I rent multiple rooms to separate renters in my single-family home. There are different occupancy rates for each room. How do I report those? As different rentals?

[jcoget]

I have 5 different units I rent.

One of the units is a guest house, with a bedroom and a living-room/kitchen, rented full-time. 

The other 4 units are separate bedroom/cottages with a bedroom and bathroom each, but no kitchen. I rent those on airbnb, part-time, but don't use them personally.

Despite this unusual set-up, my home is considered a 7-bedrooms single-family home. I live in the main house and two bedrooms with my family.

[MinhT · Accepted solution]

If you use part on your home for rental, you do not need to report the rentals by room or type of rental.

You can report all rental income and expenses as one rental business.

[jcoget]

But one unit is rented 100% of the time, whereas others are rented part time. How do I average those?

[MinhT]

If you do not use the 4 units personally and they are available for rent the whole year, you can count them as rental space for the whole year.

[jcoget]

Thanks! That helps!

[John B1]

I've had one room rented out for year, but I rented out a second room in my house this fall.  This changes the percentage of the residence that is rented out, but the second room wasn't for the full year.  How do I report this?

[Carl]

THis is easy to do *once* *you* *know* *how*. 🙂 I can help with this and believe I can keep it rather simple while we're at it. At last, I'll do my best. Lets start with some basics.

 - A rental property/room/asset is considered to be "in service" on thd day it becomes "available" for rent. Doesn't amtter if it took you three months to get a renter in it. Generally, a rental property is available for rent the day you put the FOR RENT sign in the front yard.

So if the room was "available for rent" on Jan 1 of the tax year but you didn't get a renter in there until Apr 1 and they stated for the rest of the tax year, as far as the IRS is concerned it was classified as a rental asset for *every* *single* *day* of the tax year. This would include vacant periods between renters *PROVIDED* that you the owner did not utilize the room/property for personal use for *one* *single* *day* of the tax year.

Now with that clarified................

Give me dates and percentages. For example, if the total percentage of floor space in your home that was "exclusive" to the renter from Jan 1 - Mar 31 was 10%, then give me those dates and numbers.

Then lets say you had a 2nd room available for rent starting Apr 1st and that 2nd room was an addtional 10% of floor space. That would mean from Jan 1 -Mar 31 that 10% of your floorspace was "available for rent" and from Apr 31 on, 20% of your floorspace was available for rent. Weather any of it or only a portion of it was actually occupied by a paying tenant is irrelevant. What matters here is that it was "available" for rent.

So give me dates and numbers to work with and I"ll use your numbers (since they'll be "real" for you) to provide you guidance with an example.

*Those who claim to completely understand the situation and all aspects of it, are obviously not paying attention.*

[John B1]

To give you real numbers:  10% of the house was rented all year, and an additional 10% became available and was rented starting August 20th.