Home. Sweet. Home.
Q: “where do you live?”
A: “UHHH…”
Your Home Address (Quicklinks)
Home Base
It’s easy to answer the question, “Where are you from?” But it can be a little challenging when the question is, “So where do you live?” The answer is not as clear and takes a little longer explanation.
We encountered this unique “micro-nation” of Molossia, just outside of Carson City, Nevada. The country consists of about 1 acre of land, surrounded by the USA.
If you’re planning on keeping your home, no problem. You live in your city and you spend a lot of time on the road. But when you full-time, you have to figure out where your home address is going to be for official business like income tax, social security, driver’s license, vehicle registration and bank accounts, among other things.
The first thing to decide is which state. You need to compare state income taxes, annual vehicle registration fees, personal property taxes, and vehicle insurance rates.
The state of your current residence. This should be your first choice. It’s easy to change an address on your driver’s license and vehicle registration. But if you’re frustrated by how much it costs every year in income tax, sales tax on major purchases, vehicle registration, insurance or inspections, you need to do some comparison.
Official Library of Molossia
A non-income-tax state. Depending on your circumstances, this can save you a lot of money each year. States that are usually considered are Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas.
A non-sales-tax state. Two popular states are Montana and Oregon, and this can save a lot of money in sales tax on the purchase of a new truck or RV. Each of these states have their own residency requirements, though, and the state uses some means of raising their revenue so other taxes can be higher.
The next thing you must have is a legal address.
The state and address where a child or relative lives. This can be a great option if it works well financially for your circumstances.
P.O. Box. This is not a good option and doesn’t work for any official documents like a Driver’s License.
UPS Store or other Mail Forwarding Service store. This will work for almost all official documents. You rent a box and receive an address with a Personal Mail Box (PMB), also used as a box number. This is NOT a Post Office Box and cannot be used in that format. Your new, official address looks something like this:
Your Name
Your New Address and Street #XXXX (or PMB XXXX)
Your New City, ST Zip
There are several RV Mail Forwarding companies that specifically cater to RVers; among them are Escapees RV Club in Texas and Florida, and Americas Mailbox in South Dakota.
Bank Accounts and Credit Cards
Border of USA and Molossia
There are a few things you may need an actual physical residential address for. The banking industry is required, by the Patriot Act, to verify a physical address for its customers in order to prevent money laundering. We have opened a few new accounts and found that a PMB address does not work. However, the Patriot Act, Section 103.121, does permit you to provide an address of next-of-kin or another contact individual.
The easiest thing to do is open any accounts prior to selling your residence. You may still have to provide a physical address when the bank verifies its information.
If you plan on financing your RV, purchase your vehicle before you sell your permanent home. Very few finance companies or banks will provide substantial loans without a permanent residence.
Mail and Voting
Do everything by email as much as possible.
Some history of the Pony Express, discovered at a Rest Area on I-10 near Yuma, Arizona
Your new legal address will be the address you receive your mail, including official documents like vehicle registration renewals, insurance premiums, etc. Our service sends an email when we receive mail and gives us the option of scanning the contents or forwarding our mail to any address we select on demand.
Your new address makes you a citizen of the city, county and state. You’ll want to download a local news app and stay informed about local and state ballot issues as an election season approaches.
The most time-critical part of voting will be requesting an absentee ballot from the county clerk. Generally, you have to request a ballot, they mail the ballot to you, and you have to return it in time so your vote is counted. This will require some research on your part to find out the time and procedure requirements for voting in your county.
Vehicle Licensing & Insurance
There is a wide variety of vehicle licensing costs and requirements between states. This should be included in the factors you use to determine your residence, and once that decision is made you will title and register your vehicles in the same way you would use if you were physically moving to that state - usually at least one trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles. But do your research; you might save a trip by knowing in advance what documents you will need.
The sovereign micro-nation of Molossia
You can check with your current insurance provider to see if they provide coverage in a different state. If not, they may be able to provide a recommendation.
RV insurance is different for full-timers. You will need a full-timers policy (the equivalent of homeowner’s insurance) to cover all your belongings and replacement costs for your RV if needed, and the price can range between $1,000-$1,500 per year.
A very reputable and competitive insurance agency that provides coverage for many full-time RVers is Miller Insurance Agency in Lake Oswego, OR. They will talk you through all types of coverage options for this lifestyle.
Here's What We Did...
- We remained Arkansas residents the first year of full-timing, using a UPS store as our address.
- I created a Google spreadsheet and itemized the annual costs of residency in Arkansas, Florida, Texas, and South Dakota. After comparing all the costs, we opted for South Dakota residency.
- Texas was nixed because the state requires an annual vehicle inspection, which would require us to travel to/through Texas each year. We've since been told that the state will waive this requirement until your first entry back in to Texas.
- Arkansas was about $3,000 higher ($1,000 in annual Personal Property Tax, $1,000 in state income tax, and $1,000 in vehicle insurance) and higher sales tax.
- Florida was about $2,000 higher (vehicle insurance) and higher sales tax.
- South Dakota has no state income tax or vehicle inspections, a 4% sales tax and historically some of the lowest vehicle insurance rates in the country.
- South Dakota caters to full-time RVers. The DMV was well aware of our full-time lifestyle and knew exactly how to process us. We are officially classified as “Nomads” by the state.
- We signed up with Americas Mailbox in Box Elder, SD, which provided us a legal South Dakota address and facilitated our registration, vehicle titles and insurance. It is not required to have a South Dakota Driver’s License before registering your vehicles.
- In order to obtain a South Dakota Driver’s License, we had to apply in person at the DMV in Pennington County and show proof of at least one-night stay in South Dakota and proof of our SD address (provided by Americas Mailbox). We were in West Yellowstone, MT for the summer, so arranged a two-day trip to Rapid City. We stayed overnight at a Holiday Inn, picked up our proof of address from Americas Mailbox and went to the DMV the next morning, and left with our South Dakota Driver’s Licenses.
- We used our son’s physical address in Arkansas when opening up a new bank account, and gave the bank instructions to only communicate with us via email.
- We started with vehicle insurance in Arkansas and Full-Timer insurance (the equivalent of RV homeowner's insurance) through Miller Insurance Agency. After changing residency to South Dakota, we opted to use Americas Mailbox on-site insurance agent to provide us quotes and coverage.