Moving house is disruptive enough without wondering what it does to your tax. Here is a short, practical checklist.
The rule that decides which state you owe now
Everything here follows one rule: the tax authority of the state where the employee lives. This guide covers only that ordinary rule, applied to your new address. It does not cover any special rule for a year in which you moved.
This is the same principle covered in which state you pay personal income tax to, just applied at the moment things change rather than as a settled fact.
Telling your employer's payroll team
Payroll cannot redirect your PAYE to a new state if nobody tells them you moved. Update your address with HR or payroll as soon as the move happens, not at the next appraisal cycle or when someone happens to ask.
Ask payroll to confirm which state they will remit to from your next pay run. A confirmation now is far less hassle than untangling a wrong remittance months later.
What happens to the month you moved
Salaries often get paid on a fixed date regardless of when a move happened mid-month. Ask payroll directly which address they used for the specific month you moved, rather than assuming it automatically matched your moving date.
The monthly remittance deadline itself does not change because you moved. It is still due by the 10th day of the following month, whichever state ends up receiving it for that particular month.
What your annual return should show
Your individual annual return is due by 31 March each year. If you lived in two states during the year, it may need to show which income arose while you lived in each. A return filed with only your new state's authority may not be the full picture.
This is a genuine grey area this guide cannot resolve for every combination of states. If you moved partway through the tax year, an accountant familiar with both states' practices is worth the conversation before you file.
Records worth keeping from both states
Keep proof of your moving date: a new tenancy agreement, a utility bill, or anything else that fixes when your address actually changed. At least six years after the year of assessment is the general rule for records connected to your tax affairs, and a moving-year return is exactly the kind of filing worth being able to back up later.
Keep any correspondence or payment confirmation from your old state's authority too, in case a question ever comes up about the part of the year you lived there.
For the ordinary rule behind all of this, see which state you pay personal income tax to. For the annual filing duty itself, see filing your individual annual tax return, and browse the rest of the series in the PAYE and state tax hub.