Virginia Residency

Under Virginia Code §58.1-302, if you're not domiciled in Virginia but maintain a place of abode there for more than 183 aggregate days during the year, you become an actual resident taxed on worldwide income regardless of domicile. Virginia counts aggregate days maintaining the abode, not a stricter any-part-of-day rule, so total days present across the year is what matters, not just individual short visits.

Yes, significantly. Virginia's domicile test requires proof you abandoned Virginia domicile with no intent to return and established a new one elsewhere with genuine intent to remain. Virginia Tax's published guidance treats continuing Virginia ties like a Virginia driver's license or voter registration as evidence you have not actually abandoned Virginia domicile, even if you're now physically living somewhere else most of the time.

Two separate tests can catch you. First, if you're not domiciled in Virginia but maintain a Virginia abode for more than 183 aggregate days in the year, you're an actual resident regardless of domicile. Second, if you are domiciled in Virginia, you remain a domiciliary resident on worldwide income unless you can prove you both abandoned Virginia domicile with no intent to return and established genuine domicile elsewhere, which retained Virginia ties like a driver's license or voter registration can undercut.

It can. Virginia Tax's guidance treats a return to the state within about six months of leaving as generally indicating you never actually intended to establish residency elsewhere, which works against a claimed domicile change for the period in between. This mirrors similar boomerang-style rules used by neighboring states like Kentucky, though Virginia frames it as evidence in the intent-based test rather than an automatic statutory trigger.

No published statewide figure exists. Virginia is consistently grouped by practitioners alongside New York, California, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Maryland as one of the more aggressive residency-audit states, particularly for high earners whose income drops sharply the year they claim to have left, which implies defense costs for a contested Virginia case can run comparably high, but no firm has published a specific dollar range.

Yes. Use Form 760PY, the Virginia Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return, which allocates your income between the period you were a Virginia resident and the period you were not. If you have Virginia-source income after becoming a full-year nonresident in a later year, that's reported on Form 763 instead.

Generally no, on wages. Virginia has reciprocal withholding agreements with the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. A Virginia resident's wages earned in one of those jurisdictions are exempt from that jurisdiction's income tax, and the reverse holds for their residents working in Virginia, as long as you file the correct exemption certificate with your employer.

Yes, generally. Virginia's domiciliary-resident category specifically includes servicemembers who entered the military from Virginia and kept Virginia as their home of record; being stationed elsewhere on orders does not by itself cancel Virginia domicile. You'd need to affirmatively change domicile, the same intent-plus-abandonment test that applies to any taxpayer, to stop being taxed as a Virginia resident.

Social Security benefits are fully exempt from Virginia tax. Pensions, 401(k), and IRA distributions are taxed as ordinary income at Virginia's graduated rates up to 5.75%, though taxpayers 65 or older can claim an age deduction, up to $12,000 for those born before 1939, or an income-based amount for those born later that phases out once adjusted federal AGI passes $50,000 single or $75,000 married filing jointly.

You can become an actual resident under the 183-day abode test just by living in Virginia housing more than half the year, even while your legal domicile stays with your home state. Virginia's guidance specifically recognizes this dual-status possibility for students: you can be taxed as an actual Virginia resident on Virginia-source income and the general resident basis for the period, while your underlying domicile, for other legal purposes, remains unchanged unless you take affirmative steps to establish Virginia as your permanent home.