Short answer: Keeping a New York apartment after moving to Miami does not, by itself, make you a New York taxpayer again. The risk is the combination. If the apartment stays available to you for more than 11 months of the year and you spend a 184th day in New York, you are a statutory resident and New York taxes your worldwide income — about US$13,971 a year at US$150,000 of taxable income for a New York City resident, and US$29,438 at US$300,000, against US$0 in Florida.
Even under 183 days, a furnished apartment full of your things is the strongest exhibit in a domicile audit when you try to prove you really left.
Updated: October 22, 2026.
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Moving to Miami from New York: the two doors New York can tax you through
New York does not have one residency test. It has two, and keeping an apartment feeds both.
| The test | What triggers it | What the apartment does |
|---|---|---|
| Domicile | New York remains the place you intend as your permanent home | Counts under the Home and Near and Dear factors if your life is still stored there |
| Statutory residency | A permanent place of abode for substantially all of the year, plus more than 183 days in New York | Supplies the abode half of the test. Days supply the other half. |
Either door is enough. A statutory resident is taxed on worldwide income, exactly like a domiciliary.
That is why the new york vs florida taxes gap you moved for can come back in full, even though Florida itself charges US$0.
The statutory door: an available apartment plus one day too many
The abode half. A permanent place of abode is a dwelling you maintain, owned or rented, suitable for year-round use.
New York audit policy reads substantially all of the year as more than 11 months.
A Manhattan apartment kept on a lease, furnished and waiting for you, meets that half from January to December.
The day half. More than 183 days in New York State in the year. Any part of a day counts as a full day.
You do not need to sleep in the apartment for the day to count. A work trip, a wedding, a connecting morning in the state all count.
Put together: keep the apartment available all year, spend 184 days in New York for any mix of reasons, and your Florida domicile does not save you. The test is mechanical. Intent is not an element.
This is the same calendar discipline behind the 183-day rule and how to prove Florida domicile, with one difference: without a New York abode, extra days alone cannot make you a statutory resident of New York.
The domicile door: what the apartment says about you
Domicile is your permanent home, and New York keeps it until you prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that you abandoned it and established a new one.
Auditors use five primary factors from the Department of Taxation and Finance Nonresident Audit Guidelines: Home, Active Business Involvement, Time, Items Near and Dear, and Family Connections.
A kept apartment speaks loudest on three of them.
Home: how does the size, value and use of the New York place compare with your Miami place? A family apartment kept in New York against a small short rental in Miami reads as a visit, not a move.
Near and dear: where are the things that matter to you — art, heirlooms, photographs, books, your dog? If they never left New York, the auditor will ask what, exactly, moved.
Time: not only how many days, but which days. Holidays, birthdays and family occasions spent in New York weigh more than a Tuesday for work.
Your Florida driver license, voter registration and declaration of domicile are secondary factors. They help, and I have every client do them in the first-30-days domicile checklist.
But paperwork does not outrank the pattern of your life. That pattern is the whole case in the New York exit audit.
What most people don’t know
1. Renting the apartment out, properly, can end the abode — keeping it empty cannot.
A long-term lease to an unrelated tenant, with no retained access for you, means the dwelling is no longer maintained for your use.
An empty apartment with your furniture, your keys and your name on the lease is the opposite: maximum abode, zero rent income.
Short stays where you return between guests, keep belongings there and treat it as yours keep the risk alive.
2. Two court cases draw the line, and a kept city apartment sits on the wrong side of both.
In Gaied (Court of Appeals, 2014), a unit kept for the taxpayer’s parents, with none of his belongings and only occasional nights on a couch, was held not to be his permanent place of abode. He lacked a residential interest in it.
In Obus, a vacation home used at most about three weeks a year, more than 200 miles from the taxpayer’s New York City job, with no personal effects kept there, was also held not to be a permanent place of abode.
Read those facts against yours. A furnished city apartment, near your old work and social life, used whenever you return, with your things in the closets, is the fact pattern those taxpayers did not have.
3. The burden of the day count is yours, and memory is not evidence.
New York’s IT-201 instructions state the point plainly: if you maintain a permanent place of abode and claim to be a nonresident, you must be able to provide adequate records showing you did not spend more than 183 days in New York.
Contemporaneous records win: flight itineraries, E-ZPass, card receipts, phone records, and a day log kept as you go.
A calendar reconstructed two years later, during an audit, is the weakest version of your own story.
4. Keeping the apartment can cost more than the tax.
On Zumper’s October 2026 medians, a one-bedroom asks US$4,580 in New York City against US$2,500 in Miami. That gap is the core of cost of living in Miami vs New York.
Keeping a market-rate New York apartment while also paying for Miami duplicates the single largest line in both budgets, before any tax assessment.
Sometimes that is worth it for a transition year. Price it as a decision, not as a default.
The three structures I see, ranked by audit risk
Lowest risk: the apartment leaves your life. Sell it, or lease it long-term to an unrelated tenant with no retained access, and move your belongings to Miami.
No abode in New York means no statutory residency, whatever your day count, and your domicile file gets much cleaner.
Managed risk: keep it, and run the calendar like a compliance file. Cap New York days well under 183 — I tell clients to plan around 150, so trips added later do not break the year.
Count partial days. Log days as they happen. Move the near-and-dear items, your doctors, your social center and your holidays to Florida, so the domicile factors point the same way as the day count.
Highest risk: the soft landing that never ends. Furnished apartment kept, everything still in it, frequent open-ended trips back, no day log, Miami treated as a long stay.
That structure gives New York both doors at once, and it is the most common one I am asked to fix.
Whichever structure you choose, choose it before January 1 of the year you claim the move. Mid-year improvisation is what audits feed on. Compare the full saving you are protecting in moving to Miami from New York: the real tax savings.
Frequently asked questions
Can I keep my New York apartment and still be a Florida resident for tax purposes?
Yes, in two situations: if New York is no longer your domicile under the five-factor analysis, and you stay at or under 183 New York days in the year. Keeping the apartment does not automatically tax you. It removes your margin for error on days and becomes evidence in a domicile audit.
How many days can I spend in New York if I keep the apartment?
183 or fewer. The 184th day, combined with a permanent place of abode maintained for more than 11 months, makes you a statutory resident taxed on worldwide income. Any part of a day counts. Plan with a buffer and keep records from day one.
Does renting out my New York apartment remove the risk?
A genuine long-term lease to an unrelated tenant, with no right for you to use the apartment during the term, generally ends the permanent-place-of-abode half of the test for that period. Keeping access, belongings or return rights between short stays points the other way. Get the lease reviewed against your tax position before you sign it.
What tax is actually at stake?
Worldwide income taxed as a New York resident. On the schedules used across this site, a New York City resident pays about US$13,971 a year at US$150,000 of taxable income and US$29,438 at US$300,000, in state and city tax combined. Florida charges US$0. This page is general information, not tax advice: a kept apartment plus a move should be modeled by a tax professional before the year starts.
Yara Coker — SETTLE, relocation services in Miami.
Want help with your move to Miami?
Tell me what you are keeping in New York, how many days you realistically spend there, and where your things and your family time actually live. I will help you sequence the Miami side — home first, then the domicile file — and flag where you need a tax professional before the calendar closes. First call is free and there is no obligation.
Sources: New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Instructions for Form IT-201 (resident definition: domiciled in New York, or a permanent place of abode maintained for substantially all of the tax year plus 184 days or more in New York; any part of a day is a day; a taxpayer maintaining a permanent place of abode who claims nonresident status must provide adequate records substantiating 183 days or fewer), and Tax Law Section 605(b)(1). Department of Taxation and Finance Nonresident Audit Guidelines (2014): five primary domicile factors — Home, Active Business Involvement, Time, Items Near and Dear, Family Connections — and domicile change proved by clear and convincing evidence (20 NYCRR 105.20). Permanent place of abode maintained for substantially all of the year read as more than 11 months in Department audit guidance, as summarized in practitioner references consulted October 2026. Matter of Gaied v. New York State Tax Appeals Tribunal, 22 NY3d 592 (2014) (residential interest required). Matter of Obus (Appellate Division): vacation home used about three weeks a year, over 200 miles from employment, no personal effects, held not a permanent place of abode. New York State tax US$8,282 and New York City tax US$5,689 at US$150,000, and US$17,935 plus US$11,503 at US$300,000: SETTLE arithmetic on official New York State and City schedules, single filer, taxable income, before credits, as published in this site’s New York guides. Florida: no personal income tax, Florida Constitution Article VII Section 5, Florida Department of Revenue new-resident guidance. Rents: Zumper national rent report, October 2026 (New York City one-bedroom median US$4,580; Miami one-bedroom median US$2,500). Individual circumstances vary and this page is not tax advice.
Versión en español: Vivir en Miami desde Nueva York: mantener un apartamento en Nueva York después de mudarte — el riesgo de auditoría, explicado
