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Expenses Deductible Without Regard to a Business Connection: Home Office Deductions (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Expenses Deductible Without Regard to a Business Connection” within home office deductions. 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 587 (2025), Business Use of Your Home, 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.

Context for these rules

If you use your home in your trade or business and file Schedule C (Form 1040), report the entire deduction for business use of your home on line 30 of Schedule C (Form 1040). Whether you need to complete and attach Form 8829 to your return depends on how you figure your deduction. See Line 30 in the Instructions for Schedule C for more information.

If you use your home in your farming business and file Schedule F (Form 1040), report your entire deduction for business use of the home on line 32 of Schedule F (Form 1040). Enter “Business Use of Home” on the dotted line beside the entry.

Expenses Deductible Without Regard to a Business Connection

Certain expenses related to the use of your home may be deducted whether or not you use your home for business. These expenses may include some or all of your mortgage interest, real estate taxes, and casualty losses attributable to a federally declared disaster. Where you deduct these expenses depends on how you figure your deduction for business use of the home.

Using actual expenses to figure the deduction.

In general, you will deduct the business portion of these expenses on Schedule C (Form 1040) or Schedule F (Form 1040) as part of your deduction for business use of your home. If you itemize your deductions, you will deduct the personal portion of these expenses on Schedule A (Form 1040).

Home mortgage interest.

The business portion of your home mortgage interest allowed as a deduction this year will be included in the business use of the home deduction you report on Schedule C (Form 1040), line 30, or Schedule F (Form 1040), line 32. If you cannot deduct the business portion of your home mortgage interest in full this year, you will carry over the remaining home mortgage interest to a subsequent year in which you use actual expenses to figure your business portion of the home deduction.

If you itemize your deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040), only include the personal part of your deductible mortgage interest on Schedule A (Form 1040), line 8a or 8b. The personal portion of your home mortgage interest will generally be the amount of deductible home mortgage interest you figured when treating all home mortgage interest as a personal expense and applying the Schedule A (Form 1040) limits on deducting home mortgage interest, reduced by the business or rental portions deducted or carried over as a business or rental expense on Schedule C, E, or F, or any form other than Schedule A. Home mortgage interest that exceeds the amount you figured after applying the Schedule A (Form 1040) limits on deducting home mortgage interest is not deductible as a personal expense.

Real estate taxes.

You figure the business portion of your real estate taxes using Form 8829 (if you file Schedule C (Form 1040)) or the Worksheet To Figure the Deduction for Business Use of Your Home in this publication (if you file Schedule F (Form 1040)). The business portion of your real estate taxes allowed as a deduction this year will be included in the business use of the home deduction you report on Schedule C (Form 1040), line 30, or Schedule F (Form 1040), line 32. If you cannot deduct the business portion of your real estate taxes in full this year, you will carry over those real estate taxes to a subsequent year in which you use actual expenses to figure your business portion of the home deduction.

If you itemize your deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040), only include the personal part of your real estate taxes on Schedule A (Form 1040), line 5b. The personal portion of your real estate taxes will generally be the amount of real estate taxes you paid for the home reduced by the business or rental portions deducted or carried over as a business or rental expense on Schedule C, E, or F, or any form other than Schedule A.

Casualty losses.

You will figure the business portion of the casualty losses attributable to your home using Form 8829 (if you file Schedule C (Form 1040)) or the Worksheet To Figure the Deduction for Business Use of Your Home in this publication (if you file Schedule F (Form 1040)). The business portion of your casualty losses allowed as a deduction this year will be reported on line 27 in Section B of Form 4684. If you cannot deduct the business portion of your casualty losses in full this year, you will carry over those losses to a subsequent year in which you use actual expenses to figure your business of the home deduction.

Only include the personal portion of your casualty losses in Section A of the Form 4684 you attach to your return. If you itemize your deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040), you will include the deductible personal portion of the casualty losses attributable to your home figured on line 18 of Form 4684 on line 15 of Schedule A and the net qualified disaster losses attributable to your home figured on line 15 of Form 4684 on line 16 of Schedule A. If you are increasing your standard deduction by a net qualified disaster loss, you will add the net qualified disaster loss figured on line 15 of Form 4684 to your standard deduction using a Schedule A.

Using the simplified method to figure your deduction.

If you use the simplified method to figure your deduction for the business use of a home, your mortgage interest, real estate taxes, and casualty losses are treated as personal expenses, and they are subject to any limits that apply to deducting personal expenses. No part of any of these expenses can be deducted as a business expense on Schedule C (Form 1040) or Schedule F (Form 1040). Generally, you can only deduct these expenses if you itemize your deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040).

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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