Selling primary home - cap gains tax

[Justin Phillip]

Hi everyone, I’d like to run a question by our community:

I purchased a home 2 years ago with a FHA loan. About 15 months later, we bought another home with a primary mortgage and moved to that new home. The first house was converted into a STR (AirBnB).

I know that to qualify for the tax free gains with a primary home sale, I have to live in the property for 2 of the last 5 years.

In the near future, we are considering moving back to the first home to fulfill the 2 years and take advantage of that tax exemption.

My question, how do you indicate and prove your primary home? When we initially bought our first home, it became our homestead (TX) and we haven’t had a chance to change that yet (so it shows as our homestead for 2 years). If and when we move back to that first, what measures should we take to ensure and record that we are moving back to that home as our primary residence?

TLDR: how do the tax authorizes validate that the property you are claiming was indeed your primary for 2 of the last 5 years?