Tax home checklist

Keep the three factors

• Keep paying for your main home (rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance) while you're on assignment. That's factor 2.
• Work some shifts at home between contracts, such as PRN, and sleep at home while you do. That's factor 1.
• Go home regularly. Keep your driver's license, voter registration, vehicle registration, bank, and doctors in your home area. That's factor 3.
• Renting from family? Use a written lease at fair rent and pay by bank transfer.

Keep the proof

• Lease or mortgage statements for your main home, kept during assignments
• Utility, internet, and renter's/homeowner's insurance bills in your name at that address
• Rent payment trail (bank transfers, not cash). If you rent from family: a written lease at fair market rent, plus proof of payment.
• Driver's license, voter registration, and vehicle registration at the tax-home address
• Log of trips home: dates, receipts, boarding passes or fuel receipts
• PRN or other work in the home area between contracts (pay stubs)

Watch the calendar

• Each contract: start/end dates, location, extensions (to track the 1-year rule)
• Always log extensions with the date you agreed to them.
• "A series of assignments to the same location, all for short periods but that together cover a long period, may be considered an indefinite assignment." (Pub 463 (2025))

Sources: Pub 463 (2025), ch. 1