Most residency failures are unintentional. A long lease, kids in school, a spouse’s location, a local directorship, or even where you spend and see doctors can tip the story. Here are seven traps and how audits actually read them.
A couple we will call Daniel and Rina did what many globally mobile families do when work becomes portable: they chose quality of life first and assumed tax status would follow later.
They rented a home for a year “just to try it.” They enrolled their child in an international school because continuity mattered. They kept their old apartment “for convenience” and visited frequently for family and medical care. Their company required Daniel to sign contracts and manage senior hires, so he did that while traveling.
Nothing about the plan felt aggressive. It felt normal.
Then two things happened in the same quarter.
First, a bank asked for updated tax residence self-certifications and supporting proof. Second, an auditor in their former high-tax jurisdiction requested documentation that reconstructed their days and ties: statements, calendars, travel records, and the proof behind their “non-resident” filing position. That documentation exists whether you are ready or not.
In many jurisdictions, residency is not a single switch. It is a cumulative narrative: housing, family, economic activity, and the consistency of your records.
The UK’s residence framework makes this explicit by combining days with “ties” when you do not meet automatic tests. Spain’s framework explicitly includes both physical presence and where your economic interests are based, and it can count sporadic absences unless you prove residence elsewhere. Italy also relies on a blend of day count and civil-law concepts of domicile and habitual residence. And US states like New York apply a clear statutory resident test based on maintaining a permanent place of abode plus a day threshold, with official guidance stating that any part of a day can count.
The modern lesson is uncomfortable but empowering: you can reduce silent residency risk if you know where audits actually look.
From diagnostic to decision-ready in minutes:
Answer a structured assessment, receive your wealth stage and risk signals, then follow a clear, personalized pathway to education, advisory, or diligence.
Auditors and compliance teams do not start with philosophy. They start with reconstructable facts.
In New York, for example, residency audits are known for heavy documentation requests, and professional commentary notes the tax department may request credit card and bank statements, toll records, calendars, diaries, and travel itineraries to quantify day counts and fill in unknown days. New York’s own public guidance defines statutory residency in terms of maintaining a permanent place of abode and spending 184 days or more in the state, with any part of a day counting.
California frames residence around “closest connections” and emphasizes the determination is fact-driven, not a simple form answer.
In Europe, the questions move quickly from days to ties: family, housing availability, and economic centre. Spain’s tax agency explicitly lists both the 183-day test and the “main core or base” of activities or economic interests.
This is why “I did not mean to become resident” is rarely a defence. Residency is often an outcome of accumulated evidence, not intent.
Who this is for:People with multi-country routines, families with school-aged children, founders who manage teams while traveling, and anyone keeping a “just in case” home in a high-tax place.
Even if you think of it as temporary, a long lease, a furnished place, or a home that is always available can be interpreted as a stable base.
Audit lens: housing availability and usage patterns.
Clean posture: written intent aligned with behaviour, limited availability, clear primary home elsewhere, and consistent proof.
School term dates create a calendar that authorities understand instantly. Enrollment records, parent presence, and community ties can be stronger than flight logs.
Audit lens: where the child’s life is organised.
Clean posture: accept that schooling anchors a story, then plan residency around that reality rather than against it.
If one partner lives and works in a jurisdiction while the other “travels,” the family centre may be inferred from the spouse’s daily life.
Audit lens: household reality, not individual travel.
Clean posture: align family location with intended residence where possible, or prepare for dual-residency complexity.
Signing contracts, hiring decisions, board meetings, and operational control can suggest economic centre or management presence.
Audit lens: where decisions happen, and where authority is exercised.
Clean posture: document governance properly and understand how management activity interacts with residency and corporate concepts in relevant jurisdictions.
Recurring appointments, insurance usage, and registrations can indicate where you actually live.
Audit lens: life administration, routine presence.
Clean posture: ensure healthcare patterns match the story you are telling, and do not underestimate how persuasive these records can be.
Memberships are a paper trail of belonging. Combined with housing and family, they can strengthen a “centre of life” inference.
Audit lens: community ties plus frequency of attendance.
Clean posture: treat memberships as part of your residency footprint, because they are.
High recurring spend, local merchant patterns, and consistent ATM usage can undermine a claimed “elsewhere” residence, especially when banks are collecting tax residence self-certifications under CRS-style due diligence.
Audit lens: the money trail.
Clean posture: consistency across addresses, self-certifications, and actual spend behaviour.
Score each trap from 0 to 3:
If you have multiple 2s and 3s in a single jurisdiction, your “non-resident” position is not a calendar exercise. It is a documentation and narrative exercise.
Steps for a Residency Exposure Scan:
Risks and frictions:
What is being bought and sold in this space is confidence:
The advantage is not secrecy. The advantage is coherence.
Types of actors to speak to first:
Recommended sequence:
“Most residency problems are not planned. They are inherited from convenience.”
Key datapoints box:
Sources & disclosure:Key sources used: HMRC SRT guidance, Spain tax agency residency page, Italian tax agency guidance circular, New York Department of Taxation and Finance nonresident FAQs, California FTB resident status publication, CRS due diligence materials.
Standard I-Invest disclosure: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, tax, or migration advice. Seek independent professional advice.
