Tax residency rules, audits, and the severance record (2026)
2026.1 Edition · Revised 2026-07-25 · DomusDay Research
Moving out of Virginia is easy. Stopping Virginia taxes is a different act, and it happens on paper: Virginia keeps treating you as a resident until the record shows otherwise.
On the burden of showing otherwise: On the person asserting the change; expressed intent is weighed against conduct, including whether legal residency was formally established in the new state.
Two tests decide it. Cross 183 days with a Virginia abode still available and you are taxed as a resident regardless of where you claim to live — and see day-counting rules. Or keep the day count clean but leave the life-pattern evidence pointing at Virginia, and domicile does the same work. Everything on this page exists to answer one question: if Virginia Tax asks, does your record hold?
Virginia taxes two categories: domiciliary residents and actual residents. Presence in Virginia, or maintaining an abode there, for more than 183 aggregate days in a taxable year — the days need not be consecutive — creates actual-resident status, taxed as a full Virginia resident even while domiciled in another state.
Source ↗Virginia localities levy an annual tangible personal property tax on vehicles kept within them — billed by the city, county, or town at locally set rates, with a state-directed reduced rate on the portion of a qualifying vehicle's value up to $20,000. A recurring cost most arriving movers have never been billed before.
Source ↗Virginia guidance treats domicile as continuing until a new one is established: moving abroad or drifting between states without formally establishing legal residency in a new jurisdiction leaves Virginia domicile — and full Virginia taxation — in place.
Source ↗This is the test with a number in it, and the number is what an auditor can verify line by line. Keep any Virginia dwelling suitable for year-round use and spend more than 183 days in the state, and Virginia taxes all of your income — domicile arguments never enter into it. See day-counting rules: 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.
Virginia names two resident categories. Domiciliary residents are those whose legal domicile is Virginia, wherever they actually live. Actual residents are those present in Virginia, or maintaining an abode there, for more than 183 aggregate days. An actual resident is taxed as a full Virginia resident for that period even while domiciled in another state.
A place of abode maintained within Virginia. The statute reaches every person who, for an aggregate of more than 183 days of the taxable year, maintained a place of abode in Virginia. The guidance reads the test as physical presence in Virginia or maintenance of an abode for more than 183 days — and the days need not be consecutive; the statute aggregates them across the taxable year.
Selling the apartment is not the test, and neither is the new driver's license. Virginia presumes an established domicile continues until it is shown to have changed — domicile — the permanent home — continues until a new one is established; the guidance stresses that moving away without taking formal steps in another state leaves Virginia domicile intact. On the burden: On the person asserting the change; expressed intent is weighed against conduct, including whether legal residency was formally established in the new state. Examiners weigh 4 primary factors — expressed intent and conduct, business pursuits and employment, sites of real and personal property, marital status and family residence — 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 Virginia claim. These rules keep taxing specific situations after the move — each one is a way the state stays in your return.
AffectsFormer residents who keep a Virginia home and return often.
AffectsLeavers with Virginia rental property, businesses, or continuing Virginia workdays.
AffectsCross-border commuters in the DC–Maryland–Virginia region and along the KY, PA, and WV lines.
Virginia Department of Taxation (Virginia Tax) runs a low-intensity residency program. Virginia Tax publishes no residency-specific audit program, guidelines, or statistics; review activity runs through ordinary return review under the assessment authority of §58.1-1812. 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.
Virginia splits the change year in two: Form 760PY covers the resident portion, and Virginia-source income after the change is reported on Form 763. A retained Virginia abode makes the day count the controlling fact — more than 183 aggregate days of abode maintenance or presence in a taxable year recreates full-resident taxation as an actual resident, whatever the new domicile. Assessments generally run within three years of filing under §58.1-1812.
Motor vehicle registration is an enumerated §58.1-302 domicile factor; a new-state license and registration are the corresponding records.
Source ↗Residence claimed for voting purposes is an enumerated statutory factor.
Source ↗Where vehicles are registered feeds both the domicile factor list and the local tangible personal property tax rolls — a vehicle kept in a Virginia locality stays on that locality's rolls.
Source ↗A retained Virginia abode keeps the actual-resident test live: maintaining a place of abode for more than 183 aggregate days in a year recreates full-resident taxation regardless of the new domicile.
Source ↗Sites of real and personal property owned — and any leasehold — are enumerated statutory factors; where property sits after the move is part of the record.
Source ↗Financial independence and sources of income are enumerated factors; where accounts and income streams sit after the move contributes to the pattern.
Source ↗Business pursuits and employment are enumerated factors; services performed in Virginia after the move remain Virginia-source income of a nonresident.
Source ↗Residence claimed for federal income tax purposes is an enumerated statutory factor.
Source ↗Beyond the enumerated items, §58.1-302 directs consideration of conduct; where professional and medical relationships continue is part of that conduct pattern.
Source ↗Marital status and the residence of spouse, parents, and children are enumerated factors — a family still centered in Virginia weighs against the claimed change.
Source ↗Sites of personal property owned are enumerated factors; the physical relocation of belongings and vehicles corroborates the claimed change.
Source ↗The actual-resident test aggregates non-consecutive days across the taxable year, so day records covering the whole year — not just the period around the move — are what the test runs on.
Source ↗Virginia expects Form 760PY for the change year; Virginia-source income earned after the residency period lands on Form 763 as a nonresident.
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 760PY, with income split between the resident and nonresident periods — and that return is itself evidence: it states your change date on a signed document. Employers withhold Virginia tax on wages for services performed in Virginia; nonresidents from the five reciprocity jurisdictions certify exemption annually on Form VA-4.
Domiciliary residents — those whose legal domicile is Virginia, wherever they actually live — and actual residents, those present in Virginia or maintaining an abode there for more than 183 aggregate days of the taxable year. An actual resident is taxed as a full Virginia resident even while domiciled in another state, so both states' returns can result for the same year.
More than 183 days in the taxable year, counted in the aggregate — the days need not be consecutive, and maintaining a place of abode in Virginia counts alongside physical presence under Va. Code §58.1-302.
The person asserting the change. Virginia treats domicile as continuing until a new one is established, and §58.1-302 directs consideration of expressed intent, conduct, employment and business pursuits, property sites, family residence, vehicle registration, voting residence, and the residence claimed for federal tax purposes.
Form 760PY for the part-year resident period, and Form 763 for Virginia-source income as a nonresident. Part-year residents whose Virginia residence lasted 183 days or less may qualify to file Form 763 instead, and those with all federal income from Virginia sources may file the resident Form 760.
The DMV moving guide gives 60 days for a Virginia driver's license and 30 days for vehicle title and registration, with Virginia insurance certification required to register (50/100/25 minimums for policies effective in 2025 and later). Voter registration closes 11 days before general and primary elections, with same-day provisional registration after that — and the locality begins billing the annual personal property tax on vehicles kept there.
Localities do: cities, counties, and towns levy an annual tangible personal property tax on vehicles kept within them, at locally set rates, with a state-directed reduced rate on the first $20,000 of a qualifying vehicle's value. It is a local bill, separate from DMV registration fees.
No. The Virginia estate tax was tied to the federal credit for state death taxes and was effectively repealed as of July 1, 2007; only certain remainder interests remain subject to the older inheritance tax.
The District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The agreements generally cover wage and salary income only, conditioned on not maintaining an abode across the line and — for Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia — presence of 183 days or less; nonresidents working in Virginia certify exemption annually on Form VA-4.
2026.1 Edition · Revised 2026-07-25 · DomusDay Research