Moved from Montana to Texas Mid-Year: Which State Tax Returns Do You File?
Answer
One return, filed in Montana. Texas levies no personal income tax, so moving there ends your state filing obligation from the date of the move. A Montana part-year return covers the income you received while you were still a Montana resident, and that is the whole of it.
Last verified
The clean part of this move is that only one return follows it. The part that catches people is the withholding: Montana tax should stop when your residency does, and it often does not without a prompt.
What you file
- 1Part-year return · MontanaForm 2 with the nonresident/part-year schedule
File a Montana part-year return covering the months you lived in Montana. Texas has no wage income tax, so the move ends your state filing obligation.
The two states, side by side
| Montana | Texas | |
|---|---|---|
| Taxes wages | Yes — graduated | No |
| Reciprocity partners | 1 (Form MW-4) | None |
| Convenience rule | No | No |
| Nonresident return | Form 2 with the nonresident/part-year schedule | Not applicable |
| Part-year return | Form 2 with the nonresident/part-year schedule | Not applicable |
| Credit for other-state tax | Form 2 (credit for income tax paid to another state) | No income tax |
| Nonresident safe harbour | None published | Not applicable |
| Local income tax | No | No |
| Revenue department | Montana Department of Revenue | Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts |
| Last verified |
The other direction
Reversing the commute does not always reverse the answer. Living in Texas and working in Montana gives:One part-year return — the state you moved to.
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: Montana → TexasHome state only
- Remote worker: Montana → TexasHome state only
- 1099 contractor: Montana → TexasHome state only — estimated payments
Other Montana pairs
Questions people actually ask
I moved from Montana to Texas mid-year. Do I have to file in both states?
One return, filed in Montana. Texas levies no personal income tax, so moving there ends your state filing obligation from the date of the move. A Montana part-year return covers the income you received while you were still a Montana resident, and that is the whole of it.
How do I split my income between Montana and Texas?
By when you received it, measured against the date your domicile actually changed. Income received while you were a Montana resident belongs on the Montana return and income received afterwards on the Texas return. Keep evidence of the move date — a lease, a closing statement, a licence issue date.
How current is this?
The Montana and Texas rules on this page were last checked against Montana Department of Revenue and Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts 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.
- Montana Department of Revenue — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07
- Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts — individual income taxaccessed 2026-08-07