You likely use California Form 540 for 2025 if California was your ongoing home all year; your 90 H-1B days and F-1 history do not by themselves require Form 540NR.
“I transitioned from F1 to H1B in October 2025 (I was on F1 from July 2022 to September 2025). I've been living in California since May 2024 on OPT. Since I haven't been in the US for 5 years yet and only spent 90 days on H1B last year, do I file as a resident (Form 540) or non-resident (Form 540NR) for my California state tax return?”
Summary
California can call you a resident even if your federal return treats you as a nonresident alien. The deciding question is whether your California home and work were ongoing throughout 2025 or genuinely temporary—not whether you had reached five years in the United States.
Your California form depends on whether California was your ongoing home throughout 2025, only a temporary stay, or became your home partway through the year—not on your F-1/H-1B day count.
If your California home and job were long-term or indefinite throughout 2025, use **2025 Form 540**. A long or indefinite California work assignment is an example of a stay that is not temporary or transitory, and FTB directs full-year residents to Form 540 (or Form 540 2EZ, if eligible). Your account of living and working there since May 2024 points toward this route, but the purpose and ties still matter. [FTB Publication 1031 (2025), Sections E, G and H; 2025 Form 540NR Booklet, “Which Form Should I Use?”]
If you kept your main home and stronger ties elsewhere and can establish that your California stay remained genuinely throughout 2025, use **2025 Form 540NR** as a full-year nonresident and report California-source income, including pay for services performed there. If you spent more than nine months in California, you must overcome the statutory resident with satisfactory evidence. [California Revenue and Taxation Code §§ 17014(a)(1), 17016; FTB, Part-year resident and nonresident; 2025 Form 540NR Booklet]
If your stay was genuinely temporary at the start of 2025 but became long-term during the year, use **2025 Form 540NR** as a . Report income from all sources while resident and California-source income while nonresident. The change date comes from your circumstances, not automatically from the October H-1B start. [FTB Publication 1031 (2025), Sections E, G and I; 2025 Form 540NR Booklet, “How Nonresidents and Part-Year Residents are Taxed”]
These routes assume you have a California filing requirement; the 2025 FTB instructions make filing conditional on the applicable income requirements. [FTB Publication 1031 (2025), Section E]
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Watch out for
Next steps
Use your 2025 living and work history to choose the correct California form, then meet the imminent filing deadline.
First
Map your California home and work during 2025
Compare how long you were physically in California, where your main home and closest ties were, and whether your work had a definite short end date or was long-term. Under California Revenue and Taxation Code §§ 17014 and 17016, more than nine months physically in the state creates a rebuttable resident presumption; FTB Publication 1031 (2025), Sections G–H, gives the relevant ties and work-assignment examples: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2025/2025-1031-publication.pdf.
Requirements
After classifying your stay
Prepare the 2025 form that matches those facts
For a full-year California resident, prepare Form 540: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2025/2025-540-booklet.html. If you were a full-year nonresident with California-source income or became a resident during 2025, prepare Form 540NR and Schedule CA (540NR): https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2025/2025-540nr-booklet.html. FTB's 540NR instructions expressly allow you to use information from a federal Form 1040-NR; its Form 540 instructions do not give an express 1040-NR conversion for line 13, so do not invent a number for that line.
Requirements
Payment was due April 15, 2026
Pay any California balance as soon as possible
Use FTB's electronic payment options at https://www.ftb.ca.gov/pay/payment-options.html. The automatic extension is for filing only; FTB says 2025 tax owed was due April 15, 2026, to avoid penalties and interest: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/when-to-file/extension-to-file.html.
Requirements
By October 15, 2026
File your 2025 California return by October 15
Submit the selected 2025 form to the California Franchise Tax Board by October 15, 2026, the automatic-extension filing deadline. FTB lists electronic filing options at https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/ways-to-file/online/index.html; some options are free and others may charge a fee. The dated deadline is stated at https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/when-to-file/extension-to-file.html.
Requirements
Legal sources
This answer uses California's Revenue and Taxation Code, the Franchise Tax Board's 2025 residency and form instructions, and IRS guidance on federal student and H-1B day counting.
California Revenue and Taxation Code § 17014
California defines residency by the purpose of a person's presence in the state, rather than by the federal visa-day calculation.
(a)(1)
(1) Every individual who is in this state for other than a temporary or transitory purpose.
California Revenue and Taxation Code § 17016
More than nine months in California creates a rebuttable, not conclusive, presumption of residency.
Every individual who spends in the aggregate more than nine months of the taxable year within this State shall be presumed to be a resident. The presumption may be overcome by satisfactory evidence that the individual is in the State for a temporary or transitory purpose.
FTB Publication 1031 (2025)
Attending school in California does not automatically make a person either a California resident or nonresident.
Section G, Guidelines for Determining Residency
For instance, students who are residents of California leaving this state to attend an out-of-state school do not automatically become nonresidents, nor do students who are nonresidents of California coming to this state to attend a California school automatically become residents.
FTB Publication 1031 (2025)
The strength of a person's ties to California versus elsewhere helps decide residence.
Section G, Guidelines for Determining Residency
The underlying theory of residency is that you are a resident of the place where you have the closest connections. In using these factors, it is the strength of your ties, not just the number of ties, that determines your residency.
FTB Publication 1031 (2025)
A long or indefinite California work assignment is an example of a resident stay.
Section H, Temporary or Transitory Purposes
For instance, if your employer assigns you to an office in California for a long or indefinite period, if you retire and come to California with no specific plans to leave, or if you are ill and are in California for an indefinite recuperation period, your stay is other than temporary or transitory.
2025 Form 540NR Booklet
For 2025, FTB assigns Form 540NR to nonresidents and part-year residents, and Form 540 to full-year residents.
Which Form Should I Use?
Use Form 540NR if either you or your spouse/RDP were a nonresident or part-year resident in taxable year 2025. If you and your spouse/RDP were California residents during the entire taxable year 2025, use Form 540, California Resident Income Tax Return, or 540 2EZ, California Resident Income Tax Return.
2025 Form 540NR Booklet
Form 540NR is used by people with California-source income who were nonresidents or who changed residency during 2025.
How Nonresidents and Part-Year Residents are Taxed
Nonresidents of California who received California sourced income in 2025, or moved into or out of California in 2025, file Form 540NR.
FTB Publication 1031 (2025)
A part-year resident reports all income for the resident period and California-source income for the nonresident period.
Section I, Income Taxable by California
Part-year residents of California are taxed on all income received while a resident and only on income from California sources while a nonresident.
IRS, Exempt individual—Who is a student
The five-calendar-year student rule concerns which days count toward federal tax residency, not which California form to use.
When a student is not exempt
You will not be an exempt individual as a student if you have been exempt as a teacher, trainee, student, Exchange Visitor, or Cultural Exchange Visitor on an “F,” “J,” “M,” or “Q” visa for any part of more than 5 calendar years, unless you establish to the satisfaction of the IRS that you do not intend to reside permanently in the United States, and you have substantially complied with the requirements of your nonimmigrant status.
IRS, Taxation of H-1B individuals
An H-1B day is not excluded under the federal student exemption.
The substantial presence test
However, the rules allowing an “exempt individual” to exclude U.S. days of presence do not apply to H-1B aliens.
FTB, Extension to file
The 2025 California return can be filed under the automatic extension through October 15, 2026.
Personal
The deadline is October 15, 2026.
FTB, Extension to file
The filing extension did not postpone payment of 2025 California tax.
Personal
An extension to file your tax return is not an extension to pay. Pay the amount you owe by April 15, 2026 to avoid penalties and interest.
2025 Form 540 Booklet
The published Form 540 federal-AGI line names Forms 1040 and 1040-SR, leaving a Form 1040-NR conversion unexplained here.
Line 13
Line 13 – Federal Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from federal Form 1040 or Form 1040-SR, line 11b
These are the official rules for the cited 2025 return and the agency pages on their stated update dates; rules can change.
This is general information about official tax processes, not legal advice, and SettleKit is not a law firm.
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