Moving to Another State: What Happens to Your Health Insurance

A Marketplace plan usually does not move with you to another state. Plans are sold for specific counties, so after a permanent move you apply again in your new state's Marketplace, pick a new plan, and end the old one, using a 60-day special enrollment period that the move opens.

Other coverage behaves differently. A job-based plan often continues, but its network may not reach your new home. Medicaid has to be applied for again in the new state, under that state's rules. Original Medicare works anywhere in the U.S., while Medicare Advantage and drug plans have service areas of their own.

Why a Marketplace plan stays behind

Marketplace plans are sold in defined service areas. According to CMS training material for Marketplace assisters, you generally apply for Marketplace coverage or Medicaid in the state you live in, and a Marketplace plan only covers people who live in a county where that plan is sold. A plan from your old state is not sold in your new one, and its doctors and hospitals are usually local to where you used to live.

Each state either uses HealthCare.gov or runs its own Marketplace. When you log in to your HealthCare.gov account and select your new state, you start a new HealthCare.gov application if the state uses it; if the state runs its own Marketplace, HealthCare.gov gives you that state's website instead.

A move within the same state can matter too. CMS says a move to a different county must be reported within 30 days, and if the new county or ZIP code has different plans, the move can open the same special enrollment period.

The special enrollment period for a permanent move

A special enrollment period (SEP) is a window outside open enrollment when you can sign up or change plans. CMS guidance from September 2026 describes the moving SEP this way:

• The move must give you access to new plans, which generally means a new county or ZIP code. Examples CMS gives include a new home in an area with different plans, arriving in the U.S. from another country or a U.S. territory, a student relocating for school or returning home from it, a seasonal worker relocating for work, and entering or leaving a shelter or other transitional housing.
• You must have had qualifying coverage on at least one day in the 60 days before the move. The rule is waived if you lived outside the U.S. or in a U.S. territory on at least one of those days, if you are a member of a federally recognized tribe or an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act corporation shareholder, or if you lived for at least one day in that period, or during your most recent enrollment period, somewhere no Marketplace plans were sold.
• You must apply within 60 days of the move. The qualifying event is the day you actually move, not the day you file a change of address or book movers.
• Moving only for medical treatment or for a vacation does not qualify.

The prior-coverage rule is the one that catches people. If you were uninsured before the move, the move alone does not let you enroll. You would wait for open enrollment, which for 2027 coverage on HealthCare.gov runs from November 1, 2026 to January 15, 2027, unless another event qualifies you. See special enrollment periods and life events for the full list.

CMS also lists a separate qualifying event for some low-income movers: you lived in a state that has not expanded Medicaid, your income was below 100% of the poverty line so you got no Marketplace savings, and a change in income or a move to a different state makes you newly eligible for help paying for a Marketplace plan.

Ending your old plan, and what happens at tax time

HealthCare.gov gives the order: start the new application, pick a plan and pay the first month's premium, then end your current Marketplace plan. CMS asks people moving out of state to report the move within 30 days and to end the coverage in the state they are leaving. A cancellation can take effect the day you request it or on a future date you choose, so set it for the day before the new plan begins.

If the old plan is left open, any advance credit paid on it still has to be reconciled on your tax return. For how that reconciliation works, including the 2026 end of the repayment cap, see how Marketplace premium tax credits work.

At tax time you may receive a Form 1095-A from each Marketplace. The IRS instructions for Form 8962 tell you to add the enrollment premiums from all of them together, and they list moving during the year as a reason to check that the benchmark premium shown is correct. If you lived in Alaska or Hawaii during a year you moved, you use the poverty line table with the higher figures.

Employer plans after a move

If you keep your job, perhaps working remotely from the new state, a group plan is not tied to one state the way a Marketplace plan is, so it usually stays in place. What can change is access. A plan with a regional network, such as many HMOs, may have no in-network doctors where you now live; see HMO, PPO, EPO or POS network types.

Under federal HIPAA rules, the events that let you join a group plan mid-year are losing other coverage, gaining a dependent through marriage, birth, adoption or placement for adoption, and losing Medicaid or CHIP. A move is not on that list by itself. But the Department of Labor counts losing HMO coverage because you no longer live or work in its service area as a loss of eligibility, when the plan has no other option for you. That gives you at least 30 days to request enrollment in another group plan you are eligible for, such as a spouse's.

Your pre-tax benefit elections may also be changeable. Treasury rules list a change in the place of residence as a change in status for cafeteria plans, but each plan decides whether to allow mid-year changes, and a change must match the effect of the move on your coverage. Ask your benefits office.

Medicaid and CHIP: starting again in the new state

Medicaid and CHIP are run by each state, and income limits, coverage and costs differ from state to state. You cannot carry one state's Medicaid to another. Apply in the new state, either through the Marketplace or directly with the state Medicaid agency, at any time of year.

Medicaid can also pay for some care you received before you applied, but that window is shrinking. HealthCare.gov describes it as up to the last 3 months. Under the 2025 federal law (Public Law 119-21), for applications made on or after January 1, 2027, it is limited to the month before the month you apply if you are in the Medicaid expansion adult group, and to the two months before it for most other people.

Where you move can change whether you qualify at all. KFF counted 41 states, including D.C., that had expanded Medicaid as of October 1, 2026, covering adults with income up to 138% of the poverty line. In the 10 states that have not, HealthCare.gov notes that adults with income below 100% of the poverty line may qualify for neither Medicaid nor Marketplace savings.

Work rules arrive in 2027 as well. Under an interim final rule CMS issued on June 1, 2026, from January 1, 2027 (or earlier if a state chooses) states must require non-pregnant adults aged 19 to 64 in the Medicaid expansion group to show at least 80 hours a month of work, community service, a work program or half-time schooling, or monthly earnings of at least 80 times the federal minimum wage. There are exemptions, including for parents or caretakers of a child 13 or under. And once Medicaid starts, HealthCare.gov tells people who also have a Marketplace plan to cancel it.

Medicare: Original Medicare travels, plans may not

With Original Medicare you can use any doctor or hospital that takes Medicare, anywhere in the U.S., so a move does not change it. Medicare Advantage and Part D drug plans are sold for specific service areas, and with Medicare Advantage you may need to use providers in the plan's network.

Moving out of your plan's service area opens a special enrollment period. It normally begins when you move; if you tell your plan ahead of time, it begins the month before your moving month. Either way it lasts until 2 full months after the move. During it you can join a new Medicare Advantage plan or drug plan, or leave Medicare Advantage for Original Medicare. If you leave a Medicare Advantage plan's area and do not join a new plan, you are enrolled in Original Medicare when the old plan drops you. A move within the service area that brings new plan choices opens the same window.

Frequently asked questions

Can you sign up in the new state before the move?

HealthCare.gov counts the window as "60 days from your move date," so on HealthCare.gov you generally apply after you move. If your new state runs its own Marketplace, ask it how it times the window.

Can someone who was uninsured before moving still enroll?

Usually not through the moving SEP, which requires at least one day of qualifying coverage in the 60 days before the move unless an exception applies. Otherwise you wait for open enrollment or another qualifying event.

Does the premium tax credit change after a move?

Very likely. The credit is figured from the second-lowest-cost silver plan where you live, and prices differ by area, so the same income can bring a larger or smaller credit.

Does a winter home in another state count as a move?

The move SEP is for a change in your primary place of living. Staying somewhere for a vacation or only for medical treatment does not qualify, though seasonal workers moving for work can qualify.

Sources

• What if you move out of state (HealthCare.gov)
• Special Enrollment Periods, SEP Verification, and Complex Case Scenarios webinar (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
• Reporting Life Changes, Module 2: Reporting a Move (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
• CMCS Informational Bulletin, November 18, 2025: Medicaid and CHIP provisions of Public Law 119-21 (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
• Health coverage portability (HIPAA) compliance FAQs (U.S. Department of Labor)
• Medicaid and CHIP coverage (HealthCare.gov)
• Status of state Medicaid expansion decisions (KFF)
• Special Enrollment Periods (Medicare.gov)