Mainland License, Occasional Practice Days, and the Puerto Rico Tax Home Test

Does keeping a mainland medical or law license active break bona fide residency?

No, not by itself. A license is a credential, not a place of business. What the tax home test actually looks at is where your regular or principal place of business, employment, or post of duty sits. Publication 570 defines tax home as your regular or main place of business, employment, or post of duty, regardless of where you keep your family home. A license you rarely use does not, on its own, put your tax home anywhere.

The tax home test is a separate question from the day count

Bona fide Puerto Rico residency asks three things at once: the presence test, the tax home test, and the closer connection test. The instructions for Form 8898 state all three plainly. Passing one does not substitute for another. You could log 250 days a year on the island and still fail bona fide residency if your tax home turns out to sit outside the territory.

That is the specific reader this article is for: a doctor, a lawyer, or another licensed professional who moved for residency, kept a mainland license active, and now flies back for a handful of practice days a year. That reader can pass the presence test without much trouble and still have a real, open question about the tax home test. For the full three test framework, see the presence test, tax home test, and closer connection test.

Why you cannot have two tax homes

26 CFR section 1.937-1 states the rule directly: an individual cannot have two tax homes at the same time. When work splits across more than one location, the regulation decides which one counts as the regular or principal place of business by weighing three factors. Time spent at each location. The level of business activity at each. The financial return from each.

The regulation's own Example 6 makes this concrete. A seasonal worker maintains a principal place of business in one possession and lives elsewhere the rest of the year. That worker satisfies the tax home test only for the possession where the regular place of business sits, not for wherever the off season happens to be spent. The same weighing applies to a Puerto Rico resident with occasional mainland practice days.

How occasional mainland practice days fit this test

A few continuing education days, an occasional locum shift, or a handful of client or hospital visits a year is a different fact pattern from a standing mainland office with regular hours. Nothing in the regulation carves out an exception for license maintenance work. The same time, business activity, and financial return weighing applies no matter why the mainland trips happen.

Scale is what shifts the analysis. The more time a mainland presence consumes, the more clients or cases it involves, and the bigger a share of income it generates against the Puerto Rico practice, the more it starts to resemble a second regular place of business instead of an occasional trip. A related fact pattern, a practice that changes shape partway through the year, is covered in what breaks a Puerto Rico tax home mid-year.

Keeping this weighing straight over a full year is the kind of contemporaneous recordkeeping problem that's easy to put off and hard to reconstruct later. One83 builds a day ledger from your calendar, so the travel side of this record exists before anyone asks for it.

How many mainland practice days are too many?

Published guidance sets no specific number of mainland days, and no dollar threshold that tips the balance. Both Publication 570 and section 1.937-1 describe the tax home test as a facts and circumstances determination based on time, business activity, and financial return. Not a formula with a line to cross.

For a reader trying to plan ahead, that's genuinely unsettled ground. If your mainland practice days, or the income they generate, are a meaningful share of your professional activity, put the question to your advisor in writing before you build a year around an assumption. Don't lean on a rule of thumb you picked up secondhand.

What to keep on record

The closer connection test runs alongside the tax home test, and mainland licensure touches it too. Publication 570 lists the significant connection factors courts weigh, including the jurisdiction of your professional license and organizational memberships, alongside your permanent home, banking activity, and where your business operations sit.

For the tax home test specifically, the useful records are the ones that show where your practice actually concentrates:

• Appointment, case, or shift logs by location, over the full year
• Billing or invoice records showing where the income is earned
• A calendar distinguishing occasional mainland trips from anything resembling a standing schedule

For the broader recordkeeping picture, see documenting your presence for an audit. One83 keeps the presence day count and the travel record together automatically, the same record an examiner asks for first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does keeping a mainland medical or law license active break bona fide residency?

Not by itself. A license is a credential, not a place of business. What matters for the tax home test is where your regular or principal place of business, employment, or post of duty actually sits, judged by time spent, business activity, and financial return at each location.

How many mainland practice days are too many?

There is no published bright line number. The regulation weighs time, business activity, and financial return at each location as a whole, so the same day count can come out differently depending on income split and client load. This is genuinely unsettled: treat it as a facts and circumstances question for your advisor, not a formula.

Is the tax home test the same as the 183 day presence test?

No. The presence test counts days physically in Puerto Rico. The tax home test asks where your regular or principal place of business sits. You can pass the day count and still fail bona fide residency if your tax home is found to be on the mainland.

What should I keep as evidence that Puerto Rico is my tax home?

Records showing where your client base, billing, and working hours are concentrated: appointment or case logs by location, invoices or billing records by state, and a calendar showing mainland trips were occasional rather than a second regular practice.

The bottom line

The day count and the tax home test are two different questions. Occasional mainland practice gets judged on time, business activity, and financial return, not on license status alone. Published guidance draws no bright line for this fact pattern, so treat it as unsettled and get it in writing from a licensed tax professional before you build a year around an assumption. Keep the underlying records now. They're the same evidence an examiner would ask for later, and they're far easier to gather contemporaneously than to reconstruct after the fact.

One83 is a tracking tool, not tax advice. Consult a licensed tax professional about your situation.