App to track days in a state: New York days counted at the state's own line

How Geostay counts your New York days by itself

Geostay records which country your iPhone is in each day, even while the app is closed, and for a day in the US it also records the state. The country comes from a map stored in the app, so roaming and Airplane Mode leave no gap, and a flight is not recorded as a stay anywhere along its route. The Timeline tab shows every stay as a list or on a calendar, and that is where you add a trip, change which country a day belongs to, or delete a day. Your own edits override what the phone recorded.

Geostay has a tax counter for 27 states and for New York City. You add the counter for the state you want with Add a counter, and its card then appears on the Today tab. Each card counts your days against that state's limit. For New York and New York City the limit is 183 days, so the New York card shows your days in New York this year out of 183, and the city has a card of its own.

The New York card at the top of this page is one example: 58 of 183 days for 2026, 125 days left, and a note that any part of a day counts.

The number matters because New York can tax you as a resident even if your domicile is somewhere else. If your domicile is Florida but you maintain a permanent place of abode in New York State for substantially all of the taxable year and spend 184 days or more there, New York treats you as a resident for income tax. Any part of a day is a day, and you do not need to be at the home for the day to count.^1,2

A permanent place of abode is a residence you permanently maintain that is suitable for year-round use. It does not matter whether you own it, and a home you can stay in whenever you want counts even if you are only there occasionally. Someone domiciled in Florida who meets both parts of that test is a statutory resident of New York. The same test, with the 184 days counted in the city, makes you a New York City resident.^1,2,3

Days you only drive through New York

In New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Minnesota, Geostay does not count a day spent only passing through as a day in that state. The day you leave your New York home, or arrive at it, is spent partly in New York, so it is a New York day.

That is also how New York treats a travel day. A day spent only crossing the state on a journey that began outside it and ends outside it, by car, plane or train, is not counted, and neither is a day spent in New York only to board a plane, ship, train or bus bound for a destination outside the state. Stopping for gas or a meal while driving through does not change that.⁴

Any other presence counts. A day in New York for business or pleasure is a day toward the 183-day rule even if you arrive and leave the same day, so a stop in the city for a meeting on the way through puts that day on the New York card.⁴

A warning before your New York days pass 183

Geostay warns you ahead of time with a notification that gives you the date, such as "Staying past 4 Dec would cross the limit". On the New York card, that date is the last day you can stay without crossing the 183-day limit, so you have time to book the flight to Florida.

You set how many days ahead it warns. Each card has its own switch, so the New York card can warn you while a state you only visit stays quiet. The Profile tab has a list called Watching for you that shows every card and how it warns.

What to show New York in an audit

If your domicile is Florida and you maintain a permanent place of abode in New York, New York expects you to keep records of the time you spend inside and outside the state. In an audit the burden is on you to show that you spent fewer than 184 days in New York State or City in each year under review, and the auditors look for contemporaneous records of where you were day by day: day calendars and diaries in written or electronic form, airline tickets, restaurant and hotel receipts, and credit card statements.^3,4

Tap Create a report on the Profile tab to turn your record into that kind of evidence for the period you choose, such as one tax year. It gives you three things to hand over:

A day at the Florida house and a day in Manhattan sit in the same log with the same detail, and the city field shows which of your New York days were New York City days. Your accountant can work directly from the report and the day log.

A backup saves the whole record in one file that you can restore on any iPhone, so the years an audit can cover are still there after you change phones.