3.876% city tax to 4.95% (flat).
Residency Tests Side by Side
New York's statutory residency test uses a 183-day threshold. Illinois does not use a simple day-count threshold; it applies a facts-and-circumstances test instead.
| Factor | New York | Illinois |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory Residency Test | Tax Law §605(b)(1)(B): a person not domiciled in New York is still taxed as a statutory resident on worldwide income if they (1) maintain a permanent place of abode in New York for substantially all of the taxable year and (2) spend more than 183 days of the taxable year in New York. Both prongs must be met; exactly 183 days does not trigger the test. | Illinois has no statutory residency test of the New York or Minnesota type: no bright-line day count and no permanent place of abode prong. 35 ILCS 5/1501(a)(20)(A) defines a resident as an individual '(i) who is in this State for other than a temporary or transitory purpose during the taxable year; or (ii) who is domiciled in this State but is absent from the State for a temporary or transitory purpose during the taxable year.' Those are the only two routes to Illinois residency for an individual. Cain v. Hamer, 2012 IL App (1st) 112833, shows how far that departure from a day count runs: snowbird retirees who spent 1,666 days in Illinois against 1,700 in Florida across 1996 through 2004, an average well above 183 Illinois days a year, were held not to be Illinois residents. Day counts matter in Illinois as evidence of purpose and as inputs to the administrative presumptions, not as a threshold that decides residency by itself. |
| Domicile Test | New York's Nonresident Audit Guidelines and the Tax Department's own analysts weigh five primary factors: the size, cost, and use of the home in each location; time spent in each location; the location of active business involvement; the location of near and dear personal items; and where family (spouse and minor children) live. No single factor controls; the inquiry is a facts-and-circumstances read on genuine intent, per Hodgson Russ's published residency audit guidance. | Illinois follows the traditional common-law domicile standard under 86 Ill. Adm. Code 100.3020: domicile is the place a person intends as their true, fixed, permanent home, and to which they intend to return whenever absent. A person can have only one domicile at a time, and it continues until a new one is established through both physical presence in the new location and demonstrated intent to abandon Illinois as the permanent home. The Department of Revenue looks at where a person votes, holds a driver's license and registers vehicles, banks, keeps professional relationships (doctor, lawyer, accountant), works, houses family, and belongs to clubs or religious institutions; no single factor controls. |
| Day Count Threshold | 183 days | No fixed threshold |
| Any Part of a Day Rule | Yes. Under 20 NYCRR 105.20, presence in New York for any part of a calendar day counts as a full day, including a layover, a lunch meeting, or landing after midnight. Narrow exceptions exist for people in New York solely for medical treatment or solely passing through en route to somewhere outside the state, but there is no general travel-through carve-out. | Not applicable in the statutory sense, because Illinois has no day-count threshold for an individual to cross. There is no any-part-of-a-day rule to apply. Days still get counted in Illinois practice, both because 86 Ill. Adm. Code 100.3020(f) presumes residency above nine months in the aggregate and presumes continued residency where an individual is present in Illinois more days than in any other state, and because the Department of Revenue's audit division reconstructs presence from credit card, toll, and travel records to test whether time in Illinois was temporary or transitory. |
| Presumptions | There is no separate day-count presumption beyond the two-prong statutory test itself. Since 2022, Tax Department audit guidelines define 'substantially all of the taxable year' for the permanent-place-of-abode prong as a period exceeding 10 months (previously 11 months), which makes it slightly easier for a part-year abode to fall outside the test. | 86 Ill. Adm. Code 100.3020(f) supplies four rebuttable presumptions in place of a statutory day test. An individual who spends in the aggregate more than nine months of any taxable year in Illinois is presumed to be a resident. An individual absent from Illinois for one year or more is presumed to be a nonresident. An individual receiving a homestead exemption on Illinois property under 35 ILCS 200/15-175 is presumed to be an Illinois resident. And an Illinois resident in one year is presumed to be a resident the following year 'if he or she is present in Illinois more days than he or she is present in any other state.' The presumptions 'are not conclusive and may be overcome by clear and convincing evidence to the contrary,' with the rule listing acceptable rebuttal evidence including location of spouse and dependents, voter and vehicle registration, driver's license, filing a resident return elsewhere, home ownership or rental agreements, the permanent or temporary nature of work assignments, location of professional licenses, location of medical providers, accountants and attorneys, club memberships and participation, and telephone or other utility usage over a duration of time. |
| Safe Harbors | 548-day rule | None published |
Leaving New York
New York is consistently named by practitioners as one of the most aggressive exit-audit states in the country, alongside California. High earners whose income drops sharply the year they claim to have left, people with day counts close to the 183-day line, and anyone who keeps a New York home after claiming a new domicile are the standard audit triggers. Per Hodgson Russ's published nonresident audit guide, the process is document-intensive and commonly runs 12 to 24 months.
Trailing Income
New York keeps taxing former residents through the convenience of the employer rule: a nonresident who teleworks for a New York-based employer is treated as working in New York, and therefore taxed on that income, unless the remote arrangement is a bona fide necessity of the employer rather than the employee's own convenience. Deferred compensation and stock options tied to services performed while a New York resident or while working in New York remain New York-source income even after the person moves away.
Part-Year Filing
Form IT-203, Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return, is used both for part-year residents leaving New York and for full-year nonresidents with New York-source income. The filer computes tax as if a full-year resident, then apportions it by the share of income allocable to the resident period plus any New York-source income earned during the nonresident period.
Enforcement Methods
Common Exit Mistakes
Establishing Illinois Residency
| Action | Agency | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Obtain an Illinois driver's license | Illinois Secretary of State | within 90 days of establishing residency (out-of-state license valid until then) |
| Register any vehicle kept in Illinois, with Illinois insurance in place first | Illinois Secretary of State, Vehicle Services | within 30 days of establishing residency |
| Register to vote | Illinois State Board of Elections | online and mail registration closes 16 days before an election; grace-period in-person registration and voting runs from 27 days before Election Day through Election Day |
Declaration of Domicile
Illinois has no formal declaration-of-domicile filing comparable to Florida's county-level process. Domicile is established through conduct alone: buying or leasing a home, getting the Illinois license and plates, registering to vote, and shifting the pattern of where professional, banking, and family life actually happens.
Homestead
The General Homestead Exemption reduces the equalized assessed value of an owner-occupied principal residence by up to $10,000 in Cook County, $8,000 in the counties bordering Cook, and $6,000 elsewhere, and requires ownership and occupancy as of January 1 of the tax year. It functions as useful domicile evidence for someone establishing Illinois residency, since applying for it requires attesting the home is a principal residence, and county assessors can cross-check driver's license and voter registration addresses against the exemption claim.
Voter Registration
Register online through the Illinois Online Voter Registration Application, by mail, or in person; online and mail registration closes 16 days before an election, with grace-period registration and same-day voting available from 27 days before Election Day through Election Day itself. https://ova.elections.il.gov
Vehicle Registration Deadline
30 days
New Resident Tax Traps
A new full-year Illinois resident is taxed on worldwide income from the date Illinois residency begins, computed on Form IL-1040 with Schedule NR handling the split year. Because Illinois has no capital gains preference, a large gain realized right after establishing residency (stock sale, business sale, Roth conversion) is taxed at the full 4.95% flat rate with no bracket cushion the way some other states offer at lower income levels.
What Changes on Tax
New York Top Rate
10.9% (state); NYC residents add up to 3.876% city tax
Illinois Top Rate
4.95% (flat)
Moving from New York to Illinois drops the top marginal income tax rate from about 10.9% to about 4.95%, a reduction of roughly 5.95 percentage points.
Withholding Reciprocity
New York and Illinois 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
New York and Illinois both use common law, equitable-distribution marital property rules, so no community property transition applies to this move.
Beyond Income Tax
New York
Capital gains: No preferential rate. Capital gains are taxed as ordinary income at the same graduated brackets, so a New York City resident in the top brackets can face a combined state and city rate approaching 14.8% on gains before federal tax.
Estate or inheritance tax: New York has an estate tax but no inheritance tax. The 2026 basic exclusion amount is $7,350,000. New York uses a cliff: once a taxable estate exceeds about 105% of the exclusion ($7,717,500 in 2026), the exclusion disappears entirely and the full estate value is taxed, not just the excess.
Property tax: Effective rates vary enormously by locality, from under 1% in parts of New York City (where assessment caps suppress bills) to over 2% in many upstate counties. The STAR program reduces school-tax liability on an owner-occupied primary residence and is one of the first places auditors look when a taxpayer claims nonresident status while still benefiting from it.
Sales tax: State rate is 4%, and combined state-plus-local rates average around 8.5% statewide; New York City's combined rate is 8.875%.
Illinois
Capital gains: No preferential rate. Capital gains are taxed as ordinary income at the same 4.95% flat rate as wages.
Estate or inheritance tax: Illinois has an estate tax with a $4 million exemption per estate that is not indexed for inflation and is not portable between spouses. Rates are graduated from roughly 0.8% up to 16% on the amount above the exemption. There is no separate inheritance tax.
Property tax: Illinois has the highest statewide effective property tax rate in the country, around 1.92% of home value, more than double the national median. The General Homestead Exemption reduces the taxable assessed value of an owner-occupied principal residence by up to $10,000 in Cook County, $8,000 in counties bordering Cook, and $6,000 elsewhere.
Sales tax: State base rate is 6.25%, but local home-rule and county taxes push combined rates as high as 11.5% in parts of Cook, Kane, and Warren counties; the effective statewide average is closer to 8.9%.
Who This Move Applies To
Travel Nurses
In New York
New York applies its statutory residency test the same way to a travel nurse as to anyone else: a nurse on assignment who is not domiciled in New York but keeps a New York abode for substantially all the year and works more than 183 days in the state becomes a statutory resident taxed on worldwide income. The more common New York exposure runs the other direction, when a nurse claims a Florida or Texas tax home but the facts show the real permanent place of abode is the New York apartment they actually live in during assignments; auditors look at lease length, utility bills in the nurse's name, and whether the claimed home state was ever actually occupied.
In Illinois
Illinois has no statutory day-count test to trip, so a travel nurse not domiciled in Illinois does not become an Illinois resident merely by crossing a day threshold on a long assignment. What creates exposure instead is the temporary or transitory question and the 100.3020(f) presumptions: an assignment structured as a series of renewals that keeps a nurse in Illinois more than nine months of a year, or more days than in any other state, supports a presumption of residency that must be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence, and the permanent or temporary nature of the work assignment is named in the rule as relevant evidence. The more common Illinois exposure is the reverse pattern, where a nurse claims a Florida or Texas tax home but actually lives in and pays Illinois-area rent for most of the year; Illinois-source wages for days actually worked in Illinois are taxable to any nonresident nurse regardless of claimed tax home.
Professional Athletes
In New York
New York originated the modern jock tax, and both the state and New York City tax nonresident athletes on a duty-days basis: New York-source income equals total compensation multiplied by the ratio of duty days spent in New York (games, practices, mandatory appearances, and required travel) to total duty days for the season. New York City separately taxes nonresident athlete earnings at up to 3.876%. This applies to visiting players at Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Madison Square Garden, and Barclays Center, as well as to the home-team rosters of the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, Bills, Giants, and Jets.
In Illinois
Illinois taxes nonresident professional athletes on a duty-day basis: Illinois-source income equals total compensation multiplied by the ratio of duty days in Illinois (games, practices, mandatory team functions) to total duty days for the season; mere travel through Illinois without a game or team event does not create a duty day. This applies to visiting teams playing the Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks, White Sox, and Cubs, and Illinois is regarded by practitioners as an aggressive, well-enforced jock-tax state that historically extended the tax reciprocally to any state that taxed Illinois-based athletes.
Snowbirds, Long Visitors, and RVers
In New York
The classic New York snowbird risk is keeping a New York co-op or house while wintering in Florida. Under the post-2022 guidelines, an abode used for more than 10 months of the year can satisfy 'substantially all of the taxable year,' and Obus and its Appellate Division reversal show that even a vacation home used only two or three weeks a year can be argued either way depending on whether the taxpayer has genuine, continuous access and uses it as a residence rather than merely maintaining it. Combine that abode with more than 183 days physically in New York across the year, counting any part of a day, and statutory residency attaches regardless of where the person considers home.
In Illinois
The Illinois snowbird risk runs entirely through the 100.3020(f) presumptions, not through a day threshold. A retiree who keeps the Illinois house and spends more than nine months there risks the nine-month presumption of residency, and a former Illinois resident is presumed to still be one in the following year if present in Illinois more days than in any other state, which is a comparison a snowbird splitting a year can lose well short of any traditional threshold. The favorable counterweight is Cain v. Hamer, 2012 IL App (1st) 112833, where retirees who split time nearly evenly (1,666 Illinois days against 1,700 Florida days across 1996 through 2004) were held nonresidents, with the court weighing nexus evidence such as Florida licenses, voter registration, a Florida declaration of domicile, club spending, and credit card data showing 73% of expenditures and 61% of transactions outside Illinois. Illinois's General Homestead Exemption is a specific cross-check point if a person claims Florida domicile but keeps the Illinois exemption active.
Remote Workers
In New York
New York's convenience of the employer rule is the single biggest trap for remote workers with a New York-based employer. If a nonresident employee works from home in another state for their own convenience rather than the employer's necessity, New York treats those days as New York workdays and taxes the income, frequently creating double taxation with the employee's home state. The Tax Appeals Tribunal reaffirmed the rule again in Matter of Zelinsky (2025); the only real escape is documenting a bona fide employer necessity, such as the employer having no New York office to work from.
In Illinois
Illinois has no convenience-of-the-employer rule. A nonresident who works remotely from another state for an Illinois-based employer is generally not taxed by Illinois on those wages, because Illinois sources employee compensation to where the services are physically performed, not to the employer's location. This makes Illinois meaningfully less sticky for remote workers than New York or a handful of other convenience-rule states.
Military
In New York
New York generally follows the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and Military Spouses Residency Relief Act: a servicemember stationed in New York on orders does not become a New York domiciliary solely because of the duty station, and military pay is exempt from New York tax for a nonresident servicemember stationed there. A servicemember who was domiciled in New York before enlisting remains a New York domiciliary unless they affirmatively change domicile.
In Illinois
Illinois follows the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and Military Spouses Residency Relief Act. A servicemember whose home of record is Illinois remains an Illinois domiciliary for tax purposes regardless of duty station unless they take affirmative steps to change domicile, while a servicemember stationed in Illinois on orders, and their qualifying spouse, does not become an Illinois resident solely because of the posting, and military pay is not Illinois-source income for a nonresident servicemember stationed there.
Airline Crew
In New York
Federal law (49 U.S.C. §40116) limits states to taxing air carrier employee compensation only in the employee's state of residence and any state where the employee earns more than 50% of their pay. This protects flight crew based at a New York hub, such as JFK or LaGuardia, who are domiciled elsewhere from having their full income pulled into New York taxation solely because their duty station is there.
In Illinois
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. This protects flight crew based at O'Hare or Midway who are domiciled outside Illinois from having their full compensation pulled into Illinois taxation solely because their duty station is in Illinois.
Tools for This Move
New York to Illinois FAQ
If I rent apartments in both New York and Florida and go back and forth all year, how could the state ever prove I was in New York more than 183 days?+
New York's audit program is built for exactly this pattern. Auditors reconstruct day counts from cell phone location data, EZ-Pass toll records, credit and debit card statements, and even medical or veterinary appointments, then compare that reconstruction against your own return. Because any part of a calendar day in New York counts as a full day under 20 NYCRR 105.20, a single afternoon meeting can move the count. The burden of proof is on you, not the state, so the absence of your own contemporaneous records is itself a disadvantage in an audit.
Does Illinois have a 183-day rule like New York or Minnesota?+
No. This is the single most common misconception about Illinois residency. 35 ILCS 5/1501(a)(20) contains no day-count threshold and no permanent place of abode prong; a resident is someone in Illinois for other than a temporary or transitory purpose, or an Illinois domiciliary absent for a temporary or transitory purpose. What Illinois has instead are the rebuttable presumptions in 86 Ill. Adm. Code 100.3020(f), including a presumption of residency above nine months in the aggregate and a presumption that a prior-year resident remains one if present in Illinois more days than in any other state. The practical difference is real in both directions: crossing 183 Illinois days does not by itself make you a resident, and staying under 183 does not by itself make you a nonresident.
Does keeping an empty apartment in New York count against me if I've moved to Florida?+
It can, but it isn't automatic. Under Matter of Gaied, the Court of Appeals held that merely owning or holding the keys to a New York dwelling isn't enough to make it a permanent place of abode; there has to be evidence you actually use it as a residence. An apartment sitting genuinely empty and unused cuts against a permanent-place-of-abode finding. An apartment you or your family still stay in, even occasionally, is a much harder sell as abandoned.
If I move to Florida but keep my Chicago condo, will Illinois still tax me?+
Keeping the condo does not by itself make you taxable, because Illinois has no permanent place of abode test that a retained condo could trigger. The risk runs through purpose and presumptions instead. If you spend more than nine months of the year in Illinois, or simply more days there than in any other state after a year as an Illinois resident, the Department gets a presumption of residency you can rebut only by clear and convincing evidence. Continuing to claim the General Homestead Exemption on the condo is worse than the condo itself, since that alone creates its own presumption of Illinois residency and is a cross-check Illinois auditors run directly against a claimed out-of-state domicile.
Can I still visit my parents in New York after I claim residency somewhere else without it hurting my case?+
Visiting itself isn't the problem; day counting is. Every day you spend any part of in New York, including a day trip to see your parents, counts toward the 183-day statutory residency threshold if you also maintain a New York abode for substantially all the year. Occasional visits without a New York home available to you are lower risk. The combination of frequent visits and a place to stay, like a childhood bedroom you still use, is what auditors look for.
Does Illinois have a convenience-of-the-employer rule for remote workers?+
No. Illinois sources employee wages to where the work is physically performed, not to where the employer is headquartered. A nonresident who works remotely from another state for a Chicago-based employer generally is not taxed by Illinois on those wages, which is a meaningful difference from convenience-rule states like New York, and it means remote workers face less Illinois exposure after moving away than they might expect.
My employer won't update my payroll state after I moved out of New York. Am I stuck paying New York tax?+
Withholding address alone doesn't establish tax residency, but it does create a paper trail that contradicts your claimed move and can trigger a notice. More importantly, if you continue working remotely for a New York-based employer, New York's convenience of the employer rule can independently tax those wages as New York-source income unless the remote arrangement is a bona fide necessity of the employer, not just your own preference. Fixing the payroll address doesn't fix the convenience rule exposure; those are two separate problems.
How do I file my Illinois taxes for the year I move out of state?+
File Form IL-1040 together with Schedule NR, the Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Computation of Illinois Tax. Schedule NR splits your income between the period you were an Illinois resident, which is taxed in full, and the period after you became a nonresident, when only Illinois-source income is taxed. Skipping Schedule NR and simply filing as a full-year nonresident in your move year is a common and easily flagged mistake.
How does New York's convenience of the employer rule actually work for remote workers?+
If you're a nonresident who works from home for a New York-based employer, New York treats your home-office days as New York workdays, and taxes that income, unless you can show the remote work was a necessity for the employer rather than your own convenience. The Tax Appeals Tribunal reaffirmed this again in Matter of Zelinsky in 2025. The practical effect is that many remote employees of New York companies owe New York tax on nearly all of their income even though they never set foot in the state, which can also create double taxation with their home state.
I work in Illinois but live in Wisconsin. Do I have to file two state returns?+
Illinois has reciprocity with Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky, and Michigan, so a Wisconsin resident working in Illinois generally does not owe Illinois tax on those wages and should not have Illinois tax withheld; instead, only Wisconsin taxes that income. If Illinois tax was withheld in error, you file for a refund from Illinois rather than claiming a credit, and you report the income on your Wisconsin return as usual.
Is it true a New York residency case once turned on where a guy's dog lived?+
Yes. In Matter of Blatt, a CEO who relocated from New York City to Dallas for a new job won his residency case largely because he finally moved his elderly rescue dog to Texas, which the administrative law judge treated as the clearest evidence of genuine intent to relocate. It outweighed the Manhattan apartment he still owned and the boat he kept in the Hamptons, and it landed months before he got a Texas driver's license or registered to vote there. It's a real illustration of how New York's domicile test looks past paperwork to small, honest signals of where someone actually built their life.
Will keeping the homestead exemption on my Illinois house hurt me if I claim Florida residency?+
Yes, it's a direct contradiction auditors specifically look for. The General Homestead Exemption requires the property to be your owner-occupied principal residence as of January 1, so continuing to receive it while filing as an Illinois nonresident and claiming Florida domicile undercuts your own position. If you've genuinely moved, removing the exemption is one of the concrete steps that supports your new domicile claim.
Considering the reverse move?
Illinois to New York
Moving the other direction is a different fact pattern, not a mirror image: exit risk and establishment mechanics both flip.
View the Illinois to New York guideAlso Consider, Leaving New York
New York to Illinois Reading
Reviewed Against 40 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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