A job offer in London can end your New York lease. It does not necessarily end your New York residency. The Department of Taxation and Finance starts from domicile, and it sets a high bar before it accepts that a domicile has moved.
For someone heading to Britain, that matters in two ways. A New York resident pays state tax on worldwide income, including a British salary. And New York gives no credit for the British tax on that salary. So the residency question is worth answering before the removal van arrives.
What is New York residency for tax purposes?
The Tax Department says you are a New York State resident if your domicile is New York, or if you maintain a permanent place of abode there for substantially all of the year and spend 184 days or more in the state. Either route makes you a resident.
Residents pay tax on income from all sources, just as citizens do on the federal return.
The department's residency FAQs set out both tests.
What does domicile mean in New York?
It is your permanent and primary home, the place you intend to return to after time away on business, study or a posting. You can own several homes, but you can only have one domicile at a time.
A long assignment abroad does not change it by itself.
What matters is where you ultimately intend to live.
Intent shows through conduct, not declarations. Where you keep your home, family and belongings tells the department more than any statement.
How hard is it to change your domicile?
Harder than most people expect. The department says your New York domicile does not change until you can show, with clear and convincing evidence, that you have abandoned it and established a new one elsewhere. The burden sits with you.
Filing a certificate of domicile or registering to vote elsewhere is not enough on its own.
The department considers all aspects of your life.
Selling the New York home and moving the family usually carries the most weight.
What is a statutory resident?
Someone domiciled elsewhere who still counts as a New York resident. You are one if you maintain a permanent place of abode in the state for substantially all of the year and spend 184 days or more there. Any part of a day counts as a day.
You do not need to sleep at the abode for the day to count.
This test mostly bites people who keep a New York apartment and travel back often.
It rarely affects someone who has truly moved to London. It matters most in the years either side of the move.
Can a New York domiciliary abroad be a nonresident?
Yes, if they meet every condition in either Group A or Group B in the Form IT-203 instructions. These groups let someone who has not abandoned a New York domicile be taxed as a nonresident anyway, provided they stay away and meet every other condition of the group.
Both groups are strict, and missing one condition fails the group.
The IT-203 instructions define them.
| Test | Group A | Group B (548-day rule) |
|---|---|---|
| New York home | No permanent place of abode in New York all year | Not a stated condition |
| Home elsewhere | A permanent place of abode outside New York all year | Not a stated condition |
| Time abroad | Not a stated condition | 450 days in a foreign country within 548 consecutive days |
| Time in New York | 30 days or less in the tax year | 90 days or less for you, your spouse and minor children in the 548 days |
| Partial years | Applies year by year | Pro-rated limit for the start and end years |
How does Group A work?
It has three conditions, and all must hold. You kept no permanent place of abode in New York during the year, you kept one outside New York for the entire year, and you spent 30 days or less in New York.
A flat in London that you rent for the whole year satisfies the second condition.
Keeping a New York apartment for guests usually breaks the first.
Group A works year by year, so a single bad year does not undo the others.
How does the 548-day rule work?
Group B asks for 450 days in a foreign country during any period of 548 consecutive days. During that same period, you, your spouse unless legally separated, and your minor children must spend 90 days or less in New York.
Days in the start and end years face a pro-rated limit, calculated from the nonresident part of each year.
The rule suits someone on a posting of about eighteen months or longer.
Does the family count toward the days?
Yes, under Group B. The 90-day limit applies to you, your spouse unless legally separated, and your minor children. A spouse who stays in New York for most of the period can therefore defeat the rule for both of you.
Group A counts only your own days.
In our practice this is the condition most often overlooked by families who split their time.
What counts as a permanent place of abode?
The Tax Department describes it as a building or structure where a person can live, that you permanently maintain and that is suitable for year-round use. Ownership does not matter, so a rented apartment counts as much as one you own.
An empty apartment kept for your return still counts.
Letting it out on a long lease to someone else usually changes the picture, because you no longer maintain it for yourself.
Does New York tax your British salary?
It does if you remain a resident. Residents pay New York tax on worldwide income, which includes wages earned in London. A nonresident, by contrast, owes New York tax only on income from New York sources.
So New York residency is the switch that turns the British salary on or off.
Nothing else in the calculation matters as much.
Can you claim a credit for British tax?
No. The resident credit instructions describe credit for taxes paid to another state of the United States, its political subdivisions or the District of Columbia, with a separate form for Canadian provinces. Taxes paid to Britain are not on that list.
A resident therefore pays New York tax and British tax on the same wages.
See the IT-112-R instructions.
That is why the residency answer matters more here than any deduction.
What does this cost in practice?
For a resident on a British salary, the whole state bill, because nothing offsets it. The federal return may show no tax after credits or the exclusion, while New York taxes the same wages in full.
City residents can face city tax on top.
In our practice the families who learn this late usually have two or three years of state returns to put right at once.
Why does the treaty not help?
Because the US-UK treaty applies, on the American side, to federal income taxes under the Internal Revenue Code. Its non-discrimination article reaches state taxes, but the relief provisions do not.
New York residency is therefore a matter of New York law alone.
The IRS page for the UK treaty documents links the convention.
What if you come back early?
Group B needs the full 450 days abroad within a 548-day window, so a posting cut short can fail it. If that happens, Group A may still cover the full years you spent away, provided you met its conditions in each of them.
The year you return becomes a part-year year again.
Plan a possible early return into the analysis rather than hoping it never comes. New York residency can switch back on the day you arrive home.
Does New York City follow the same rules?
Largely yes. The instructions say the city definitions of resident, nonresident and part-year resident follow the state definitions with New York City substituted for New York State. A city resident abroad therefore faces the same domicile questions for city tax.
Yonkers works the same way.
Leaving the city but not the state is a different question again.
What about the deadline while abroad?
New York recognizes the federal two-month extension for people outside the country, using a special condition code on the return. A longer extension is available if you intend to claim nonresident status under the 548-day rule, with a copy of your request to the IRS.
Federal and state timetables then run together.
Our guide to filing a US return from abroad covers the federal dates.
What records support a nonresident claim?
Day logs come first, since both groups turn on the number of days spent in New York. Keep travel records, passport stamps and card statements that show where you were on each date, and keep them for every year of the posting.
Then the documents behind each condition: your London lease, evidence that you gave up any New York home, and your employment contract abroad.
Keep them for your family members too, because Group B counts their days as well.
Leaving New York, step by step
Start before the move, because the 548-day window and the Group A tests depend on how you set things up.
- Decide whether you intend to abandon your New York domicile or plan to return.
- If you plan to return, test your posting against Group A and Group B before you leave.
- Give up any New York permanent place of abode if Group A is your route.
- Keep a day log for yourself, your spouse and minor children.
- Move the ties that show where you live: home, family, accounts and registrations.
- File a part-year return for the year of the move.
- Keep the evidence, since the burden of proof sits with you.
An illustrative example
Take a lawyer who leaves Brooklyn for a two-year secondment in London, planning to return. She keeps her domicile, so she needs Group A or Group B to be a nonresident.
She gives up her Brooklyn apartment, rents a London flat and spends 25 days back each year, so she meets Group A in each full year abroad. Her husband joins her, which also keeps Group B in reach.
Had she kept her apartment empty and waiting, Group A would have failed. This example is illustrative, not advice.
She keeps a simple spreadsheet of days for both of them, updated after every trip.
Common mistakes
First, assuming a London address ends New York residency on its own.
Second, keeping the New York apartment, which can defeat Group A.
Third, forgetting that a spouse's days count toward Group B.
Fourth, expecting a credit for British tax on the New York return.
Fifth, keeping no day log and trying to reconstruct 548 days from memory years later.
How US UK Tax Hub helps
We test your posting against the domicile rules and both groups before you move, then prepare the New York return beside your US federal return. If your employer stays in New York, our note on a US employer with no UK payroll covers the payroll side.
We keep the day counts with you, not after you.
This article is general information, not personal tax advice. Talk to us before your move date.
