TL;DR — Changing your domicile out of Washington is proven with paper, not intentions. The Department of Revenue starts from the presumption that your old domicile continues until a new one is established, and the burden of proving the change is on you. This checklist is the record you need to build: what to do before you move, the week you move, in your first 90 days in the new state, and every year after — with the documentation to keep at each step. It is written for founders, executives, and investors planning an exit before Washington's 9.9% income tax (ESSB 6346) takes effect January 1, 2028, and it works the same way for the capital gains tax you can owe right now.
If you want the strategy behind these steps — why domicile is the concept that matters, what auditors examine, and how the timing interacts with a liquidity event — start with the Domicile Strategy Guide and the Washington Founder Exit Map. This post is the execution layer.
Why a checklist, and why documentation is the whole game
Domicile is a legal conclusion built from two elements: physical presence in the new state, and intent to remain there indefinitely. Presence is countable, while intent has to be inferred — from your conduct, your records, and your contemporaneous statements. Under the common-law rule every state applies, a domicile once established continues until a new one is acquired, and the person asserting the change bears the burden of proving it.
That burden allocation is why this post exists. In an audit, the question will not be "did you move?" It will be "show me." Contemporaneous records — a dated moving invoice, a license issued in February, a lease signed in January — are worth far more than anything reconstructed two years later. Every item below ends the same way: do the thing, and keep the proof.
- The capital gains tax applies now. Washington taxes long-term gains on stock and other intangibles — 7% above the inflation-adjusted standard deduction ($278,000 for tax year 2025), and 9.9% on the portion of gain above $1 million — based on where you are domiciled on the day the sale closes (RCW 82.87.100(1)(b)). Not residency. Not a day count. Domicile. If you sell while still domiciled in Washington, the checklist came too late.
- The income tax arrives January 1, 2028. ESSB 6346 applies a 9.9% tax to household income above a $1 million standard deduction. The tax remains law, effective January 1, 2028, unless voters repeal it or the courts strike it down — a repeal initiative is likely headed to the November 3, 2026 ballot, and a constitutional challenge is pending — but the only defensible posture is to plan as though it arrives on schedule.
One more framing rule before you start: conduct first, announcement last. A public declaration that you have moved is evidence of intent that cuts both ways — it corroborates a record that already exists, and it impeaches one that does not. The Derek Jeter and Tom Golisano cases show both edges of that blade.
Phase 1 — Before the move (ideally 6–12+ months before any liquidity event)
A domicile change needs runway. Six to twelve months of documented life in the new state before a triggering transaction is the minimum defensible posture; more is better.
- Pick the state and commit to it. Nevada, Florida, Texas, and other no-income-tax states are the usual candidates, but the analysis is not only tax: community property (Washington is a community property state; most destinations are not, and the move has real consequences for how spouses hold assets), creditor protection, homestead rules, and estate planning all change at the border. Get counsel involved here, not after.
- Map the timeline against your recognition events. If a sale, tender offer, or exit is on the horizon, the move work starts first. Sequence matters more than anything else on this list. Save: a dated planning memo or engagement letter showing when the process began.
- Acquire the new home. Buy or sign a long-term lease on a residence in the new state — and make it credible relative to what you keep. A studio apartment in Las Vegas against a waterfront home on Mercer Island tells the auditor which one is home. Retain: closing statement or lease, utility account setup confirmations.
- Decide what happens to the Washington home. Selling is the cleanest abandonment evidence there is. A genuine long-term lease to an unrelated tenant is workable. Keeping it vacant and available for your use is the classic red flag — it preserves the inference that you intend to return. Save: listing agreement, sale closing statement, or lease.
- Inventory the "near and dear." Auditors genuinely ask where your most cherished possessions live — the original art, the heirlooms, the family photos, the safe deposit box contents. List them now and plan to move them, because domicile follows the things you would never leave behind.
- Do not announce anything yet. No LinkedIn post, no farewell email blast, no quote in the trade press. The announcement comes after the facts exist, if at all.
Phase 2 — Move week
- Physically relocate — and paper the date. The moving company's invoice and bill of lading are among the best documents in the entire file: a third-party, dated, itemized record of your household goods leaving Washington. If you move yourself, keep truck rental agreements, fuel receipts, and dated photos. Retain: all of it, permanently.
- Move the near-and-dear items with you. Not into a Seattle storage unit. Close or relocate any Washington safe deposit box. Save: bank records showing the box closure, mover's inventory listing the items.
- File the USPS change of address to the new home — permanent, not temporary. Retain: the confirmation.
- Start the day-count log on day one. A contemporaneous calendar of where you sleep each night — an app, a spreadsheet, a paper diary — maintained from the move date forward. Credit card records, phone location history, and travel receipts should tell the same story your log does, because the auditor will pull them.
Phase 3 — First 30–90 days in the new state
This phase is mostly unglamorous paperwork. None of these items is individually decisive, but collectively they are the file.
- Driver's license: obtain the new state's license and surrender the Washington one. Most states require this within 30–90 days of establishing residency anyway. Save: copy of the new license showing issue date.
- Vehicles: retitle and register cars, boats, and planes in the new state. Retain: registrations.
- Voter registration: register in the new state and affirmatively cancel your Washington registration — the cancellation is the abandonment evidence. Then vote there. Save: registration card, cancellation confirmation.
- Declaration of domicile / homestead filings, where available: Florida permits a sworn declaration of domicile filed with the clerk of the circuit court (Fla. Stat. §222.17) and a homestead exemption on the new primary residence; Nevada permits filing a sworn declaration of domicile with the clerk of the district court for your county (NRS 41.191); Texas offers a residence homestead exemption through the county appraisal district. These filings are not sufficient by themselves — they are sworn intent evidence that must match your conduct. Retain: file-stamped copies.
- Update your estate plan. Have wills, trusts, and powers of attorney reviewed under the new state's law and re-executed reciting your new domicile. This also surfaces the community-property transition issues worth solving deliberately rather than by accident. Washington also imposes an estate tax on decedents domiciled in the state, so the domicile change is doing estate-tax work too.
- Financial accounts: update the address of record on every bank, brokerage, retirement, and credit card account. Establish a relationship with a local bank branch. Update the address your K-1s, 1099s, and W-2s are issued to. Save: statements showing the new address.
- Federal tax filings: file your next federal return from the new address (and Form 8822 if you want the change on record sooner).
- Insurance: rewrite auto, homeowners, and umbrella policies to the new state; the new home becomes the "primary residence" on the policy. Retain: declarations pages.
- Professional and daily life: new doctors, dentists, veterinarian, accountant, and — where practical — attorney in the new state. Transfer prescriptions. Join a gym, a club, a house of worship locally. These are exactly the "life" facts auditors weigh.
- Memberships and boards: resign Washington club memberships or convert them to nonresident status; be thoughtful about Washington board seats and business registrations that anchor you here.
- Family: if you have school-age children, enroll them in the new state. Where your spouse and kids actually live is among the heaviest facts in the analysis — a spouse who stays in the Seattle house will usually sink the claim.
Phase 4 — Ongoing (every year until the statute of limitations closes)
- Maintain the day-count log and actually limit Washington days. There is no magic number for domicile purposes, but a pattern of substantial time back in Washington undermines intent — and if you are also relying on nonresident status for any year, the statutory safe harbor has hard requirements: no Washington abode at any time during the year, a home maintained elsewhere all year, and 30 or fewer Washington days (RCW 82.87.020(11)(a); ESSB 6346 §101(8)).
- Understand what the 30-day rule does and does not do. Nonresident status protects tangible-property gains and matters under the income tax — but the capital gains tax on stock follows domicile on the day of sale regardless of residency. Passing the day count does not change your domicile. That trap has its own post.
- Keep the story consistent. Loan applications, insurance forms, club paperwork, and social media should all say the same thing about where home is. Inconsistent contemporaneous statements are the cheapest ammunition an auditor gets.
- Now you can say it out loud. Once the conduct is real and documented, a public statement corroborates the record instead of manufacturing evidence against you.
- Retain the file. Keep everything above, organized by date, at least through the limitations period for every open year — as a practical matter, plan on holding the file for a minimum of four years after each relevant return, and longer if a large recognition event is involved.
Where these plans usually fail
Most failures trace back to sequencing: announcing the move before the facts exist, or leaving the Washington house empty and available "just in case." Splitting the household — a spouse or kids who stay behind — is the hardest of these to overcome, since it undercuts the intent argument more than any document can fix. And moving in the weeks before a deal closes looks like exactly what it is; there is no substitute for runway.
How we can help
A domicile change is won in the details and defended with the file. If you are planning a Washington exit — especially with a liquidity event on the horizon — the highest-value hour you can spend is having counsel pressure-test the sequence and the record before the gain is on the table.
Book a 20-minute planning call →
This post is for educational purposes only and is not legal or tax advice. Domicile determinations are intensely fact-specific — consult a tax attorney about your situation. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this post or by contacting the firm. Please do not send any confidential or time-sensitive information until an attorney-client relationship has been established in writing. This post reflects the law as of its publication date and may not reflect subsequent changes; statutes, regulations, and effective dates discussed here (including ESSB 6346) may change. This material may be considered attorney advertising under applicable rules.
