Tax home

The IRS says your tax home is the place where you are permanently or indefinitely engaged to work as an employee or self-employed person. If you have no regular or main place of business, it may be where you regularly live. A person with neither is treated as an itinerant whose tax home is wherever they work. Having a tax home somewhere does not by itself make that place your residence or domicile.

For the foreign earned income exclusion, the tax home must be in a foreign country throughout the period of bona fide residence or physical presence. The IRS says you do not have a foreign tax home for any period your abode is in the United States, outside a combat-zone exception. Abode means where your family, economic and personal ties are, not your place of business.

Assignment length matters. The IRS says work in one place that you expect to last, and that does last, one year or less is generally temporary, while work expected to last more than one year is indefinite. A temporary absence from a US tax home does not qualify for the exclusion.

Not to be confused with

• Domicile. Domicile is the legal idea of a permanent home, used by many US states and other countries, and can differ from where your work-based tax home is.
• Tax residence. Tax residence decides which country taxes you as a resident, while the US tax home concept is a condition inside specific US rules.

Sources

• Foreign earned income exclusion – Tax home in foreign countryOfficial guidance
• Instructions for Form 2555 (2026)Official guidance

Related

Countries covered

General

Sources

2 sources

Tax year

Current rules as checked

Review

Not professionally reviewed
Sources checked November 9, 2026