August, 2021
Residency Questions for Full Time RV Travelers
Recently someone asked me about one of the most fundamental questions concerning full time travel. What do you do for an address? Now many folks will travel a lot but still maintain an actual sticks and stones home address somewhere. But for those who forsake the many comforts of having a fixed home base in favor of the many freedoms that come with not having one, the question of establishing some sort of officially acceptable Residence Address must be dealt with.
I cannot answer this question for the many travelers whose citizenship is held in any other country because each country will have its own rules and regulations governing this issue. But if you are an American citizen wanting to explore going full time, the information in this article and the links to other resources included will be helpful to you.
We have been living on the road as full time travelers with no fixed home since October of 2001 — soon to be twenty years. By April, 2003, we had sold our last property in our home state of California and had established residency in a different state. In the US you can do that quite easily. This is because while your citizenship is determined at the National level, most of the nitty gritty things controlling your day to day life are actually controlled and regulated at the State level. Each of the fifty states has its own set of rules regulating health and vehicle insurance, vehicle and driver registration and licensing, taxation, residency and a multitude of other issues. If you own property somewhere, you may be legally required to have residency in the state where that property is located. But, once you no longer own any property in any state, then you are free to choose the state that best suits your individual requirements. It’s really no different than if you were to choose to move to another state, which Americans do all the time.
Below, I will first address what we decided to do back in 2003 and how that decision has worked out for us. Then in the second section of this article I will provide links to other resources that can help you do further research in order to reach your own decision on what is best for you.
1. Our Own Decision:
The first major hurdle to clear in beginning a life on the road is clearly the issue of having a permanent address after you’ve sold your home or left the rental property that has served as your Residence Address. We sold our home in Paso Robles in spring 2003 and have never had a fixed home since. But, everybody has to have an address, no way around it. Just think of all the things that are based on your home or residence address: insurance, bank accounts and credit cards, voting, even shopping online; all require a permanent address, which is also referred to as your domicile. Some folks may choose to use a relative’s address, such as one of your children, a parent, or even a really good friend, but most full timers will opt for a commercial mailing service.
This decision of course will depend in part on where your children, parent or friend live. Is that a state where you’d like to, or even can, establish residency? And then there is the question of how much you want to involve someone else in the business of handling your mail. We began with our mail going to one of our children, but quickly decided that we’d be happier using a commercial mail forwarding service. We’ve been happy with that choice for the past eighteen years, but know of other travelers who have been successful with having relatives or friends handle their mail. It all depends on your own situation, but be sure to consider this part carefully; it’s one thing to have an individual who is both willing and able to receive all your mail and then handle it as you wish, but it is another thing to determine whether you can use their address as your residence address.
Whatever you decide as to where your mail will be sent, in choosing where to establish residency you will need to consider all of the factors listed above, plus ease of doing business with state offices, vehicle and licensing requirements, and most importantly, state residency requirements. Some states are very strict regarding allowing people to have residency who do not intend to actually live in the state, and others are not. Being originally from California we knew that maintaining California residency once we’d sold our home was not going to be the best idea as California is simply too expensive in too many ways. So we asked other full timers and did other types of research into our options. We even attended seminars on the topic of residency requirements in various states — more on that in section two.
In short order we narrowed our search down to three states (Texas, Florida and South Dakota) as being the most popular options, and then we quickly came down to the one we thought would be best for us, South Dakota. We established residency in South Dakota in 2003 and have never regretted our choice. A quick summary of why we made this choice is contained in a message on our website that we wrote at the time. I’ve copied it for reference here, lightly modified and updated: (Note that this information is from 2003. We can attest to the accuracy of all informtion pertaining to South Dakota, but not to statements involving other states).
- No state income tax; SD is one of nine states without one.
- Low sales tax on vehicles; SD has a state sales tax of just 4% (although local communities add more) and charges only a 3% excise tax on any vehicle purchases. This has been a big money saver to us over the years.
- Low registration fees; the motor home annual registration is only about $100, whereas in CA it was over $500.
- Vehicle registration through the mail; this is great when needing to register from out on the road as we do each year. For driver’s licenses, we do have to appear, but the process has always been extremely simple and straight forward.
- No annual vehicle inspections; these can be a real pain for full timers.
- Ability to use a PO Box address for vehicle registrations and driver’s licenses.
- The pleasure of being from a small state for a change; SD has a population of just over 750,000 people. This fact really appealed to us.
- A welcoming attitude toward RVers; SD has an established history of being friendly to out of staters who want to become residents. Our favorite story came from a couple in a campground down in Alabama who had SD plates. They had recently become SD residents and before doing so had done a little research. After hearing, as we had, that SD was friendly to RVers, they had called the state DMV office to check. For starters, the woman who answered the phone was actually the head of the state DMV – try that in California. She listened to their questions and confirmed that yes indeed, you can register your vehicles by mail and can use a mailing address for vehicle and license purposes. She went on to explain that eighteen years before, when she was new on the job, she had taken a similar call and on checking with her boss – the then head of the state office – had been told that SD liked full time RVers and was happy to have them as residents. This simple welcoming attitude means a lot to us and contrasts strongly with some other states.
This list of reasons still holds true today and we value each one of them. The only change since 2003 is that the vehicle excise tax (the sales tax charged when you buy a new/used vehicle) recently went from 3% to 4%, but this is still much less than you will pay in most states.
Some specifics:
Mail: When we established out residency in SD we signed up with a mail service in Sioux Falls called Dakota Post (in 2003 it was Alternative Resources) and they have taken very good care of us. All our mail goes there, they automatically discard any junk mail, and then they forward our mail to us when we ask them, to whatever address we give them — usually General Delivery to a post office where we are headed. The address of the mail service serves as our permanent legal address; it is the address on our driver’s licenses, credit cards, banking, insurance, everything. We changed our cell phone number to be a Sioux Falls number as this makes credit applications and things like that easier — sometimes if the phone number doesn’t match up with the address there will be questions, particularly on online forms and applications. Cost for the mail service is around $150/year plus postage. In researching other states for residency be sure to determine whether or not your intended mailing address will be accepted as a Residence Address for you.
Further information regarding mail service options can be found in Section 2.
Voting: We also vote in South Dakota of course. This is the only thing that the PO Box address is not good for, but they have a very simple work around for that. We were told to stay for a night in a campground in Sioux Falls and then use that address on our voter registration. Seems a bit silly, but it has worked just fine. We vote absentee and getting our mail-in ballots has never been a problem.
State Offices: Over the years perhaps the most important thing we’ve appreciated about our SD residency has been the easy handling of vehicle registrations; in addition to the normal annual renewals, we’ve bought and sold vehicles several times over the years and handling the paperwork could not be easier. The vehicle being registered does not have to be inspected in person the way it does in many states, but everything can be handled by email or phone and then mailing in documentation. We’ve even gotten to know the lady who handles the registrations by name. Last year we bought a motorcycle and when I emailed Deb with the details she wrote back a very personal reply expressing her happiness to hear from us again and that it had been a couple of years — which it had. We’ve even had the experience of calling someone at one of the state or county offices, leaving a voice mail message and then getting a call back; again, try that in California or another large state. Small state pleasures!
Insurance: We have had zero issues over the years with being residents of South Dakota. However, the one possible drawback for you to consider is that in South Dakota you will have fewer health insurance options from which to choose than you will in larger states such as Florida or Texas. In our fractured US health insurance marketplace, insurance companies operate at the state level (Medicare excepted of course) and being a small state means fewer companies choose to do business there. We have an agency we work through in Sioux Falls and we’ve always been able to have suitable insurance; our current Medicare Supplement is through Mutual of Omaha and covers us all over the country. But, if you are long time members of Blue Cross, Kaiser or some other company that you really want to stay with, or if continuing to see certain doctors or other medical providers in your home area is important to you, then you’ll want to research these questions and factor what you learn into your choice of residency along with everything else. We have continued seeing doctors that we saw before we changed our residency with no difficulties in terms of insurance coverage, but cannot say with any assurance that this will be true for every person in every situation. This is an important issue and should be researched thoroughly. As a side note, I am a Veteran and get my primary health care through the VA. Your choice of a state of residency will not affect your VA health care. Over the years I have moved my primary care facility to VA clinics in three states without difficulty.
Vehicle insurance has never been a problem, with most or all national providers represented in the state; but, again, if you have a long standing relationship with a certain company you’ll want to research to be sure it will be available to you in whichever state you choose for residency.
Other States: Certainly there are other states you may consider for various reasons, but we are convinced that SD can meet the needs of most folks. Oregon used to be a popular choice due to their lack of sales tax, but many years ago they really clamped down on non-residents claiming Oregon residency. You might be able to get around that by using a relative’s address who lives there, but I’m not even sure that would work. Texas is also popular, in part due to it being the headquarters of the Escapees RV Club and Escapees having their own excellent mail service; more on Escapees later. Biggest drawbacks to Texas for residency, in my opinion, are that they have annual vehicle inspections, and that they are a big state - no first name basis at the DMV. Florida is also popular because their vehicle registration fees are about the lowest around, but again the big state problem also applies. For some people Montana can be a good fit because they allow you to set up an LLC to hold ownership of vehicles, and this apparently allows you to avoid paying sales tax. I don’t have any direct experience with this but I’ve heard about it from many people and we do know folks who register in Montana. For us SD is the ticket, but you’ll want to do your own evaluation.
Once you’ve made your choice and established residency, then everything should flow normally from there after you go through the enormous job of getting all of your mailing addresses changed — be sure to maintain your existing address for several months while you ensure that everything has been redirected.
2. Other Resources:
That about does it for our own experience in establishing our residency. I’ve mentioned Escapees RV Club a couple of times and would like to discuss them further. In our experience they are the one RV organization that actually does meaningful, useful things for their members and we believe they are well worth the small annual membership fee; we joined right away, back in January, 2002 and have never regretted that decision. It’s a good group and we recommend them highly for all full time travelers.
A short list of benefits include:
- They operate a group of eighteen campgrounds across the south and up the West Coast that are both nice and affordable.
- They have a lengthy list of support/interest groups that can help you connect with others with shared interests.
- They have a monthly magazine full of lots of good stuff.
- They have local chapters you can join if you choose.
- They hold annual gatherings called Escapades where you can go to learn all about full timing and many other issues, (that’s where we learned about residency requirements).
- There are also many other regional and smaller group gatherings available during the year. Go to the website to learn more about all of these options.
Important in regard to this article is Escapees' excellent mail forwarding service. This was only available with a Texas mailing address back in 2003, but now they also offer addresses in South Dakota and Florida.
Also, there is an entire page of current information regarding residency issues available to you on the Escapees website and I encourage you to give it a good look.
In Conclusion:
We always welcome any questions about our travels or the full-timing lifestyle. Please feel free to email us at rick@travelin-tortuga.com with any comments, suggestions or questions.