Last November, David and Gerilee Kermack drove from Alberta to Arizona. They followed every rule. They still got fingerprinted, charged, and re-registered at the border.
We work with Canadian snowbirds a lot here at Blueprint and three things changed in 2025 that you should be aware of, which I’ll go over in this blog post.
The Three Things That Happened in 2025
To understand what’s happening, you need three dates.
April 11, 2025. The Trump administration started enforcing an old law that was already on the books. Section 1302 of Title 8 requires every non-citizen who stays in the U.S. for 30 days or more to register with the federal government and get fingerprinted. That law has existed for decades. They just decided to start enforcing it. Ignore it and you’re looking at up to $5,000 in fines or six months in prison.
October 27, 2025. DHS publishes a final rule expanding biometric entry and exit collection to basically everyone. Photographs, fingerprints, on the way in and on the way out. Took effect December 26. And this one explicitly removes the old Canadian carve-out.
November 2025. The fingerprinting at land crossings starts hitting the news. The Kermacks. Brenda and Dan Paige in Calgary. Couples from Ontario. CBP says it’s standard procedure. Snowbirds say nobody warned them.
Now here’s the part nobody’s connecting. The Canadian Snowbird Association will tell you, correctly, that Canadians who register online through the G-325R portal are exempt from biometrics. True on paper.
But Jennifer Behm, an immigration lawyer in Buffalo, told CBC something more honest. The officer at the booth decides. The exemption exists, but whether you actually get to use it isn’t up to you.
The Real Trap, Substantial Presence
Most snowbirds I talk to think they’re safe if they stay under 183 days a year in the U.S.
They’re wrong.
The IRS doesn’t just look at this year. It uses a three-year weighted formula called the Substantial Presence Test.
Here’s how it works.
Take all your days in the U.S. this year. Add one-third of your days from last year. Add one-sixth of your days from the year before that. If the total hits 183 or more, congratulations. The IRS now considers you a U.S. tax resident.
Let me show you why this matters with three snowbirds.
Snowbird A. Cautious Carol. 120 days a year, every year. Her math is 120 plus 40 plus 20. That’s 180. She’s safe.
Snowbird B. Routine Robert. 150 days a year, every year. Sounds reasonable, right? Five months in Florida. His math is 150 plus 50 plus 25. That’s 225. He’s past the threshold.
Snowbird C. First-Timer Frank. First time south, he goes for 180 days. His total is just 180 because he’s got no prior years counting. Safe… this year. But next year, that 180 starts compounding.
Now, crossing that line doesn’t automatically mean you owe U.S. tax on your worldwide income. It means the IRS classifies you as one of theirs unless you actively prove otherwise. Which we’ll get to.
But the people who don’t even know they’ve hit it? They’re the ones who find out the hard way, usually with a letter and a return they shouldn’t have filed the way they filed it.
Think of the Substantial Presence Test like a credit card statement that quietly carries balances forward. This year’s days don’t disappear, they just sit there earning interest against you.
Why This Used to Be a Non-Issue
For thirty years, this rule has been on the books. So why am I making a post about it now?
Because the U.S. government had no reliable way to know how many days you’d actually been there.
Then 2019 happened. Under the Beyond the Border initiative, Canada and the U.S. completed reciprocal land border data sharing. Every land crossing, in or out, both directions, both governments. The CBSA shares that data with five Canadian federal partners, and one of them is the Canada Revenue Agency, which uses it to administer child and family benefits. The data exists. The infrastructure exists. And the IRS has its own way to pull U.S. entry data when an audit calls for it.
What changed in 2025 isn’t whether they know. They’ve known since 2019. What changed is the political appetite to use it.
The State-Level Trap
Federal U.S. tax residency isn’t your only exposure. Individual states have their own residency rules. They can tax you whether or not the IRS does.
California. Aggressive on residency audits. Spend more than nine months in California in a year and Revenue and Taxation Code section 17016 presumes you’re a resident. But the Franchise Tax Board doesn’t need to wait until then. California can claim you as a resident based on totality of circumstances, even when the federal government doesn’t.
Arizona. Statute 43-104 creates a presumption of state residency if you spend more than nine months there. Most snowbirds are well under. But the people stretching October to June? They’re risking walking right into it.
Florida and Texas. No state income tax. But this is where the federal Substantial Presence Test does the most damage, because these are the states with the longest-staying snowbirds. Plus, if you own property in Florida and you’re not a resident, you don’t get the Save Our Homes cap. Your property taxes can climb 10% a year while your American neighbour next door is locked at 3%. https://floridarevenue.com/property/Pages/Taxpayers_Exemptions.aspx
The state where you snowbird matters. A lot of people never think about it.
Mid-Blog post Blueprint Pitch
And look, if any of this is starting to feel like more than you signed up for, this is literally what we do at Blueprint Financial. Cross-border tax planning, U.S. residency analysis, the whole picture. There’s a link in the description to book a discovery call. While you’re there, grab our free guide, the 7 Biggest CRA Tax Traps When Leaving Canada, at blueprintfinancial.ca/exit-canada-tax-guide-download. Build the life you want, with the right Blueprint.
The Way Out, and It’s Not Complicated
Okay, the doom and gloom part is over. Here’s the actual playbook.
The form that protects you is called Form 8840. The Closer Connection Exception. It’s how you tell the IRS, yes, technically I exceeded your Substantial Presence test, but my real life is in Canada. My home, my doctor, my bank, my family. Canada.
Four requirements.
One. You were physically present in the U.S. for fewer than 183 days in the current calendar year. Hard ceiling.
Two. Your tax home is in Canada for the entire year.
Three. Your closer connection is to Canada.
And four, you haven’t applied for, and don’t have a pending application for, a U.S. green card. If you’re in any U.S. immigration process, this exception evaporates.
The form is short. No filing fee. Deadline is generally June 15 for snowbirds without U.S. wage income. And most snowbirds who should be filing it… aren’t.
But filing the 8840 is paperwork, not a panic. For most snowbirds who stay under their limits, this is just routine annual compliance. You file it, you move on.
If you’re over 183 days in the current year, the Closer Connection Exception is gone. You fall back on Article IV of the Canada-U.S. tax treaty, the tie-breaker. That requires Form 8833, and you really do not want to be doing that one yourself.
One practical tip. Don’t aim for 182 days on the dot. Aim for at least a couple days lower. Build the buffer. Border officers and biometric records leave zero room for rounding errors anymore.
Conclusion
So what should the Kermacks have done differently? Honestly, almost nothing. They followed the rules they knew about, and the day-trip-to-Mexico re-registration trap is genuinely new. The lesson isn’t that they failed. It’s that doing it right by yesterday’s rules doesn’t keep you safe anymore.
Counting your days carefully, filing Form 8840 when it applies, and understanding your state tax exposure — that’s the kind of planning that separates a smooth retirement abroad from an expensive mistake.
At Blueprint Financial, we help Canadians navigate exactly these cross-border tax and retirement issues before they become costly problems.
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