I'm going to make this as straightforward as possible. There is A TON of information online and a lot of it, to us, wasn't very clear. I'm hoping that this will make things a tad easier. We did this in less than 24 hours and it was honestly pretty painless.

The why

First, I think it's worthwhile explaining why we moved to South Dakota and what the benefits are. 1. No state income tax 2. No personal property tax 3. No corporate income tax

Now, for digital nomads, especially freelancers, this means a significant increase in your take home pay. There are some caveats around this, so make sure you do your own due diligence. I referred to this article here, but there are a ton of resources out there.

The how

24 hours is all ya need. However, there are some key requirements that must be met before you arrive at the DMV.

The process

1. Setup a PMB (we used Escapees RV Club)
2. Book a hotel or campground in South Dakota (you only need to stay one night)
3. Make a DMV appointment to transfer out of state license (you'll want to book this well in advance)
4. Bring the documents I list below
5. That's it!

Documents to bring to DMV

1. Social Security card (original)
2. Unexpired passport
3. Drivers license from previous state
4. Receipt from hotel or campground that you stayed at the night before (MUST include your name and your new South Dakota address - you can ask the clerk to edit this for you if needed)
5. We printed an email with our new address from Escapees as proof of our PMB

That is all that is needed. We got our licenses in less than 45 minutes at the DMV.