topic Turbotax does not seem to prorate home office expense correctly in Deductions & credits

Turbotax does not seem to prorate home office expense correctly

hxia11 — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 17:51:03 GMT

I started using my home office for my business since August 2025, the home office accounts for 11% of the home living area, to my understanding, the correct formula should be total_expense * 11% * portion_of_year_used_for_home_office.

However, Turbotax does not seem to factor in the last factor even through I explictly entered the first day used for business and number of month used for more than 15 days. I tried to toggle the date and it does NOT affect the outcome, it seems Turbotax is defaulting the home office for the entire year.

Re: Turbotax does not seem to prorate home office expense correctly

rjs — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 17:55:59 GMT

Duplicate question. Please post your question only once.

Re: Turbotax does not seem to prorate home office expense correctly

hxia11 — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 18:03:49 GMT

I have asked the moderator to remove the original post as it was posted under the wrong topic

Re: Turbotax does not seem to prorate home office expense correctly

rmunson8 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 20:29:22 GMT

I am seeing the same issue. I only used my home office for 2 months out of the year. When I go through the guided tour for home office expenses, it ask when I started to use the home office and the number of months I use it at least 15 days (I entered 11/10/25 and 2 months). It then asks for full year amounts for each respective expense (home mortgage interest, utilities, etc). But upon completion it only prorates it by the sq footage % but not by the number of months used out of the entire year.

The workaround of course is to manually enter those values and prorate myself, but that definitely is going to confuse many users. Known issue?

Re: Turbotax does not seem to prorate home office expense correctly

LeticiaF1 — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 18:16:12 GMT

Deductions for a home office are based on the percentage of the home devoted to business use. There are two types of expenses, direct and indirect.

Direct expenses are related only to the area of the home used for business and they are deducted in full.
For indirect expenses, you can only deduct the percentage of the home used for business activities to deduct indirect expenses.

TurboTax will ask for the full amount for home mortgage interest, utilities, and will allocate the percentage to the business use of your home based on the time and area you indicated. You should not prorate the amounts yourself, just make sure that you enter the time and area correctly.

How small business owners can deduct their home office from their taxes

Can I take the home office deduction?

Where do I enter the home office deduction for my business?

@rmunson8