Tax Days vs. Days Monitor
Days Monitor is the closest competitor to Tax Days on coverage, and it is cheaper: $19.99/year against $29.99/year. So this page starts with the honest part. If price is your deciding factor, Days Monitor wins that row. What Tax Days buys you for the extra $10 is a packaged set of all 50 US state residency tests, 200+ jurisdictions in one app, and a design with no accounts and no servers at all. Here is the rest of it. (Days Monitor pricing and features below come from daysmonitor.com as of August 2026, confirm the current figures there before buying.)
Pricing at a glance
Privacy-first iPhone app. No accounts, no servers. Optional iCloud sync via Apple's encrypted CloudKit.
Global travel-day and residency tracker for iPhone, with a set of free web calculators alongside it. Covers Schengen 90/180, the US Substantial Presence Test, the UK Statutory Residence Test, Canada's physical presence requirement, and custom country rules, with automatic background logging and PDF or CSV export on the paid tier.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Tax Days | Days Monitor |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | $29.99/year | $19.99/year (Premium) |
| Free tier | In-app free tier with limited rules | Free forever web calculator, data kept in your browser |
| Tracking method | Automatic background tracking (Pro) or manual entry | Automatic background location tracking on Premium |
| Data location | On your iPhone + optional iCloud, no accounts, no servers | On device, with cloud storage listed as a Premium feature |
| US states | All 50 with state-specific tests (NY 184-day, NJ, MA, CT, PA) | State-level day tracking; per-state statutory tests not published |
| Federal Substantial Presence Test | Yes (3-year weighted) | Yes |
| Schengen 90/180 | Yes | Yes, including the free web calculator |
| UK SRT | Yes | Yes |
| International rules | 200+ countries, 80+ rules, packaged | Any country via custom rules you configure |
| Custom user-defined rules | No, the rule set ships with the app | Yes, fully customisable regions and thresholds |
| Export | Audit-ready PDF with a clear day-count trail | PDF and CSV export |
| Web access | Free calculators on the web, tracking is in-app | Free web calculators, tracking is in-app |
| Platform | iPhone (iOS 26+), Mac via Catalyst | iPhone, plus browser calculators |
Which one is right for you?
Tax Days is best for…
- Anyone whose day count involves specific US state tests rather than a generic threshold.
- People who want the rules already encoded instead of configuring their own.
- Anyone who wants zero accounts and no vendor-side copy of the record.
- Users who want a Mac build alongside the iPhone app.
Days Monitor is best for…
- Anyone for whom $10 a year is the deciding factor.
- People who want to define their own custom thresholds for an unusual rule.
- Travellers who mainly need a free Schengen 90/180 calculator in a browser.
- Anyone who prefers CSV output over PDF for their own analysis.
Bottom line: These two are genuinely close, and Days Monitor is the cheaper of the pair. Pick Days Monitor if you want the lowest price or you want to configure your own custom rules. Pick Tax Days if your problem is US state residency, where having all 50 statutory tests already encoded matters more than $10, or if you want a tracker that has no account and no server holding your travel history in the first place. Both are far better than a spreadsheet.
Frequently asked questions
Is Days Monitor cheaper than Tax Days?
Yes. Days Monitor Premium is published at $19.99 per year and Tax Days is $29.99 per year, so Days Monitor is $10 a year cheaper. Days Monitor also offers a free browser-based 90/180 calculator with no account, though it notes that data is stored in your browser and is lost if you leave it. Tax Days has an in-app free tier with a limited set of rules that persists on your device.
Days Monitor or Tax Days for Schengen tracking?
Both run the Schengen 90/180 rolling window, and Days Monitor additionally offers a free web calculator for it. If Schengen is the only rule you care about and you are happy re-entering trips in a browser, the free calculator may be all you need. If you want the Schengen count sitting alongside your US state days and country residency rules in one continuously maintained record, that is what Tax Days is built around.
Which is better for US state residency?
Tax Days. It ships all 50 states with their specific statutory tests, including New York's 184-day rule and the statutory-residence tests in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Days Monitor advertises US state-level tracking and lets you configure thresholds yourself, but does not publish a packaged set of per-state statutory tests. If your risk is a state audit, the encoded rules are the difference.
Where does each app store my data?
Tax Days keeps everything on your iPhone with optional iCloud sync through Apple's CloudKit, has no user accounts, and runs no servers of its own. Days Monitor emphasises on-device storage and lists secure cloud storage among its Premium features, so a copy can live on its infrastructure. Neither approach is wrong, but they are different trust models and worth knowing before you choose.
Can Days Monitor handle custom rules Tax Days cannot?
Yes, and this is a real advantage. Days Monitor lets you build fully customisable regions and thresholds, so an unusual local rule or a private threshold you want to stay under can be modelled directly. Tax Days ships a fixed, maintained rule set across all its jurisdictions instead, which means less flexibility and less chance of encoding a rule incorrectly yourself.
Do I need both apps?
No. They solve the same problem and running two trackers means two records to reconcile, which is exactly the failure mode a contemporaneous log is supposed to prevent. Pick one, keep it running for the full year, and export from that one when your accountant asks.
Ready to try Tax Days?
$29.99/year. No accounts. No tracking. Free tier with limited rules.