Short answer: not on your federal return anymore, but Massachusetts kept its own version alive on Schedule Y. Whether that helps you depends on how far you moved and why.
Moving Expenses Are No Longer Federally Tax Deductible
For most of the last decade, this was a moving target. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act suspended the federal moving expense deduction from 2018 through 2025 for everyone except active-duty military moving under orders. A lot of people assumed that suspension would simply expire and the old deduction would come back.
It didn't. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in 2025, made the suspension permanent starting with the 2026 tax year. Civilians can no longer deduct job-related moving costs on their federal return, and employer-paid relocation reimbursements are no longer tax-free. The only federal carve-outs are active-duty military personnel on a permanent change of station and, new for 2026, employees of the intelligence community relocating under an official reassignment. If you don't fall into one of those two groups, IRS Form 3903 isn't going to help your federal bill.
Massachusetts Kept Its Own Version
Here's the part most national moving-expense articles miss entirely, because they're written for a federal audience and stop there: Massachusetts never adopted the TCJA's suspension of the moving deduction. The state continues to follow its own rule under Massachusetts General Laws, decoupled from the federal change, which means the deduction is alive and well on your state return even though it's dead on your federal one.
You claim it on Schedule Y, Line 5, as an adjustment that reduces Massachusetts gross income before you even get to itemizing. That matters because it's available whether or not you itemize deductions federally. A handful of other states never adopted the federal freeze either, but Massachusetts is the one that matters if you're moving here, moving within the state, or moving out for a new job while still owing Massachusetts tax for part of the year.
Do You Pass the Distance and Time Tests?
Two tests decide whether your move qualifies, and both trip people up.
The distance test: your new main job has to be at least 50 miles farther from your old home than your old job was from that same old home. A biotech researcher relocating from Worcester to a lab in Kendall Square almost certainly clears this. Someone switching jobs from one Boston neighborhood to another, or from Cambridge to the Seaport, almost certainly doesn't, no matter how annoying the commute feels.
The time test: you need to work full time for at least 39 weeks during the 12 months right after the move. Self-employed people face a longer bar, 78 weeks across the 24 months following the move, with at least 39 of those weeks falling in the first year. Talk to an accountant if a job loss or other change puts that threshold at risk before you've hit it.
| Requirement | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Distance test | New job is 50+ miles farther from old home than old job was |
| Time test (employee) | 39 weeks of full-time work in the 12 months after moving |
| Time test (self-employed) | 78 weeks in 24 months, 39 of them in the first year |
| Where to claim it | Massachusetts Schedule Y, Line 5 (not on federal Form 1040) |
| Available even if you don't itemize | Yes |
What Moving Costs Actually Qualify
The deduction covers moving your household goods and personal effects, plus reasonable travel and lodging getting from the old home to the new one. That's the mover's invoice, a rental truck, packing materials, and gas or mileage for the drive. It does not cover meals during the trip, house-hunting expenses, temporary housing beyond the actual travel days, or costs tied to buying or selling the home itself.
This is where keeping your paperwork actually pays off. A locked-in written quote and a final invoice, the kind you'd get from any legitimate moving company, is exactly the documentation Massachusetts wants if the deduction is ever questioned. Vague cash payments to an unmarked truck with no invoice are a lot harder to substantiate, on top of being a red flag for other reasons entirely.
Is Your Relocation Package Taxable Now?
Probably, if it wasn't already. Before 2018, an employer could reimburse your moving costs and it wouldn't touch your taxable income. That tax-free treatment is gone for civilians, permanently, under the same law that killed the personal deduction. Now a relocation reimbursement gets added to your W-2 as wages, subject to federal income tax withholding, Social Security, and Medicare, the same as a bonus would be.
Some employers gross up the payment to cover the extra tax hit; plenty don't. If you're negotiating a relocation package for a Boston job, ask directly whether the number quoted is before or after taxes, because a $10,000 relocation stipend that turns into $6,500 after withholding is a very different offer than it looked like on paper.
What If You're Self-Employed or Moving a Business?
Two separate things get confused here. Moving yourself and your household for a new client base or business location is the personal deduction described above, and it's subject to the same distance and time tests, just with the longer 78-week bar.
Moving an actual business, its equipment, inventory, or office space, is a different animal entirely. Those costs are ordinary business expenses, deductible on the business's own return the same way rent or supplies would be, regardless of what happened to the personal moving deduction. If you're relocating a Boston office rather than a household, that's the framework that applies, not Schedule Y. We've covered the operational side of that kind of move in our small business office move guide, and it's worth reading alongside whatever your accountant tells you about the tax side.
How Do You Actually Claim This on Your Return?
There's no federal form involved anymore for civilians, which trips people up since older advice still points to Form 3903. On the Massachusetts side, the deduction goes directly on Schedule Y, Line 5, as part of your state Form 1 or Form 1-NR/PY. You'll want a running total of qualifying costs and the paperwork behind each one, since Massachusetts can ask for it later.
If your move is genuinely long-distance, out of state and back, or involves a job change that clears the 50-mile bar, it's also worth understanding the full cost picture before you file anything, since the deductible amount is based on what you actually spent, not an estimate. For an interstate move specifically, that usually means a long-distance move with its own pricing structure, separate from a local one.
Keep Every Receipt From Day One
None of this works retroactively if you can't show the paperwork. Save the moving company invoice, the truck rental receipt, tolls and mileage logs for the drive, and any lodging receipts from nights spent traveling between homes. Set them aside the day you get them rather than trying to reconstruct the total from a bank statement in April.
We see this constantly with jobs that relocate people to Boston for hospitals, universities, and biotech: the move itself is stressful enough without also trying to remember which receipt covered what, three months after the truck pulled away.
NoTimeMover locks in your price before the crew shows up, and every invoice we send is detailed enough to hand straight to whoever does your taxes. If a Massachusetts job is bringing you here, or moving you 50+ miles away from one, get that paperwork right from the start.