Ohio is the odd one out. Instead of “more than 183 days”, R.C. 5747.24 counts contact periods: stretches where you are away overnight from your out-of-state abode and spend some part of two consecutive days in Ohio. With 212 or fewer, an abode and domicile outside Ohio, and the affidavit filed, you are treated as a nonresident. At 213 or more you are presumed domiciled in Ohio.
Each person is a Pennsylvania resident with a Pennsylvania home, tax year 2025, counting nights (the counter’s closest match to contact periods).
| Ohio stays | Nights | Against the 212 limit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 April to 29 October | 211 | 1 day of room |
| 1 April to 30 October | 212 | No room left |
| 1 April to 31 October | 213 | Over by 1 |
The third row is a tidy seven-month stay, and it is the one that crosses into the presumption. Counting every day you touch Ohio (the counter’s default) the same stays read one higher, so choose the nights setting for this state and keep a record of which days included an overnight.
Ohio does not use a plain day count. Under the bright-line test in R.C. 5747.24, if you keep your abode and domicile outside Ohio, have 212 or fewer contact periods in Ohio, and file the affidavit the Department of Taxation provides, you are treated as a nonresident. At 213 or more contact periods you are presumed domiciled in Ohio and need clear and convincing evidence to rebut that. Confirm the details with the Department.
A contact period is a stretch where you are away overnight from your abode outside Ohio and spend some part of two consecutive days in Ohio. In practice that works out to about one contact period per night you sleep in Ohio, which is why the counter's nights setting is the closer match than counting every day you touch the state.
A same-day trip with no overnight away from home is not a contact period on its own. The counter counts a one-day visit as one day, so it can overstate the figure for people who commute in and out the same day. Treat the counter as a conservative approximation and keep your own record of which days included an overnight.
The test presumes days you cannot show were not contact periods to be contact periods, so a dated record (travel receipts, card statements, calendar entries) matters as much as the count. The counter produces a day-by-day log to keep, but it is not evidence by itself.