How to Prove Where You Were: A Day-Count Evidence Kit
What tax authorities accept as evidence of physical presence, how to build an audit-ready log, and a monthly routine that takes five minutes.
When a tax authority challenges your residency, the burden of proof often falls on you. Memory is not evidence. The good news: most of the evidence already exists in your phone and inbox — you just need to collect it before it disappears.
Evidence ranked by strength
- Government records. Passport stamps, electronic entry/exit records, residence registrations. Authorities can often see these themselves.
- Transport records. Boarding passes, e-tickets, airline loyalty statements, train and ferry bookings.
- Accommodation records. Leases, hotel folios, short-let receipts, utility bills.
- Financial footprints. Card statements showing location-specific spending, ATM withdrawals, mobile-wallet histories.
- Digital location history. Phone location timelines, photo metadata, work logins with IP location. Useful corroboration, rarely conclusive alone.
- A contemporaneous log. A diary or spreadsheet updated at the time carries more weight than one reconstructed later.
The five-minute monthly routine
- On the first of each month, open the Day Tracker and add or correct last month's stays.
- Export the CSV and save it to a dated cloud folder.
- Download that month's card statements as PDFs into the same folder.
- Forward every booking confirmation to a dedicated email label or folder.
- Take a photo of any new passport stamp.
How long to keep records
Keep them at least as long as the assessment period in every country involved. Several countries can reach back many years where returns were not filed or residency was misreported, so many advisers recommend keeping travel evidence for six to ten years.
Privacy-first tracking
Our tracker stores trips only in your own browser — nothing is uploaded. Export regularly, because clearing browser data deletes the log.