The 14-day rule and personal use days on a rental (§280A)
Under IRC §280A(d)(1) you use a rental as a residence when your personal-use days exceed the greater of 14 days or 10% of the days it was rented at a fair rental. Up to 140 fair-rental days the line is 14 days; above that, 10%. Rented under 15 days while a residence, §280A(g) leaves the rental out of your return; any personal use splits the expenses by days.
The limit
Personal days > max(14, 10% x fair-rental days) means used as a residence. A day you use the unit while it is rented at a fair rental counts as personal for this test and is taken out of the fair-rental days (§280A(d)(1), last sentence).
| Fair-rental days | Personal days | Limit | Used as a residence | Rented < 15 days | Rental share of expenses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 | 10 | 14 | No | No | 85.7% |
| 60 | 15 | 14 | Yes | No | 80.0% |
| 140 | 14 | 14 | No | No | 90.9% |
| 200 | 18 | 20 | No | No | 91.7% |
| 200 | 21 | 20 | Yes | No | 90.5% |
| 300 | 30 | 30 | No | No | 90.9% |
| 300 | 31 | 30 | Yes | No | 90.6% |
| 10 | 20 | 14 | Yes | Yes: §280A(g) | 33.3% |
Splitting the expenses
If the unit is used for personal purposes on any day of the year, rental expenses are limited to the share that fair-rental days bear to the total days the unit is used; §280A(e)(2) excepts deductions allowable whether or not the unit was rented.
When dividing expenses, any day rented at a fair rental price is a day of rental use even if you used the unit that day (not so for the home test); a day available for rent but not rented is not a day of rental use. Worked example: 85 rental days and 14 personal days give 85/99 of the expenses as rental expenses.
The same example through the tool: 85 rental days and 14 personal days = 99 days used, 85.9% of the expenses are rental. For the residence test the 2 days used during the paid July stay switch sides: 16 personal days against 83 rental days, over the limit of 14: used as a home.
Repair days: your choice to make
Any day you spend working substantially full time repairing and maintaining (not improving) your property is not counted as a day of personal use, even if family members use the property for recreation that day. Whether a given day was "substantially full time" work is a question of fact. The export tool follows the IRS rule by default (repair days are not personal days) and lets you tick the conservative reading, counting them as personal, when your repair days were not full-time work.
Put your own days into the export tool: it counts the fair-rental days from your bookings, split at the year boundary, and applies these tests per property.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the 14-day rule for a rental property?
- Two rules share the name. §280A(d)(1): personal use of more than 14 days (or 10% of fair-rental days, if more) makes the unit a residence. §280A(g): a residence rented for fewer than 15 days in the year has its rental income left out and no rental deductions.
- What counts as a personal use day?
- A day of personal use is any day, or part of a day, the unit is used by you or another owner, by a member of your or their family (IRC §267(c)(4)), by anyone under an arrangement that lets you use another dwelling unit, or by anyone paying less than a fair rental. Family, per IRS Pub 527, is your spouse, siblings, half siblings, ancestors and lineal descendants.
- Do days I spend fixing the place count as personal use?
- Any day you spend working substantially full time repairing and maintaining (not improving) your property is not counted as a day of personal use, even if family members use the property for recreation that day.
- Do empty days count?
- Not as rental days: a day available for rent but not actually rented is not a day of rental use (IRS Pub 527). It is not a personal day either unless someone used the unit that day (§280A(d)(2)), so it stays out of the expense split.
- What happens if my rental counts as a residence?
- Renting a dwelling unit that is considered a home is not a passive activity; if rental expenses exceed rental income, the excess cannot offset other income and is carried forward to the next year for the same property.
More guides
- Short-term rental loophole: the 7-day average stay test
Why an average guest stay of 7 days or less takes a rental out of the rental-activity rule, how the average is counted, and what it does not decide. Worked sample.
- How to calculate the average period of customer use (with examples)
Days of all customer-use periods divided by their number: which stays count for the year, back-to-back bookings, nights or days, with a table of stay mixes.
- Material participation hours for short-term rentals: the 100-hour test
More than 100 hours and not less than anyone else, cleaners included: how turnovers decide the 100-hour test, the 500-hour test and how to log hours.
Last updated 2026-09-30. Arithmetic under Treas. Reg. §1.469-1T(e)(3), §1.469-5T and IRC §280A applied to the stays you enter. Not tax advice; confirm the treatment with your CPA. Not affiliated with Airbnb or Vrbo.