The 183-day rule, and the four other ways to pass it

Almost everything written about Act 60 stops at "183 days." That is one of five conditions in the presence test, any one of which satisfies it, and the presence test is itself one of three tests for bona fide residency. Here is the whole of it, with the government source beside each rule.

Threshold
183 days in Puerto Rico, or any one of four alternatives
Window
The tax year. One alternative measures across three.
Triggers on
Days of physical presence, not nights, not weeks.
Also required
A tax home in Puerto Rico, and no closer connection elsewhere. Presence is one test of three.
Statutory basis
26 CFR § 1.937-1(c), under 26 U.S.C. § 937

TrackedPR records and organizes days. It does not determine residency, and nothing on this page is tax or legal advice.

Who this applies to

Anyone claiming bona fide residency of Puerto Rico for a tax year, which includes every holder of an Act 60 decree, but is not limited to them. The test is federal. It comes from the Internal Revenue Code and its regulations, not from the decree, and it would apply to you if you moved here with no decree at all.

That is worth being clear about, because the two get conflated constantly. Your decree sets out what Puerto Rico grants you and what it asks in return. The presence test decides whether the federal government treats you as a resident of Puerto Rico in the first place. Satisfying one has never satisfied the other.

Three tests, not one

Bona fide residency requires all three, every year:

  1. 1The presence test, the subject of this page. Were you here enough?
  2. 2The tax home test. Is your main place of business or employment outside Puerto Rico?
  3. 3The closer connection test. Do your ties point more to the US or a foreign country than to Puerto Rico?

Days are the only one of the three that is arithmetic. The other two are answered with documents and facts about your life, which is why the evidence side takes longer to build than the day count and is the half people leave until it is urgent.

The five conditions

You satisfy the presence test by meeting any one of these. They are alternatives rather than a checklist, a point that the ubiquitous "183 days" shorthand hides completely.

1

183 days in Puerto Rico

You were present in Puerto Rico for at least 183 days during the tax year.

The one everybody has heard of, and the only one most people ever use. It is a count of days, not of nights, and a day you touched the island at any point counts.

2

549 days across three years

You were present in Puerto Rico for at least 549 days across the tax year and the two years before it, with at least 60 days in each of those 3 years.

549 over 3 years averages exactly 183 a year, so this is not a lighter requirement. It is the same one, measured across a longer window. What it buys you is that a single thin year need not sink you, provided the years either side carry it and no year falls below 60.

3

No more than 90 days in the US

You were present in the United States for no more than 90 days during the tax year.

Note what this does not ask: it sets no floor on days in Puerto Rico at all. Someone who spent the year traveling abroad and barely landed in the US can satisfy the presence test on this condition alone, and then still fail bona fide residency on the other two tests.

4

Under $3,000 US earned income, and more days here

You had no more than $3,000 of earned income in the United States for the year, and were present for more days in Puerto Rico than in the United States.

Earned income, not investment income. The distinction is the whole point of the condition, and it is worth confirming which of yours is which with your CPA rather than assuming.

5

No significant connection to the US

You had no significant connection to the United States during the tax year.

"Significant connection" is defined, narrowly and specifically, rather than judged. The three things that create one are listed below.

The fifth condition turns on a defined term. You have a significant connection to the United States if any one of these is true:

  1. A permanent home in the United States: a house, apartment or furnished room owned or rented by you or your spouse, available to you continuously rather than for short stays. A property you rent out at a market rate counts as your permanent home only if you also use it personally for more than the greater of 14 days or 10% of the days it was rented.
  2. Current registration to vote in any political subdivision of the United States. This one is a form you filled in years ago and have not thought about since, and it is the most commonly overlooked of the three.
  3. A spouse, or a child under 18, whose principal place of abode is in the United States, with exceptions where a custody arrangement or a child's schooling explains it.

Counting the days

A day of presence is not a night, and it is not a full day. These rules add to your Puerto Rico count:

  1. 1Any day you were physically here. Any day you are physically present in Puerto Rico at any time during the day. An hour counts the same as a night.
  2. 2A day in both places counts as a Puerto Rico day. If you were physically present in both the United States and Puerto Rico on the same day, that day is a day of presence in Puerto Rico. The morning flight out does not cost you the day.
  3. 3Days away for qualifying medical treatment. Days you are outside Puerto Rico to receive qualifying medical treatment, or to accompany a parent, spouse or child receiving it. Qualifying treatment means inpatient care requiring an overnight stay in a hospital or hospice, plus any period immediately before or after that is medically necessary. An outpatient appointment on the mainland does not qualify.
  4. 4Days you could not get back after a disaster. Days you are outside Puerto Rico because you left, or could not return, during either a 14-day period in which a major disaster occurs here for which FEMA issues a federal declaration in the Federal Register, or a period when a mandatory evacuation order covers the area your main home is in.
  5. 5Up to 30 days abroad, with two conditions. Up to 30 days a year spent outside both Puerto Rico and the United States, for business or personal travel. It applies only if your Puerto Rico days already exceed your US days without counting these, and it does not help you clear the 60-day floor in the 549-day test.

And these days are not counted against you as United States presence:

  1. A day you are in transit between two points outside the United States and are in the US for fewer than 24 hours. A connection through Miami is not a day in Miami.
  2. A day away for the qualifying medical treatment described above.

The regulation carries a few further exclusions for certain students, government officials and professional athletes at charitable events, narrow enough that they are better read at the source than paraphrased here.

The medical and disaster rules above are the two that most often decide a close year, and both are narrower than their names suggest, so what actually qualifies covers what counts, what does not, and what to keep.

Three worked examples

Satisfies the presence test

Moved in May, traveled a normal amount

  • Lands in San Juan on 20 May, which leaves 226 days in the calendar year.
  • Spends 38 days off the island over the rest of the year: a fortnight with family, a conference, two long weekends.
226 − 38 = 188 days in Puerto Rico.

Satisfies the presence test on the first condition, with 5 days to spare. Worth noticing how little slack a May arrival really leaves: 43 days of travel is the whole year's budget, and 38 of them are already spent.

Satisfies this test, but not residency

Short of 183 days, and still satisfies this test

  • Spends 150 days in Puerto Rico, 40 days in the United States, and the rest of the year working from Lisbon and Madrid.
  • Keeps the apartment in Miami, furnished and empty, for visits.
150 days is short of 183. But 40 days in the US is under the 90-day cap, so the third condition is met.

The presence test is satisfied on the third condition, not the first. Bona fide residency is a separate question, and the Miami apartment is doing double damage: kept furnished and available year-round it is a permanent home in the United States, which both rules out the fifth condition and counts against them in the closer connection test they must also pass. Clearing the day test is not the finish line, and this is the case that shows why.

Does not satisfy it

Moved in August, first year on the island

  • Arrives 15 August, with 139 days left in the year before any travel at all.
  • Spends 100 days in the US over the year, earns a mainland salary, and has not lived in Puerto Rico before.
139 days is below 183; 100 US days is above 90; the salary is above $3,000; and with no prior years there is nothing to build 549 days from.

Fails every condition for that tax year. This is the ordinary case, not a cautionary one. A late-year move usually means the clock starts on the following year, and knowing that in August is far better than discovering it in April.

To run the first example against your own arrival date, the move calculator does exactly that arithmetic: days left in the year, measured against 183, with no account needed.

What people get wrong

  1. 1That 183 is the requirement. It is one of five ways to satisfy one of three tests. Someone can spend 150 days here and satisfy the presence test on the 90-day condition, and someone can spend 200 days here and still fail bona fide residency on tax home or closer connection.
  2. 2That a travel day out costs you the day. It does not: a day you were in both places counts as a Puerto Rico day, and a connection through the mainland under 24 hours in transit is not a US day at all.
  3. 3That voter registration is a formality. It is one of exactly three things that create a significant connection to the United States, and it is the one most people forget they still hold.
  4. 4That the 549-day alternative is a discount. It averages exactly 183 a year. What it offers is a longer window rather than a lower bar, and it still requires 60 days in every single year.
  5. 5That the count can be reconstructed later. It can, badly. The difference between a contemporaneous record and one assembled the following April from card statements and memory is the difference between evidence and an assertion.

The part a tracker is actually for

Every condition above is a count of days, and a count is only as good as the record behind it. The number is easy; being able to show where it came from, two years later, to someone who is asking, is the hard part, and it is what TrackedPR exists to produce. How it works covers the day-to-day of that, and the FAQ answers what counts as proof of a day.

Two of the day rules above are the ones no spreadsheet handles well, and both are in the app: days away for qualifying medical treatment, and days you could not get back after a declared disaster. They are flagged as what they are rather than silently added, because a day that needs an explanation should carry one.

Start today, not in April

The record is easiest to build while the year is still happening.

Start tracking free

If your worldwide gross income tops $75,000 in the year your residency status changes, Form 8898 is a separate filing obligation with its own $1,000 penalty. Ask your CPA about it early, since it is not part of this test.

Official sources

Everything stated as a rule on this page comes from one of these. Where our wording and the government's differ, theirs governs.

The plain-English version, and the source for the day-counting rules on this page.
The regulation itself. Paragraph (c) is the presence test; (c)(3) the day rules; (c)(5) significant connection.
The form you file in the year your bona fide residence status changes, if worldwide gross income tops $75,000.
Puerto Rico specifically, once you are a bona fide resident.

Every link here was opened and read on August 28, 2026. The IRS reissues Publication 570 each year, and these links go to whichever edition is current rather than the one read that day.