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Business Deduction for Work-Related Education — What Expenses Can Be Deducted?: Education Tax Benefits (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Business Deduction for Work-Related Education — What Expenses Can Be Deducted?” within education tax benefits. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 970 (2025), Tax Benefits for Education, published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Business Deduction for Work-Related Education — What Expenses Can Be Deducted?

If your education meets the requirements described earlier under Qualifying Work-Related Education, you may be able to deduct your education expenses as business expenses. If you aren’t self-employed, you can deduct business expenses only if you are an Armed Forces reservist, qualified performing artist, fee-based state or local government official, or, for impairment-related expenses, an individual with a disability.

You can’t deduct expenses related to tax-exempt and excluded income.

Deductible expenses.

The following education expenses can be deducted.

  • Tuition, books, supplies, lab fees, and similar items.

  • Certain transportation and travel costs.

  • Other education expenses, such as costs of research and typing when writing a paper as part of an educational program.

Nondeductible expenses.

You can’t deduct personal or capital expenses. For example, you can’t deduct the dollar value of vacation time or annual leave you take to attend classes. This amount is a personal expense.

Unclaimed reimbursement.

If you don’t claim reimbursement that you are entitled to receive from your employer, you can’t deduct the expenses that apply to that unclaimed reimbursement.

Example.

Your employer agrees to pay your education expenses if you file a voucher showing your expenses. You don’t file a voucher and you don’t get reimbursed. Because you didn’t file a voucher, you can’t deduct the expenses on your tax return.

Transportation Expenses

If your education qualifies, you can deduct local transportation costs of going directly from work to school. If you are regularly employed and go to school on a temporary basis, you can also deduct the costs of returning from school to home.

Temporary basis.

You go to school on a temporary basis if either of the following situations applies to you.

  1. Your attendance at school is realistically expected to last 1 year or less and does indeed last for 1 year or less.

  2. Initially, your attendance at school is realistically expected to last 1 year or less, but at a later date your attendance is reasonably expected to last more than 1 year. Your attendance is temporary up to the date you determine it will last more than 1 year.

If you are in either situation (1) or (2), your attendance isn’t temporary if facts and circumstances indicate otherwise.

Attendance not on a temporary basis.

You don’t go to school on a temporary basis if either of the following situations applies to you.

  1. Your attendance at school is realistically expected to last more than 1 year. It doesn’t matter how long you actually attend.

  2. Initially, your attendance at school is realistically expected to last 1 year or less, but at a later date your attendance is reasonably expected to last more than 1 year. Your attendance isn’t temporary after the date you determine it will last more than 1 year.

Deductible Transportation Expenses

If you are regularly employed and go directly from home to school on a temporary basis, you can deduct the roundtrip costs of transportation between your home and school. This is true regardless of the location of the school, the distance traveled, or whether you attend school on nonwork days.

Transportation expenses include the actual costs of bus, subway, cab, or other fares, as well as the costs of using your car. Transportation expenses don’t include amounts spent for travel, meals, or lodging while you are away from home overnight.

Example 1.

You regularly work in a nearby town, and go directly from work to home. You also attend school every work night for 3 months to take a course that improves your job skills. Since you are attending school on a temporary basis, you can deduct your daily roundtrip transportation expenses in going between home and school. This is true regardless of the distance traveled.

Example 2.

Assume the same facts as in Example 1, except that on certain nights you go directly from work to school and then home. You can deduct your transportation expenses from your regular work site to school and then home.

Example 3.

Assume the same facts as in Example 1, except that you attend the school for 9 months on Saturdays, nonwork days. Since you are attending school on a temporary basis, you can deduct your roundtrip transportation expenses in going between home and school.

Example 4.

Assume the same facts as in Example 1, except that you attend classes twice a week for 15 months. Since your attendance in school isn’t considered temporary, you can’t deduct your transportation expenses in going between home and school. If you go directly from work to school, you can deduct the one-way transportation expenses of going from work to school. If you go from work to home to school and return home, your transportation expenses can’t be more than if you had gone directly from work to school.

Using your car.

If you use your car (whether you own or lease it) for transportation to school, you can deduct your actual expenses or use the standard mileage rate to figure the amount you can deduct. The standard mileage rate for miles driven from January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2025, is 70 cents a mile. Whichever method you use, you can also deduct parking fees and tolls. See Pub. 463, chapter 4, for information on deducting your actual expenses of using a car.

Travel Expenses

You can deduct expenses for travel, meals (see 50% limit on meals, later), and lodging if you travel overnight mainly to obtain qualifying work-related education.

Travel expenses for qualifying work-related education are treated the same as travel expenses for other employee business purposes. For more information, see chapter 1 of Pub. 463.

.You can’t deduct expenses for personal activities such as sightseeing, visiting, or entertaining. .

Mainly personal travel.

If your travel away from home is mainly personal, you can’t deduct all of your expenses for travel, meals, and lodging. You can deduct only your expenses for lodging and meals (see 50% limit on meals, later) during the time you attend the qualified educational activities.

Whether a trip’s purpose is mainly personal or educational depends upon the facts and circumstances. An important factor is the comparison of time spent on personal activities with time spent on educational activities. If you spend more time on personal activities, the trip is considered mainly educational only if you can show a substantial nonpersonal reason for traveling to a particular location.

Example 1.

You work in Newark, New Jersey. You traveled to Chicago to take a deductible 1-week course at the request of your employer. Your main reason for going to Chicago was to take the course.

While there, you took a sightseeing trip, entertained some friends, and took a side trip to Pleasantville for a day.

Since the trip was mainly for business, you can deduct your roundtrip airfare to Chicago. You can’t deduct your transportation expenses of going to Pleasantville. You can deduct only the meals (see 50% limit on meals, later) and lodging connected with your educational activities.

Example 2.

You work in Boston. You went to a university in Michigan to take a course for work. The course is qualifying work-related education.

You took one course, which is one-fourth of a full course load of study. You spent the rest of the time on personal activities. Your reasons for taking the course in Michigan were all personal.

Your trip is mainly personal because three-fourths of your time is considered personal time. You can’t deduct the cost of your roundtrip train ticket to Michigan. You can deduct one-fourth of the meals (see 50% limit on meals, later) and lodging costs for the time you attended the university.

Example 3.

You work in Nashville and recently traveled to California to take a 2-week seminar. The seminar is qualifying work-related education.

While there, you spent an extra 8 weeks on personal activities. The facts, including the extra 8-week stay, show that your main purpose was to take a vacation.

You can’t deduct your roundtrip airfare or your meals and lodging for the 8 weeks. You can deduct only your expenses for meals (see 50% limit on meals, later) and lodging for the 2 weeks you attended the seminar.

Cruises and conventions.

Certain cruises and conventions offer seminars or courses as part of their itinerary. Even if the seminars or courses are work related, your deduction for travel may be limited. This applies to:

  • Travel by ocean liner, cruise ship, or other form of luxury water transportation; and

  • Conventions outside the North American area.

For a discussion of the limits on travel expense deductions that apply to cruises and conventions, see Luxury Water Travel and Conventions in chapter 1 of Pub. 463.

50% limit on meals.

You can deduct only 50% of the cost of your meals while traveling away from home to obtain qualifying work-related education. If you were reimbursed for the meals, see How To Treat Reimbursements, later.

Qualified performing artists and fee-based state or local government officials must use Form 2106 to apply the 50% limit.

Travel as Education

You can’t deduct the cost of travel as a form of education even if it is directly related to your duties in your work or business.

Example.

You are a French language teacher. While on sabbatical leave granted for travel, you traveled through France to improve your knowledge of the French language. You chose your itinerary and most of your activities to improve your French language skills. You can’t deduct your travel expenses as education expenses. This is true even if you spent most of your time learning French by visiting French schools and families, attending movies or plays, and engaging in similar activities.

No Double Benefit Allowed

You can’t do the following.

  • Deduct work-related education expenses as business expenses if you benefit from these expenses under any other provision of the law.

  • Deduct work-related education expenses paid with tax-free scholarship, grant, or employer-provided educational assistance.

Adjustments to Qualifying Work-Related Education Expenses

If you pay qualifying work-related education expenses with certain tax-free funds, you can’t claim a deduction for those amounts. You must reduce the qualifying expenses by the amount of such expenses allocable to the tax-free educational assistance.

Tax-free educational assistance.

This includes:

Amounts that don’t reduce qualifying work-related education expenses.

Don’t reduce the qualifying work-related education expenses by amounts paid with funds the student receives as:

  • Payment for services, such as wages;

  • A loan;

  • A gift;

  • An inheritance; or

  • A withdrawal from the student’s personal savings.

Also, don’t reduce the qualifying work-related education expenses by any scholarship or fellowship grant reported as income on the student’s return or any scholarship that, by its terms, can’t be applied to qualifying work-related education expenses.

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.

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