Ohio — Bright-Line Residency (213 Contact Periods)

Summary

Safe zone

212 or fewer contact periods / tax year

Unit

Contact period (a two-day pattern, not a day)

Window

Calendar / tax year (Jan 1 – Dec 31)

Also required

Out-of-Ohio abode + 3 more conditions + filed IT NRS

Basis

Ohio Rev. Code § 5747.24

Ohio gives you a bright-line way to be presumed a nonresident for state income tax. Under Ohio Rev. Code § 5747.24, if you have no more than 212 contact periods in Ohio during the tax year — that is, fewer than 213 — and you meet four other conditions and file the right statement, Ohio presumes you are not domiciled in Ohio. The catch is that a contact period is not a day: it is a two-consecutive-day pattern that counts as one. Bounded tracks your days in Ohio as a deliberately conservative stand-in for contact periods, so its 213-day alert fires early — long before your real contact-period count is anywhere near the line.

Who it applies to

This matters most if you have a foot in two states and want Ohio to treat you as a nonresident:

• Someone who has moved out of Ohio but still comes back often for work, family, or business.
• A snowbird or dual-home resident who splits the year between Ohio and another state.
• A remote worker or frequent traveler whose trips keep touching Ohio across the calendar.

It applies to individuals regardless of citizenship or immigration status — this is about Ohio state income tax residency, not federal tax, visas, or any other jurisdiction. If Ohio treats you as a resident, it can tax your income as a resident; the bright-line test is how you keep a clean nonresident position.

The rule — and why it exists

The core of § 5747.24 is a count, but the count is only the first of five gates. To claim the nonresident (non-domicile) presumption for a tax year, you must meet all five conditions:

1. 1212 or fewer contact periods in Ohio during the tax year (fewer than 213).
2. 2At least one abode outside Ohio for the entire year — a genuine home, not depreciated, and not a vacation, rental, or income property.
3. 3No Ohio driver's license or Ohio state ID at any point during the year.
4. 4No Ohio homestead exemption or owner-occupied property-tax reduction claimed for the year.
5. 5No in-state Ohio tuition claimed on the basis of an Ohio abode.

Meet all five and file a timely Ohio Nonresident Statement (Form IT NRS) — or check the Nonresident Statement box on your IT 1040 — and you are irrebuttably presumed a nonresident. Meet the count but file nothing, and Ohio flips it around: you are presumed an Ohio resident and have to rebut that under the common-law domicile test.

The stakes turn on the number. Below 213 contact periods, if the question ever comes up, your burden to prove nonresidency is the gentle more likely than not standard. At 213 or more, Ohio presumes you are domiciled in Ohio, and you must rebut that with clear and convincing evidence — a much harder climb.

Why it exists: a pure day count is easy to argue over, so Ohio built a defined, countable unit (the contact period) paired with hard facts about your license, your home, and your tax benefits. Together they draw a line the state can administer and you can plan around — while still tying the outcome to whether your real home is outside Ohio.

Counting the days — and what a contact period really is

This is the part that trips people up. The statutory unit is a contact period, and the statute defines it precisely:

• You must be away overnight from an abode located outside Ohio — the two-day test only runs while your home base for the trip is out of state.
• You then have one contact period when you spend some portion, however minimal, of each of two consecutive days in Ohio.
• That single contact period can consume up to two calendar days, but it counts as one.
• Presence on non-consecutive days — say Monday and Wednesday but not Tuesday — does not create a contact period.
• Contact periods across the year need not be consecutive with each other; you tally them over the calendar/tax year (Jan 1 – Dec 31).

Why Bounded counts calendar days instead

A day counter on your phone can see when you are in Ohio, but it cannot always know whether two of those days were the consecutive halves of a single overnight trip. Because one contact period can span two calendar days, counting days over-counts relative to the legal unit — roughly up to two calendar days for every one contact period. That is on purpose: a 213-day alert is a conservative proxy. It can flag a warning at roughly double the pace of your actual contact-period count, so it warns you early and keeps you safely clear of the real line. It is a safe cushion, not the exact statutory figure — treat the app's count as "days in Ohio," and remember your true contact-period number is lower.

1. 1Count the calendar days you are physically present in Ohio during the tax year (Jan 1 – Dec 31).
2. 2Because a contact period can cover two consecutive calendar days, your day count runs ahead of your true contact-period count.
3. 3Staying under 213 days keeps you comfortably under 213 contact periods — the conservative safe zone.
4. 4The tally resets to zero each January 1; it is a fresh annual count, not a rolling window.

Examples

Example 1 — a clean bright-line nonresident

Dana keeps her real home in Nashville all year, holds a Tennessee driver's license, and claims no Ohio homestead or tuition benefit. She drives up to Columbus for work about twice a month, each time on an overnight trip, touching Ohio on two consecutive days each visit — roughly 48 contact periods for the year. Well under 212. She files Form IT NRS by October 15, and Ohio irrebuttably presumes she is a nonresident.

Example 2 — days look scary, contact periods don't

Marcus, who lives in Kentucky, spends about 300 calendar days in Ohio over the year, but almost always in single-day, non-consecutive visits — he crosses the river in the morning and is home by night. Very few of those days pair into consecutive-day contact periods, so his contact-period count is far below 300. Bounded would flag him at 213 days — that is the conservative alert doing its job — but his actual contact-period figure may still be inside the safe zone. The alert tells him it is time to check the real count, not that he has already failed.

Example 3 — the count is fine, the abode is not

Priya has only 90 contact periods in Ohio, but her only genuine home is in Cleveland; the "out-of-state abode" she points to is a lakeside cabin she rents out most of the year. Because that is an income property, not a real home available to her all year, she fails the abode condition. Her low count cannot save the bright-line presumption — she does not qualify no matter how few contact periods she logs.

Exceptions & edge cases

• The count alone is never enough. All five conditions must hold — 212 or fewer contact periods, an out-of-Ohio abode for the full year, no Ohio license or state ID, no Ohio homestead or owner-occupied reduction, and no Ohio-abode-based in-state tuition. Treat them as a checklist, not a single number.
• You must file to lock it in. The Ohio Nonresident Statement (Form IT NRS, or the box on the IT 1040) is due by October 15 after year-end. File it and the presumption becomes irrebuttable; skip it and Ohio presumes residency even when your count and abode qualify.
• The affidavit changed names — and teeth. The old "Affidavit of Non-Ohio Residency/Domicile" (Form IT DA) was replaced by the Nonresident Statement (Form IT NRS) in Ohio's 2018 rewrite (H.B. 292, effective for tax years 2018 forward). If you are working from old guidance mentioning the IT DA, the current form is the IT NRS. The rewrite followed the Ohio Supreme Court's decision in Cunningham v. Testa (2015), which had held the old affidavit did not by itself defeat a common-law domicile finding.
• The threshold has moved over time. The original cap was 182 contact periods; it was raised to the current 212 (nonresident presumption at 212 or fewer, so 213+ triggers the domicile presumption) effective March 2015. As of tax year 2025 the 212/213 line still stands.
• Ohio state tax only. This governs Ohio income tax residency. It has nothing to do with federal tax residency, visas, or any other state's rules.

The count and the checklist are the parts you can plan for yourself. Where professional advice genuinely earns its keep is the softer edges — whether a particular property counts as a real out-of-Ohio abode, or how strong your domicile case is if you land at or above 213 and have to rebut "clear and convincing" evidence. A tax adviser is worth it there, not for the day count itself.

Common misconceptions

• "A contact period is just a day in Ohio." No — it is a two-consecutive-day pattern that counts as one, and only while you are away overnight from a home outside Ohio. Your contact-period count is always lower than your days-in-Ohio count.
• "Under 213 and I'm automatically a nonresident." Not on its own. You also need the out-of-Ohio abode, no Ohio license or ID, no Ohio homestead reduction, no Ohio-abode tuition — and a filed IT NRS.
• "The app's 213 is the exact legal number." The app counts calendar days as a conservative proxy; the legal 212/213 counts contact periods. The app deliberately warns early, so its count runs ahead of your true figure — that is a safety margin, not an error.
• "I meet the conditions, so I don't need to file anything." You do. Without a timely Ohio Nonresident Statement, Ohio presumes you are a resident even if your count and abode qualify.
• "I still file the old IT DA affidavit." Not since 2018 — the IT DA was replaced by the IT NRS. Use the current form.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Ohio Department of Taxation — Ohio residency and Form IT NRS FAQ
• Ohio Revised Code § 5747.24 — Presumption of domicile