Guides
Plain explanations of the rules One83 counts against: the presence test, what counts as a day, and the paperwork that has to survive an audit. General information, not tax advice.
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Moving to Puerto Rico, your first year gets relief on the tax home and closer connection tests, but only if you stay a bona fide resident for the next three years.
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In the year you leave, a special Puerto Rico rule can treat you as a bona fide resident for the part of the year before the move. Here is how it works, what Form 8898 asks, and what to document.
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Bona fide residency is tested one taxable year at a time. Here is what a short year does and does not say, which prong to check first, and what to bring to an advisor.
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The residency regulation assigns no burden of proof. Section 7491 can shift it to the IRS in court, but only on conditions. Here is what is settled and what is not.
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Holding a physician or other individual decree does not give you a different federal residency test. The same three tests apply to you, every tax year.
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An Act 20 decree covers the company, not you. Your federal residency turns on three tests, and the tax home test asks where your principal place of business is, not how many days you spent there.
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Act 60 of 2019 absorbed the 2012 incentive laws, but federal bona fide residency is still decided under section 937, one tax year at a time, for each person.
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Holding an Act 22 decree does not make you a bona fide resident for federal purposes. The presence test applies every tax year, and there are five ways to pass it.
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An IRS residency examination usually starts with a letter and an information document request. Here is how the process runs and how the requests follow the three bona fide residence tests.
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Keep day count records until the IRS time to assess tax on that year's return expires. Three years from filing is the default under section 6501, with longer periods for a large omission, a missing return, fraud, or a written extension.
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A card statement is a record of a transaction, not of where you stood. This guide explains what card and ATM records can corroborate for a Puerto Rico day count, why online charges, shared cards and cash weeks leave gaps, and where statements matter in the closer connection test.
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If you kept no day log for a Puerto Rico residency year, you can still rebuild much of the count from airline, card, phone, lease and utility records. Each day needs an anchor you can point to, and some days will not have one. This guide covers what the regulation requires, which third party records help, what cannot be rebuilt, and when a weak year belongs in front of a licensed tax professional before you file.
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A trip between the mainland and Puerto Rico is domestic, so no passport stamp or entry record is created to settle your day count. The tax rules never asked for one. They count physical presence on a day, and they say very little about what evidence you keep. This guide explains why the stamp does not exist, what Publication 570 and the regulation count in its place, and where the published rules stop on records.
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A contemporaneous day count log is a record made at or near the time each day happened, one entry per day, saying where you were. This guide covers the fields each entry needs, how to handle travel days and corrections, what backs a log up, and why the record has to exist before anyone asks for it. Neither Publication 570 nor the regulation prescribes a log format, so we mark clearly where the published guidance stops.
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Neither Publication 570 nor 26 CFR 1.937-1 names a lease or a utility bill as required proof of a Puerto Rico home. The closer connection test asks whether you have a permanent home that is available to you at all times. This guide explains what a lease, a deed, and utility accounts can show, what they cannot show, and which questions published guidance leaves open.
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A spouse whose main home is in the US counts as a significant connection under 26 CFR 1.937-1(c)(5), closing one presence-test path. Here is exactly what that does and does not disqualify.
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A freelancer with clients on the mainland and in Puerto Rico has no single employer to point to. Here is the test the IRS actually applies to find a tax home.
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A travel day at the turn of the year feels ambiguous. It is not. Here is how the presence test assigns a single calendar date to a single tax year, with two worked examples and the record to keep.
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Cell phone records can back up a day you spent in Puerto Rico, but a tower ping is not GPS. Here is what carriers hand over, and what actually holds up.
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Airlines are only required to keep a reservation on file for two months. Here is what a boarding pass actually proves, what the carrier does not keep, and what to save yourself.
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Puerto Rico's presence, tax home, and closer connection tests are each evaluated per spouse, not per household. Here is what that means for married couples.
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A voter registration you never cancelled can quietly block two separate Puerto Rico residency tests under IRC section 937. Here is how, and how to fix it.
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The significant connection test counts a minor child whose home is in the United States against you, but two written exceptions carve that back: a custody arrangement under a decree, and a child who qualifies as a student. This article walks through what each requires and where the line sits.
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The closer connection test weighs Puerto Rico against the United States and any foreign country combined, not the mainland alone.
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No, there is no points system. The closer connection test weighs your contacts to Puerto Rico against your combined U.S. and foreign contacts as a whole.
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The closer connection test weighs the country of residence you declare on tax forms, brokerage paperwork, and insurance documents. Here is what counts, and what a mail forwarding habit signals to an examiner.
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Passing the tax home test does not settle your business activities. The closer connection test counts them again, narrower than most people assume.
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Board seats, club memberships, and congregations are a named closer connection factor, weighed against your Puerto Rico ties, not in isolation.
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Personal belongings, cars, furniture, and a mainland storage unit, are a real factor in the closer connection test. Here is how much they actually weigh.
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Where your family lives is one of roughly ten facts weighed under the closer connection test, not a bright-line rule. But a spouse or minor child whose main home is in the United States can trigger a separate disqualifier. Here is how the two rules differ, and what a genuinely split household should document.
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Flight crew spend most working days somewhere other than Puerto Rico or a fixed mainland location. That puts the presence test, the tax home test, and the day count all in play at once. Here is how each one actually applies to a rotating flight schedule, and what a layover does and does not do to your count.
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Doctors and lawyers who keep a mainland license active often assume it threatens their Puerto Rico residency. The tax home test does not work that way. It weighs time, business activity, and financial return at each location, not license status. Here is what the regulation actually says, and what to document.
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Tax home, abode, and domicile get used as if they mean the same thing. Under 26 CFR section 1.937-1, only two of them are actually tested. Here is what each term means and where they intersect.
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Passing the 183 day presence test does not lock in bona fide Puerto Rico residency by itself. The tax home test runs on the full year, and a stateside job or a mainland office opened partway through the year can undo it. This guide walks through what actually changes your tax home, the narrow year of the move exception, and who it does not help.
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Employment on a vessel that mostly works international and local waters does not, by itself, give you a tax home outside Puerto Rico. Here is exactly what 26 CFR 1.937-1(d) covers, and what it leaves for the presence test and closer connection test to decide.
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Retired or living on investments? The tax home test skips straight to where you actually live. Here is how that fallback works, with citations.
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Running one business in Puerto Rico and keeping another on the mainland does not settle your tax home on its own. Here is how the regulation actually weighs a principal place of business when there is more than one.
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An elected representative of Puerto Rico, or someone who serves full time as an elected or appointed official or employee of the Puerto Rico government or one of its political subdivisions, does not lose ground on the presence test or the tax home test for days spent doing that job in the United States. This guide traces the exception to 26 CFR 1.937-1, explains who actually qualifies, and flags what the exception does not reach.
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A professional athlete competing in a single charitable sporting event while in the United States can exclude that competition day, and only that day, from the Puerto Rico presence test. This guide traces the exception to its actual source, flags a citation gap in the underlying definition, and walks through the Form 8843 filing that makes the exclusion real.
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A semester on the mainland does not have to cost presence test days. Here is how the CFR 1.937-1 student exception works, for you and for a dependent.
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A day spent in both Puerto Rico and the mainland is not a gray area. 26 CFR 1.937-1(c)(3) resolves it directly. This piece walks through exactly what the regulation settles, the rarer two possession case, and where the published rule genuinely stops.
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For the Puerto Rico presence test, the United States means only the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Here is where that definition comes from and why it decides three other rules.
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The presence test exceptions in 26 CFR 1.937-1(c)(3) are a closed list, not a set of examples. A funeral or a jury summons feels like it should count as an excused day. Neither one is on the list. Here is the full enumeration, why the two most common assumptions fall outside it, and how to plan around a day that will count no matter the reason.
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A connection through Miami or another mainland hub does not have to cost you a US presence day. Here is what 26 CFR 1.937-1 actually requires to keep a connection under 24 hours from counting against your day count.
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Most people think the presence test means 183 days in Puerto Rico. It is actually satisfied by any one of five conditions in 26 CFR 1.937-1(c). This guide covers all five and how to tell which one fits your travel year.
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The presence test is not only about counting to 183. One condition turns on income instead: US earned income at or under $3,000 for the year, plus more days in Puerto Rico than in the United States. Here is where the figure comes from and who this path helps.
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A Puerto Rico driver's license, local voter registration, and everyday banking are closer connection factors, not a substitute for the presence test. Here is what each paper move does, what it does not do, and a practical order to make them in your first partial year.
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Form 8898 notifies the IRS of the specific tax year your bona fide Puerto Rico residency begins or ends, but only if your worldwide gross income clears $75,000. This walkthrough covers the $75,000 threshold, the due date and mailing address, what Parts I through IV actually ask, why the year of the move changes what Part III is testing, and the $1,000 penalty for getting it wrong.
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The closer connection test looks at where your life actually is, not just where you sleep 183 nights. Keeping a mainland house, especially one your family still lives in, is one of the heaviest factors the regulation weighs, and selling, renting, and leaving it empty are not the same fact.
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A mainland W-2 does not, by itself, put your tax home outside Puerto Rico. Tax home follows the section 911(d)(3) test: your regular place of business, not your employer's address. Here is how that test actually works for a remote worker.
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Mainland business travel gets no special exception under the presence test: every full day off island counts against both the 183 day rule and the 90 day US cap. This guide covers the split day rule that protects your travel days, the under 24 hour transit exception, and what to log on every trip.
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A hurricane evacuation does not have to cost you a day toward the 183 or 549 day presence test. Publication 570 and 26 CFR 1.937-1 protect days lost to a FEMA disaster declaration or a mandatory evacuation order, within specific limits this guide walks through.
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Publication 570 lets up to 30 days spent outside both Puerto Rico and the United States count as presence days in Puerto Rico, but only under two specific conditions. Here is what the rule says, where it comes from, and a worked day count.
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Four of the five ways to pass the presence test come down to counting days. The fifth does not. This guide covers the no significant connection test under 26 CFR 1.937-1: what a permanent home means, why voter registration alone decides its factor, and how a spouse or minor child in the United States can break it.
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When a single year will not clear 183 days in Puerto Rico, the regulations offer a second path: 549 days across a rolling three year window, with a 60 day floor in every one of those years. Here is how the count works, why the floor is the real constraint, and how to plan around a year you already know will be weak.
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Most people trying to qualify as a bona fide Puerto Rico resident focus on hitting 183 days on the island. IRS Publication 570 offers a second path: staying out of the United States for no more than 90 days a year. Here is what that test requires, how a day gets counted, and which days do not count against you.
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A hospital stay on the mainland does not have to break your Puerto Rico day count. The presence test counts days of qualifying medical treatment as presence days, but the rule is narrower than most people assume: physician supervised, inpatient, overnight. Here is what qualifies, who the accompanying rule covers, and the six records the IRS expects within 30 days of asking.
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The 183-day rule is only one of five ways to satisfy the federal presence test for Puerto Rico bona fide residency. Here is how each one works and which days actually count.
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What a defensible Puerto Rico presence file contains, why contemporaneous records beat reconstruction, and the specific documentation Publication 570 requires for medical absence days.
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Vieques ferries, Caribbean cruises, a lunch in St. Thomas, a same day flight to Miami. How short trips are treated under the Puerto Rico presence test, and where the rules run out.
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The year-of-move rule covers tax home and closer connection, not presence. What that means if you land in Puerto Rico in July, and how the three-year commitment on both ends works.
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Bona fide residency in Puerto Rico requires three separate federal tests, and only one of them is about counting days. Here is what each test measures and how they fail independently.
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Arrival days, medical absences, disaster absences, transit stops, and the 30-day travel allowance. A precise walk through the federal day counting rules for the Puerto Rico presence test.
One83 is a tracking tool, not tax advice. Confirm your position with a qualified adviser.