What's The Best State For Fulltime RVers When It Comes To Taxes?
Full time RVers have many advantages over the house-bound population. Not only do they get to travel and enjoy new vistas, meet interesting people, and relish new experiences, they can also choose exactly where they want to declare home!
However, our country’s legal system was established around the premise that people are stationary in their places of residence.
Next to your social security number and drivers license, the most required piece of information that all levels of authority and government officials want is your physical address.
Enter the full time RVer. All you want is the freedom to go your own way, as financially prudent as possible. Of course, stretching your income is also important. With today’s hard economic times, getting the biggest bang for your buck is mandatory.
To that end, it’s only common sense that you would try to find a state that has its taxation system set up to your advantage.
Since it's required that you declare a state as your primary residence, the first consideration should be whether or not they have an income tax.
Right off the bat, you’ve eliminated all but 9 states:
- Alaska
- Florida
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Washington
- Wyoming
However... while Tennessee and New Hampshire don’t have state income tax, they do tax interest income and dividends, so we’ll leave them off our RV-friendly list.
And since you’ll have to at least pass through the state occasionally to renew your vehicle registration, drivers license, etc, we’ll take Alaska off the list, too. As tax-friendly as they are, making an annual pilgrimage that far north is a bit extreme.
Now we’re down to 6 RV-friendly possibilities. Let's look at sales tax. There's not much difference between the 6 remaining states.
Florida (over 6%)
Nevada (6.5% to 8.75%)
South Dakota (over 4%)
Texas (6.25% to 8.25%)
Washington (6.5%)
Wyoming (4% to 8%)
Property tax on houses and land is of no concern, but personal property tax will affect your RV, car, and even furniture & household possessions.
Florida - Yes
Nevada - No
South Dakota - No
Texas - No
Washington - Yes
Wyoming - No
Drop 2 more (Florida and Washington) out of our list of full time RVer-friendly states. So, the final 4 possibilities are:
- Nevada
- South Dakota
- Texas
- Wyoming
Where Do Most Full-Time RVers Live?
After doing some serious searching on the Internet, the best information I could find leads me to believe that the 2 top-ranking states, as far as the general population of full time RVers go, are:
#1 Texas
#2 South Dakota
Florida was also mentioned, though I didn’t find anything about Wyoming or Nevada.
Texas came out on top mostly due to the Escapees RV Club which is headquartered in Livingston, TX. They have better then 15,000 members who declare Texas as home, yet many spend little or no time in the state. The Escapees even go so far as to have a Become a Texan Manual (.pdf) on the Internet that gives you all the information you need to establish your domicile in Texas (.pdf). They can even do your mail forwarding for you.
It's The Little Things...
Taxes are the obvious issues when you choose a particular state as your primary residence. But don’t forget such things as vehicle registration and drivers licenses.
Texas provides for renewal of both by mail. Texas does require you to have your vehicles inspected annually, though they allow you to get them inspected whenever you return to the state -- assuming that you actually do return at some point.
Another issue is voting, Texas has the most liberal absentee voting I’ve seen. You can mail in your vote a month in advance of the election.
My wife and I full-timed in Texas for 2 years, and we were house-bound there for another 6 years. It’s a state with a lot to see and do, and lots of real friendly folks. Overall Texas is a darn good place to call home.
Hi Katy, Pack your bags, your headed for South Dakota. You need establish a mail forwarding address through any company like these:
http://www.mydakotaaddress.com/
http://www.sdrvmail.com/
Then you need to make a trip to S.D. as you need to physically go there to transfer your driver's license. At that time you can also transfer your vehicle titles and insurance to S.D. and just like that your residency is established.
We are in the process of selling our home so we can then buy an RV & go full time so my husband can follow the work. He is a brick mason.We currently live in NC.I understand about needing to set up a legal residence, I just don't know how to start?If we buy an RV here, how do we get the tag, title, ins, exct. transferred to what ever state we chose as our residence? Please help,very confused!! P.S. We are considering SD.Thanks in advance, Kathy
We are currently domicled in Texas. I just wanted to add that the registration and insurance rates in TX are really high. We moved here from Oregon and our rates nearly doubled.
Joe, Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire,and Oregon are the best with "No" sales tax. Colorado takes the smallest bite with 2.9%. The whole list can be seen at:
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/sales.html
Very poor article. Why would I be interested in income tax. I'm retired. I haven't filed a return for 10 years. I want to know how much sales tax I'm going to have to pay in each state when I buy an RV and what the annual cost will be for license plates and other fees. What is the best states for keeping these costs down?
California is DOUBLING their registration to make money starting about May09 or so. My 1999 Holiday Rambler will go from $182 to $364 next March. No extra anything, just more taxes from the state legislators.
Sales tax going up almost 1/2-3/4 cents depending on where you live. LA county will be almost 10% beware of california. It is at the top of the list for taxing states now.
Andy, If your looking to register your RV in Texas you might want to get a hold of the Escapees RV Club. http://escapees.com/index2.asp
They're the best source of information on the subject.
Hey Curtis; I am glad I discovered your article on best state to call home. I have problem. My residence is in Hawaii. We have just bought an RV in WI and drove it to CA. It is stored there where we can go and
visit our children living in LA. We plan to be part timers about 4 months a year on the mainland but needing to know where and how to
register our vehicle and pay our sales tax. Can you help.
Sincerely;
Andy
PS HI requires a vehicle to be inspected.
Thanks for the comment, I back you up on paying taxes in the state where you earned money. It can create a paperwork nightmare for those moving around a lot.
Glad I could help confirm your decision, Happy motoring.
Thank you for a well-written, well-thought-out analysis. My wife and I agree that it seems to be a toss-up between Texas and South Dakota when it comes to the direct benefits each state provides. However now that we've decided to spend most of our time traveling in the Southwest, Texas is beginning to make more sense for us, even though we are currently South Dakota residents on paper. The distinct advantages for us are that Texas is closer to our main area of travel and their voter-friendly atmosphere (I believe largely due to the influence of Escapees RV Club) is comforting as well. Add this to the ever-increasing cost of fuel, which makes renewing a driver's license quite expensive, and Texas is a no-brainer for us!
I've lived in fl for 14 yrs have a house but never paid personal property tax on car or contents of house etc.
there is a tax on add ons to moble homes that are on rented ground such as porches garages plus annual stickers
but it is not too much
check on myflorida.com for up to date info.
I would agree with your analysis. I was a resident of TX for 15 years and recently switched to SD. I switched because that's where George, my husband, is a resident. We haven't tried voting there yet so the jury is out. I never had any problems in Texas and do recommend the Escapees Club mail service and all they do to assist full-timers with issues that come up.
For those who work on the road, being a TX or SD resident won't keep you from paying any state income taxes if you work in a state that does have income tax. You'll still have to file there on the income earned in that state. But you can avoid state taxes on the rest of your income.
Jaimie Hall Bruzenak
author of Support Your RV Lifestyle! An Insider's Guide to Working on the Road