You have to have an actual home office in order to claim expenses related to the house.
If you're self-employed, however, housing-related expenses such as mortgage interest, rent, utilities, repairs, and depreciation for the portion of your home or rental that you use to run your business are allowable expenses under the home office deduction.
You may be able to claim the home office deduction if your office is:
When you enter your home office information in TurboTax, we'll ask some questions to determine if you can claim the deduction and how much the deduction is worth. You’ll need information like the square footage of your residence and the rooms you worked in.
To enter your home office expense along with other common business expenses:
- Open or continue your return.
- Search for Schedule C and select the Jump to link in the search results.
- Answer any questions about your business until you get to the Your self-employed work summary screen. Select Edit or Review next to your business.
- You might want to enter your 1099-MISC, 1099-K, cash, and personal check income from your self-employment before you associate any expenses with your business, but this is not required.
- You'll be asked What kind of expenses did you have for [type of work]? Select Home office. You can also select any other expense categories that apply to your business. Select Continue at the bottom of the screen when you're done.
- On the Here's your [type of work] info screen, scroll down to the Expenses section, and select Start next to Home office.
- Enter the info about your home office.
