Moving Between States Mid-Year: Part-Year Resident Returns, State by State
You changed your legal residence during the tax year. Each state taxes the slice of the year you lived there — which means two part-year returns, two sets of rules, and one income figure to split.
Which state taxes your paycheck?
Pick where you live, where the work is, and how you are paid. You get the withholding answer, the exemption form if one exists, and the returns to file — with the revenue-department source.
Your answer appears here. There are five possible outcomes:
- Home state only
- Reciprocity — file the form
- Work state only
- Both states, with a credit
- Convenience-rule trap
The rule that decides this
A mid-year move is a residency question, not a sourcing question, and that distinction disposes of most of the machinery on the rest of this site. Reciprocity agreements govern commuters. Convenience-of-the-employer rules govern remote employees. Neither has anything to say about someone who simply changed where they live.
What each state taxes is the slice of the year you were its resident. Both states therefore want a part-year return, each covering its own months, with the standard deduction, exemptions and credits prorated to that period. Because neither state taxes the whole year, part-year filing does not produce double taxation by default.
Two things do go wrong. The first is income received near the move date being assigned to the wrong side — a final bonus, a vested equity grant, a last commission cheque. The second is withholding that never switches: payroll keeps sending money to the old state for months, which turns into a refund on one return and a balance due on the other. Both are fixed by pinning down the date your domicile actually changed and keeping the evidence.
All 51 jurisdictions
Every state, with how its 50 outbound pairs break down in this situation. A high alert count means most people leaving that state for work in another one land in a complicated position.
| Moved from | Simple | Two returns | Exposed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Alaska | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Arizona | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Arkansas | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| California | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Colorado | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Connecticut | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Delaware | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| District of Columbia | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Florida | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Georgia | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Hawaii | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Idaho | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Illinois | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Indiana | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Iowa | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Kansas | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Kentucky | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Louisiana | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Maine | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Maryland | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Massachusetts | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Michigan | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Minnesota | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Mississippi | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Missouri | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Montana | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Nebraska | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Nevada | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| New Hampshire | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| New Jersey | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| New Mexico | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| New York | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| North Carolina | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| North Dakota | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Ohio | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Oklahoma | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Oregon | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Pennsylvania | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Rhode Island | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| South Carolina | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| South Dakota | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Tennessee | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Texas | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Utah | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Vermont | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Virginia | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Washington | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| West Virginia | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Wisconsin | 9 | 41 | 0 |
| Wyoming | 50 | 0 | 0 |
Pairs where the answer surprises people
- Alaska → AlabamaOne part-year return — the state you moved to
- Alaska → ArizonaOne part-year return — the state you moved to
- Florida → AlabamaOne part-year return — the state you moved to
- Florida → ArizonaOne part-year return — the state you moved to
- Alaska → ArkansasOne part-year return — the state you moved to
- Florida → ArkansasOne part-year return — the state you moved to
The other three situations
- W-2 commuterI live in one state and work in another — which state takes the tax out of my paycheck?
- Remote workerI work remotely from home for an out-of-state employer — do I owe tax in the employer's state?
- 1099 contractorI'm a 1099 contractor with a client in another state — do I have to file there?
Questions people actually ask
I moved from one state to another mid-year — do I file in both states?
You changed your legal residence during the tax year. Each state taxes the slice of the year you lived there — which means two part-year returns, two sets of rules, and one income figure to split. There are 51 jurisdictions and 2550 ordered state pairs, and this site publishes the answer for every one of them. Pick your two states above, or use the routing table below.
Which states have income tax reciprocity agreements?
16 jurisdictions hold at least one agreement, covering 30 agreements in total: District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin. Each agreement lets a resident of one state work in the other without the work state withholding, provided the employee files that work state's exemption certificate with their employer. The certificate is never automatic and it is never retroactive.
Which states have no income tax on wages?
Nine: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming. Two of those need a footnote — Washington levies an excise tax on long-term capital gains, and New Hampshire taxed interest and dividends until that levy was repealed. Neither ever reached a paycheck, which is why they belong on this list.
Which states use the convenience-of-the-employer rule?
Six, and they split into two kinds. Delaware, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania apply a general rule to any nonresident employee of an in-state employer. Connecticut and New Jersey apply a mirror version that reaches only residents of states that impose a similar test. This is the single most consequential fact for remote workers, and it is the reason the remote answer often differs from the commuting answer for the same two states.
How often is this checked?
The full 51-jurisdiction grid is re-verified every December, after state legislative sessions close and the following year's forms are published. The convenience-of-the-employer states are re-checked quarterly because that is where the rules move fastest. Every page carries the date its own two states were last checked; the newest across the grid is 2026-08-07.
How this was built
Every answer on this hub comes from one 51-row dataset, each row checked against the state's own revenue department and dated. The same dataset drives the checker at the top of this page and all 2550 pair pages beneath it, which is why the tool and the pages can never disagree. Read themethodologyor the full source list.