Moving from South Carolina to Texas: Residency, Taxes, and What to Prove

In South Carolina

South Carolina's large hospital systems (MUSC in Charleston, Prisma Health, McLeod) make it a significant travel-nurse assignment market. Because South Carolina has no day-count residency trigger, a nurse working consecutive South Carolina contracts is not automatically pulled into residency the way they would be in a 183-day state; the exposure runs through South Carolina's domicile test instead, meaning a nurse who buys a home, registers to vote, or otherwise shows intent to make South Carolina permanent can become domiciled regardless of the nominal 'tax home' claimed elsewhere.

In Texas

Because Texas has no income tax, it is one of the most common states travel nurses claim as a tax home, since no Texas return is ever required regardless of how assignment income is sourced. The exposure isn't with Texas, it's federal and multi-state: the IRS still requires a genuine tax home, a Texas residence the nurse pays to maintain and returns to, to justify tax-free stipends under the duplicate-expense logic in IRS Publication 463, and any income-tax state where the nurse actually works still requires a nonresident return on wages earned there regardless of claimed Texas residency.

In South Carolina

Charleston and Greenville host minor-league and college sports rather than a major-league franchise, so South Carolina's jock-tax exposure is almost entirely on the visiting-player side: nonresident athletes on teams playing in South Carolina owe apportioned South Carolina tax on the personal-service income allocated to South Carolina duty days, following the state's general rule taxing nonresidents on South Carolina-source personal service income.

In Texas

Texas is home to the Cowboys, Texans, Mavericks, Rockets, Spurs, Rangers, and Astros, and because Texas has no income tax, athletes domiciled here owe no state tax on their home-team salary, only on the 'duty days' spent playing in states that run a jock tax on visiting players. That asymmetry makes Texas domicile a common tax-planning choice among professional athletes generally, not only those on Texas rosters.

In South Carolina

Because South Carolina runs no day-count test, a snowbird can spend an extended winter in South Carolina without becoming a resident, as long as they do not develop the intent to make South Carolina their permanent home; the Department's own guidance states a nonresident spending winter months in South Carolina does not automatically become a South Carolina resident. The risk flips for someone who buys a South Carolina home, joins clubs, opens local bank accounts, and gradually shifts their center of life there, as in Brown, where the taxpayer was found domiciled in South Carolina despite lacking a South Carolina driver's license or vehicle registration that year.

In Texas

Because there is no income-tax day count to trip, long-term visitors and part-year residents face none of the 183-day exposure that drives snowbird planning in New York or California. Texas is instead a destination snowbirds and RVers domicile through, using a homestead or a mail-forwarding domicile service, precisely because spending months elsewhere creates no Texas tax consequence to manage.

In South Carolina

South Carolina has no convenience-of-the-employer rule. A remote worker physically performing work from South Carolina owes South Carolina tax on that personal service income (since South Carolina taxes residents' personal service income regardless of source and nonresidents' South Carolina-source personal service income), and the credit for taxes paid to other states (Code § 12-6-3400) is the mechanism for avoiding double taxation if the employer's home state also asserts a claim.

In Texas

No convenience-of-the-employer rule and no income tax mean a genuine Texas remote worker owes Texas nothing on wages, regardless of where the employer is headquartered. The real risk sits with the employer's state: a remote worker may still owe tax elsewhere for days physically worked from an out-of-state office or HQ, a pattern several high-tax states actively audit for among employees who claim to have relocated to Texas.

In South Carolina

South Carolina follows the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the Military Spouses Residency Relief Act, and the Veterans Benefits and Transition Act: a servicemember does not lose or acquire South Carolina domicile solely by being present or absent under military orders, and a spouse may elect to use the servicemember's state of residence for tax purposes regardless of when the marriage occurred. Under S.C. Regulation 117-640.2, a servicemember who entered service while domiciled in South Carolina is presumed to remain a South Carolina resident for tax purposes unless they affirmatively establish a new domicile and abandon South Carolina, even if the new state (like Texas or Florida) has no income tax.

In Texas

Texas has no income tax, so service members who claim Texas as home of record owe no state tax on military pay regardless of where they're stationed, making it one of the most popular home-of-record choices in the military. Nonmilitary spouses covered under the Military Spouses Residency Relief Act can elect Texas as their tax domicile alongside the servicemember, which likewise means no state tax on the spouse's income.

In South Carolina

Charlotte Douglas (just across the North Carolina line) and smaller in-state airports mean some airline crew live in South Carolina while based elsewhere. Federal law (49 U.S.C. § 40116) limits state taxation of air carrier employees to their state of residence and, narrowly, a state where more than 50% of pay is earned; crew domiciled in South Carolina are taxed on personal service income under the state's standard resident rules.

In Texas

DFW and IAH are major hub crew bases for American Airlines and United, and Dallas Love Field is Southwest's headquarters, making Texas domicile attractive for flight crew under the federal Mobile Workforce carve-out for air carrier employees (49 U.S.C. Sec. 40116), which limits state income tax on a crew member's pay to their state of residence plus any state where they earn more than 50% of their compensation. A Texas-domiciled crew member who never crosses that 50% threshold elsewhere owes no state tax on flight pay at all.