Moved from Mississippi to California Mid-Year: Which State Tax Returns Do You File?
Answer
You file two part-year returns. Mississippi taxes the income you received while you lived there, California taxes the income you received after the move, and each state prorates your deductions and credits to its own slice of the year. The date you changed domicile is the dividing line.
Last verified
Part-year returns are designed so that neither state taxes the whole year. The risk is not double taxation by default; it is misassigning income received near the move date, and losing the proration on deductions and credits.
What you file
- 1Part-year return · MississippiForm 80-205
File a Mississippi part-year return covering the months you lived in Mississippi. A part-year resident of Mississippi reports the income received while a Mississippi resident, plus any Mississippi-source income received during the rest of the year, and prorates the deductions and credits to the residency period.
- 2Part-year return · CaliforniaForm 540NR (part-year resident)
File a California part-year return covering the months you lived in California. A part-year resident of California reports the income received while a California resident, plus any California-source income received during the rest of the year, and prorates the deductions and credits to the residency period.
The two states, side by side
| Mississippi | California | |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes wages | Yes — flat | Yes — graduated |
| Reciprocity partners | None | None |
| Convenience rule | No | No |
| Nonresident return | Form 80-205 | Form 540NR |
| Part-year return | Form 80-205 | Form 540NR (part-year resident) |
| Credit for other-state tax | Form 80-160 | Schedule S |
| Nonresident safe harbour | None published | None published |
| Local income tax | No | No |
| Revenue department | Mississippi Department of Revenue | California Franchise Tax Board |
| Last verified |
The other direction
Reversing the commute does not always reverse the answer. Living in California and working in Mississippi gives:Two part-year returns.
Same two states, different situation
The withholding answer turns on how you are paid and where the work happens, not only on which two states are involved.
- W-2 commuter: Mississippi → CaliforniaBoth states — credit offsets the double tax
- Remote worker: Mississippi → CaliforniaHome state only
- 1099 contractor: Mississippi → CaliforniaHome state, plus the client state if you work there
Other Mississippi pairs
Questions people actually ask
I moved from Mississippi to California mid-year. Do I have to file in both states?
You file two part-year returns. Mississippi taxes the income you received while you lived there, California taxes the income you received after the move, and each state prorates your deductions and credits to its own slice of the year. The date you changed domicile is the dividing line.
How do I split my income between Mississippi and California?
By when you received it, measured against the date your domicile actually changed. Income received while you were a Mississippi resident belongs on the Mississippi return and income received afterwards on the California return, with each state prorating your deductions, exemptions and credits to its own part of the year. Keep evidence of the move date — a lease, a closing statement, a licence issue date.
How current is this?
The Mississippi and California rules on this page were last checked against Mississippi Department of Revenue and California Franchise Tax Board on 2026-08-07. We re-check the full grid every December after state legislative sessions close, and re-check the convenience-of-the-employer states quarterly because that is where the rules move fastest.
Sources
Every fact above comes from the revenue department that publishes the rule. We do not cite secondary summaries, and we do not restate a figure we could not find at source.
- Mississippi Department of Revenue — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07
- California Franchise Tax Board — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07