Massachusetts / Boston

Benjamin Franklin

From the 50 State Visitor Guide:

A.L.M. G.L. 2019 Part I, Title II, Ch. 6, §§178C thru 178Q

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

2 days for initial registration by mail if moving to the state; 10 days for change of residence or employment address within the state. Those residing elsewhere but employed in the state must register w/in 2 days by mail. Those planning to work or attends college in the state must register 10 days before commencement by mail.

Visitors: Law requires registration of “secondary addresses,” defined as place of residence for 14 or more aggregate days in a calendar year, or a place routinely resided in for 4 or more consecutive or non-consecutive days per month. §178C.

Confirmed by Mass. SOR response letter (2020).

Per the MA SOR office this means you’re welcome to come for your vacation(s) of up to 14 days aggregate per year, but if you’re coming and going “routinely” then the 4 day per month rule applies.

Per Rolfe Survey, visiting registrants once placed on state’s registry ARE NOT REMOVED.  However, Tier 1 registrants are not placed on the public website. §178D(e).

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

None. 

Duration & updates:

20 years to life.  §178G. Annual updates: Unclassified & Tier 1 – mail;

Tiers 2 & 3 – in person. Homeless & shelters – every 30 days. §178E;§178F1/2

Most recent visit: May 2025

There is, as they sometimes say, good and bad news about Massachusetts.  Let’s do the bad news first, because for a visitor at least it’s not all that bad.

If you must be in Massachusetts on a recurring basis, e.g. for business or to care for an aging relative, you can only visit for up to four consecutive or non-consecutive days per month.  More than that and you’ll have to register.  On the other hand, if you are coming to Massachusetts for our annual ski trip to the Berkshires you get up to 14 days for that.

Note that in both cases these numbers of days are per the MA SOR office.  The state law actually reads, “4 or more” days and “14 or more aggregate days” which implies that you should subtract one day to avoid a registry trigger.  Just something to keep in mind.

Furthermore, as noted above, if you do wind up on Massachusetts’ registry they won’t take you off when you leave the state and it’s 20 years to life.

So be mindful of your time in Massachusetts, and document your whereabouts to be able to prove you haven’t overstayed your welcome.

The good news is that at least at the state level there are no residency or presence restrictions to be concerned about (although I do not know about local restrictions). So presumably when you visit Boston as I did with my brother in late May 2025 you don’t constantly have to be looking over your shoulder to make sure you haven’t accidently walked into a park or library.

Two Pauls. One is Revered.

Here’s the problem with visiting Boston:  Your family is always going to want to walk the Freedom Trail.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great thing and everyone should do it, but whether your family tries it on their own or goes with a tour or on-off trolley it takes all day so you won’t see anything else.  In fact I have done this twice with my family and never gotten any further than the Old North Church. 

If you want to see any more of Boston than that it’ll take at least two days, probably three.  Now you need to ask yourself, am I staying this long as part of a one time vacation or as part of an on-going business or family commitment?  The answer to that question tells you which rule to follow.

USS Constitution

In May 2025 I invited my brother on a trip to Boston while my car was getting repaired in Rhode Island – “Just two old geezers, no wives or grandchildren, we don’t have to make anybody happy.”  Because he had accompanied my family on our previous Freedom Trail walk, I said, “And let’s skip that part of the Freedom Trail and see something else.”

We arrived in Boston by train and relied on transit while there.  Our first stop was the USS Constitution, which is on the part of the Freedom Trail you can never get to on the first day.  I’d never been there before and yes it’s great.  Then, however, I decided to walk to the Bunker Hill Monument and managed to go off-course by a few blocks.  It’s a monument, right? You’d think it would be easier to find but instead we wandered through Charlestown which I wanted to do anyway (maybe not my brother …).

Van Gogh self-portrait at the Museum of Fine Arts

Next stop Museum of Science.  It’s a must see museum but as with all science museums there a lot of school groups around and many of the exhibits are aimed at educating kids.  It’s a little too family friendly for me.  Then we took the subway to the Museum of Fine Arts which was having a Van Gogh exhibit.  By the end of that it was 5:00 and we two old geezers were beat.  We ate at the closest pizza joint and started our transit and train ride back to Rhode Island.

Which just goes to show – if the Freedom Trail is Day 1 and what we did was Day 2, there’s still a lot to see in Boston.  The harbor boat tour itself will take most of a day.  So plan your Boston vacation accordingly.

Previous visit: July 2022

I visited Boston with my family in July 2022.  On that morning my brother, whom I had stayed with overnight in Rhode Island, accompanied me to Boston, where we met up with the rest of my family and spent the day being tourists.  Boston is a great place to do that.

There is a parking garage underneath Boston Commons.  It’s expensive, true, but really convenient.  Instead of taking one of those expensive (up to $100 per person!) on-off tour trolleys I convinced my family to walk (most of) the Liberty Trail, which begins at the Boston Commons Visitor Center where we picked up a Liberty Trail guidebook.  Now we could just follow the red line and see every attraction any Boston tourist is supposed to see.

Italian pastry shop in Boston's North End

Quincy Market.  Faneuil Hall.  The Old North Church.  We ate lunch at an Italian restaurant in the North End as every tourist is supposed to, and bought cookies at an Italian pastry shop.  After lunch we all got on the Boston Subway at nearby Haymarket Station and went to see Harvard. 

My teenage granddaughters were especially excited to go see America’s oldest and most famous university.  It is a place with which, believe it or not, I am familiar, so I served as tour guide as we explored Harvard Yard and some of the educational buildings that surround it.  Then it was on to the Harvard Coop, which grandma had been talking up for days in advance.  She spent a fortune there on trinkets, T-shirts etc., and you will be as pleased as I was to know that the teens found books – yes books! – to suit their thirsty young minds.

Then it was back on the subway to return to Boston commons and our cars.  My brother continued on the subway to South Station where he got on a train to go back home to Rhode Island while the rest of us continued on to New Hampshire (my second time there, see my NH blog post).