Section 280A(g) of the tax code — nicknamed the “Augusta Rule” after homeowners in Augusta, Georgia who rented out rooms during the Masters tournament — lets you rent your personal home to your own business for up to 14 days a year and pay zero federal income tax on the rental income. It’s unchanged by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and remains fully available in 2026.
How the Strategy Works
If your business holds a legitimate meeting, retreat, or planning session at your home, your business can pay you fair-market rent for the space and deduct that rent as an ordinary business expense. Because the rental falls under the 14-day exclusion, you don’t report that rental income on your personal return at all — not even on Schedule E. The business gets a deduction; you get tax-free income for the same dollars.
The 14-Day Ceiling Is a Hard Line
The exclusion applies only if your home is rented for 14 days or fewer during the year, in total, to anyone — not just your business. Go to 15 days and you lose the exclusion entirely for that year’s rental income, not just for the days over 14. This makes tracking every rental day, not just the business-related ones, essential.
What “Fair Market Rent” Actually Means
The IRS expects the rental rate to reflect what an unrelated party would actually pay for comparable space in your area — a hotel conference room, an event venue, or a short-term rental listing for similar square footage. Get a few comparable quotes and keep them on file; a rate that’s clearly inflated to maximize the deduction is the most common way this strategy gets challenged on audit.
Documentation That Actually Holds Up
To support the deduction, you need: a written rental agreement between you personally and the business, an actual invoice or record of payment from the business to you, minutes or an agenda showing a real business purpose for each rental day, and the comparable-rate research mentioned above. Treating this as an occasional, casual arrangement without paperwork is the difference between a strategy that survives an audit and one that doesn’t.
Who This Actually Benefits
The Augusta Rule works best for business owners who already hold in-person meetings, whether that’s a solo consultant hosting quarterly planning sessions or a small business holding its annual retreat. It’s a narrower, more occasional strategy than something like the home office deduction, which covers regular, ongoing business use of part of your home rather than occasional full-home rentals — the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but they cover different situations.
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