Short-term rental tax deductions: the records an Airbnb or Vrbo host needs

A host’s return turns on facts the receipts do not show. How many nights did guests pay for? How many nights did you or family stay? How long was the average stay? Did you clean during stays or serve breakfast? The answers set the form, the loss rules and the share of each bill you deduct.

So the first papers to gather are logs, not invoices. Your booking site’s earnings report gives the guest nights and stays. Your own calendar gives the personal days. A simple note lists the services you offered. With those three, the preparer can sort every receipt that follows.

A beach condo you also vacation in becomes your residence once your own days pass 14, or 10% of the nights guests paid a fair rate, whichever is more (IRS Topic no. 415). Hosts who list it for only a couple of weeks get a gift: under 15 rented days, the rent is not reported and the costs are not rental expenses (IRS Topic no. 415).

When you mix rental and personal use, you split total costs by the days used for each (IRS Topic no. 415). Rental costs are then capped at the gross rent, and some may carry to the next year (IRS Topic no. 415). That makes the day count the most useful record a host keeps. A day-count log is a month-by-month record of rented, personal and empty days. Keep it with the booking calendar.

Most rentals go on Schedule E. You use Schedule C instead when you give substantial services mainly for the guest’s convenience, such as regular cleaning, changing linen or maid service (IRS Publication 527). Heat and light, cleaning of shared areas and trash collection do not count as substantial services (IRS Publication 527).

The move to Schedule C has a cost. Profit there can bring self-employment tax, figured on Schedule SE (IRS Publication 527), which a Schedule E landlord generally does not pay. So the services list is not a formality: it changes the tax on every dollar of profit.

A turnover clean is the cleaning between one guest and the next. Guests do not get it during their stay, so ask the preparer how your setup is treated. Write down what guests receive while they stay, for example mid-stay cleaning, meals, airport rides or tours. That list goes into the file next to the cleaning invoices.

Under the passive loss rules, an activity is not a rental activity when the average period of customer use is seven days or less (26 CFR 1.469-1T). It is also not a rental activity when the average is 30 days or less and the owner provides significant personal services (26 CFR 1.469-1T). This is the basis of what hosts online call the short-term rental loophole.

Escaping the rental label is only the first step. A loss then counts against other income only if you materially participate. One test is more than 500 hours in the year (26 CFR 1.469-5T). Another is more than 100 hours, and no less than any other person, cleaners and co-hosts included (26 CFR 1.469-5T).

Hours are proved with a log, not a guess. Write the date, the task and the time spent, for example guest messages, restocking, repairs and listing updates. Ask your cleaner or co-host for their hours too, since your hours are compared with theirs.

Airbnb, Vrbo and similar booking sites count as online marketplaces for tax reporting. A host whose bookings on one site top $20,000 across more than 200 reservations gets a Form 1099-K from that site (IRS, Understanding your Form 1099-K). A smaller host may get one anyway, and owes tax on every stay either way (IRS, Understanding your Form 1099-K). Two sites mean two forms, each with its own total.

The 1099-K is a gross figure. On Airbnb it includes the cleaning fees and pass-through taxes you told it to collect, and it is counted before Airbnb’s host fee comes off. In your Airbnb account, the earnings dashboard has a Taxes section with the tax documents and an earnings summary you can export. Use that summary to match the form to the payouts in your bank account.

An occupancy tax is a lodging tax that many cities and states charge on short stays. Some booking sites collect and pay it for you in certain places; elsewhere you file it yourself. Keep both records: the tax the site collected for you, and the returns and payments you made to the city or state.

Short-stay hosts pay for things a long-term landlord never does: linens, coffee, streaming accounts, smart locks and pricing tools. Keep a receipt for each, and sort them by property if you host in more than one place. Utility bills belong too, since the host pays them all.

Furniture and appliances are depreciated as their own assets, so keep each invoice with the date it went into use. That date matters more than it used to. For furnishings bought and put in the unit after January 19, 2025, the 2025 law restored a 100% first-year allowance, with an election to take 40% (IRS Publication 946 (2025)). So a sofa bought for the listing can take the full allowance the year it is placed in service, and a cost segregation study tries to do the same for parts of the building. The building itself needs care: residential rental property does not include a unit in a hotel, motel or inn where more than half the units are used on a transient basis (IRS Publication 527). Ask the preparer which recovery period fits your property, and hand over the purchase closing statement for the cost split. The rental property checklist covers the long-term side of the same papers.

• Paying a cleaner or handyman as part of a hosting business? A worker you paid $600 or more in 2025 gets a Form 1099-NEC (Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. April 2025)). For payments made in 2026, the line is $2,000 (Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC). The contractor 1099 checklist shows the other side of that form.

1. Export the yearly earnings report from each booking site, plus each Form 1099-K.
2. Fill in the day-count log: rented, personal and empty days by month.
3. Work out the average stay: total guest nights divided by the number of stays.
4. Write the list of guest services and attach the hour log.
5. Add receipts and invoices, sorted into supplies, repairs, improvements and furniture.

• IRS Topic no. 415: A unit is a residence when personal use passes the greater of 14 days or 10% of fair-rental days; under 15 rental days, no income or rental expenses; expenses split by days and capped at gross rent.
• IRS Publication 527: Substantial services such as regular cleaning, changing linen or maid service move reporting to Schedule C, where self-employment tax may apply; residential rental property excludes units in mostly transient lodging.
• 26 CFR 1.469-1T: An activity is not a rental activity if the average period of customer use is seven days or less, or 30 days or less with significant personal services.
• 26 CFR 1.469-5T: Material participation tests include more than 500 hours in the year, or more than 100 hours and not less than any other individual.
• IRS Publication 946 (2025): P.L. 119-21 reinstated the 100% special depreciation allowance for qualified property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025, with an election to take 40% instead.
• Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. April 2025): For 2025 payments, Form 1099-NEC reports nonemployee compensation of $600 or more paid in the course of a trade or business.
• Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC: For tax years beginning after 2025, the reporting threshold for Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC rises to $2,000, adjusted for inflation from 2027.
• IRS, Understanding your Form 1099-K: Online marketplaces send Form 1099-K when payments exceed $20,000 in more than 200 transactions, may send it below that, and all income must be reported.