Residency and Domicile
California has no bright line. It has a record.
New York has a statutory residence test: a permanent place of abode in New York and more than one hundred eighty-three days spent there make a person a resident. California has nothing comparable. What California has instead is a definition turning on whether presence is for a temporary or transitory purpose, a six-month provision that operates as a safe harbor rather than a threshold, and a nine-month presumption that can be rebutted.
The consequence is that residency is decided on facts and circumstances, and the connections maintained inside and outside the state become the evidence. Where the residences are and what they are worth. Where a spouse and children live and where the children attend school. Where the days are spent and why. Where returns are filed and what residence they claim. Where accounts and transactions originate, where vehicles are registered, where licenses are held, and where business interests are owned.
Domicile is the harder half of the question. It is a separate concept from residence and is driven by intent. A person holds only one domicile at a time and keeps it until another is acquired. For a married couple, domicile also determines whether income is community or separate property. A departure planned around days alone often fails for that reason.
Timing decides outcomes. Whether a liquidity event was realized before a change in status, during it, or after it is frequently worth more than every other fact in the file combined.
The record
16
Years of residency planning and defense
60+
Residency examinations defended
$16B
Net worth of California departures advised
The statutes, the regulations, and the Franchise Tax Board's own residency manual are public documents. Anyone can read them. What they do not contain is the examination itself: which connections an auditor tests first, what a day log must look like to be believed, when an interview helps and when it hurts, how a settlement position is actually built. That knowledge does not come from reading. It comes from sixteen years across the table from the Franchise Tax Board, in more than sixty residency examinations, with single matters running to millions of dollars in dispute.
Received wisdom says a move fails if a home is retained, if a spouse remains in the state, if the children must continue schooling in California. It is not so simple. Residency is weighed, not counted; no single connection decides it; and a departure can be structured to real benefit by moving the connections that can move and planning around the ones that cannot. The difference between a defensible move and an expensive one is rarely the law. It is the file, built as the move happens, by a practice that has answered the state's questions in more than sixty examinations.
When residency planning fails, it tends to fail the same way: an examination, then an assessment. Residency guidance is widely available; what it rarely reflects is the examination itself, which is where a plan is tested. Planning is strongest when it is built with that examination in view.