Tax residency rules, audits, and the severance record (2026)
2026.1 Edition · Revised 2026-07-25 · DomusDay Research
Moving out of Georgia is easy. Stopping Georgia taxes is a different act, and it happens on paper: Georgia keeps treating you as a resident until the record shows otherwise.
On the burden of showing otherwise: A declared intention alone does not move a Georgia domicile — the statute pairs intent with an actual change of residence, and the DOR treats legal residence as continuing through temporary absences from the state.
Two tests decide it. Cross 183 days with a Georgia abode still available and you are taxed as a resident regardless of where you claim to live — and any part of a day counts. Or keep the day count clean but leave the life-pattern evidence pointing at Georgia, and domicile does the same work. Everything on this page exists to answer one question: if DOR asks, does your record hold?
HB 463 lowered the flat individual income tax rate from 5.19% to 4.99% effective January 1, 2026 — crossing below 5% three years ahead of the original phase-down schedule that began at 5.39% in 2024.
Source ↗New residents title and register vehicles within 30 days of the move and pay Title Ad Valorem Tax at 3% of each vehicle's fair market value — the standard rate is 7.0%. A Georgia driver's license or ID comes first; the County Tag Office handles the rest.
Source ↗Georgia's resident definition counts 183 days or part-days, in the aggregate, of the 365 days preceding income tax day — no abode requirement, part-days count, and the window spans two calendar years, unlike a calendar-year test.
Source ↗This is the test with a number in it, and the number is what an auditor can verify line by line. Keep any Georgia dwelling suitable for year-round use and spend more than 183 days in the state, and Georgia taxes all of your income — domicile arguments never enter into it. Any part of a day counts: a morning meeting, a connection through the city with a dinner on the ground, a single evening — each is a full day against the threshold.
O.C.G.A. §48-7-1(10) defines a resident to include every individual who is a legal resident of Georgia on income tax day and every individual who on income tax day has been residing in the state for 183 days or part-days or longer, in the aggregate, of the immediately preceding 365-day period — part-days count, and the window spans two calendar years.
No abode element — the statutory count applies to anyone residing in Georgia, whether or not a dwelling is maintained. The measurement window is unusual: 183 days or part-days, in the aggregate, of the 365 days immediately preceding income tax day — a rolling period rather than a calendar-year count.
Selling the apartment is not the test, and neither is the new driver's license. Georgia presumes an established domicile continues until it is shown to have changed — domicile under O.C.G.A. §19-2-1 — the place where the person's family permanently resides; a change requires an actual change of residence with the avowed intention of remaining at the new residence. On the burden: A declared intention alone does not move a Georgia domicile — the statute pairs intent with an actual change of residence, and the DOR treats legal residence as continuing through temporary absences from the state. Examiners weigh 3 primary factors — family and permanent home, actual change of residence, homestead exemption — and they weigh what you did, not what you intended. The pattern of an actual life somewhere else is the evidence; everything else is secondary.
A clean exit does not end every Georgia claim. These rules keep taxing specific situations after the move — each one is a way the state stays in your return.
AffectsLeavers who keep Georgia wages, business income, or rental property.
AffectsFormer residents selling a kept Georgia home or land after the move.
AffectsRetirees leaving Georgia with Georgia-earned pensions.
Georgia Department of Revenue (DOR) runs a low-intensity residency program. The DOR describes a general return-verification audit function with a 45-day protest window and publishes no residency-specific audit program, guidelines, or statistics. An examination is not an argument about intentions — it is a request for documents, and the request looks like this:
Every item on that list either exists in your records from the year of the move, or it does not. That is the whole game — and why the severance record below is the section that matters most.
An audit years from now is answered with documents generated in the months around the move. This is that inventory — grouped the way examiners think about a life, each item paired with the evidence it leaves behind.
The move date interacts with a rolling test: 183 days or part-days over the 365 days preceding income tax day can reach back into the prior calendar year, so a late-year departure still leaves most of the window inside Georgia. Schedule 3 allocates the year's income between residency periods, and a Georgia property sold after the move as a nonresident meets the 3% closing withholding.
A driver's license issued by the destination state creates a dated government record on the arrival side; most states absorb the Georgia license through their transfer process.
Georgia voter registration requires legal residence in the state and county — registration in the new state is a dated marker that conflicts with a continuing Georgia registration.
Source ↗Georgia law requires continuous Georgia automobile liability insurance on vehicles with an active Georgia registration — a registration left active keeps that obligation running after the move.
Source ↗The statutory test has no abode element: 183 days or part-days in Georgia over the preceding 365 produce residency whether or not a dwelling is kept — a retained home matters mainly as a place where days accumulate.
Source ↗A Georgia homestead exemption rests on the home being occupied as the primary residence and treated as the legal residence for all purposes — an exemption left in place after a move contradicts the claimed change.
Source ↗Where accounts, advisors, and billing addresses move is part of the facts-and-circumstances picture of an actual change of residence.
Where services are performed drives sourcing afterward: Georgia workdays remain Georgia-source wages for a nonresident, outside the 5%/$5,000 de minimis employee exception.
Source ↗Medical, dental, and professional relationships established in the new state create dated, located records that corroborate the move.
Community life — congregations, clubs, civic organizations — is conduct that either matches or undercuts the avowed intention of remaining at the new residence.
Source ↗O.C.G.A. §19-2-1 pairs intent with an actual change of residence — the physical move of belongings and vehicles is itself the statutory act.
Source ↗The 183-part-day count is measured on income tax day over the immediately preceding 365 days — a rolling window that spans two calendar years, so day records for both the move year and the year before are what the test reads.
Source ↗Part-year residents required to file federally file Georgia Form 500 and complete Schedule 3 to determine Georgia taxable income for the move year.
Source ↗When a kept Georgia property is later sold as a nonresident, the buyer withholds 3% of the purchase price and Form G-2RP documents the withholding for credit on the Georgia return.
Source ↗Every rule on this page traces to one of these. When a blog and a statute disagree, the statute wins — start here.
How these are chosen, what the automated gates catch, and what this site deliberately does not do: how these guides are made →
The year of the move is filed on 500, with income split between the resident and nonresident periods — and that return is itself evidence: it states your change date on a signed document. Buyers withhold 3% of the purchase price on sales of Georgia real property by nonresidents (O.C.G.A. §48-7-128), documented on Form G-2RP and credited on the seller's return.
183 days or part-days, in the aggregate, of the 365 days immediately preceding income tax day — a rolling window rather than a calendar-year count, with no requirement that a dwelling be maintained. Legal residents of Georgia on income tax day are residents regardless of the count.
Yes. Under O.C.G.A. §48-7-128, the buyer withholds 3% of the purchase price on sales of Georgia real property by nonresidents, collected at closing. Form G-2RP attaches to the Georgia return so the seller receives credit; exemptions include sales under $20,000 and certain principal-residence and like-kind transactions.
Form 500 — the same return for every status. Part-year residents and nonresidents complete Schedule 3 to determine Georgia taxable income, and nonresidents mark residency code 3 on the form.
A flat 4.99% on Georgia taxable income, down from 5.19% in 2025 under HB 463 — below 5% three years ahead of the original phase-down schedule. Capital gains are taxed as ordinary income at the same flat rate.
Pensions from other states become Georgia-taxable on arrival, but the retirement income exclusion removes up to $65,000 per taxpayer at age 65 and older ($35,000 at 62–64) — covering pensions, annuities, interest, dividends, rental income, capital gains, royalties, and up to $5,000 of earned income, applied per spouse when each qualifies.
No. Georgia's estate tax was tied to the federal state death tax credit and applies only to deaths before January 1, 2005; since July 1, 2014 no estate tax is levied and no state estate tax return is required.
2026.1 Edition · Revised 2026-07-25 · DomusDay Research