I want to use the number of rooms in my house to calculate the percent of my house used as home office. How do I do that

[Marketstar]

If the rooms in your home are all about the same size, you can figure the business percentage by dividing the number of rooms used in your business by the total number of rooms in the house.

The most exact way to figure this proportion is to measure the square footage devoted to your home office and find what percentage it is of the total area of your home. If the office measures 150 square feet, for example, and the total area of the house is 1,200 square feet, your business percentage would be 12.5% (150 ÷ 1,200).

See The Home Office Deduction

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Small-Business-Taxes/The-Home-Office-Deduction/INF120...

[dovg]

Thanks. My understanding is that I can use whichever method is more favorable for me, which in my case is using the number of rooms. The trouble is that Turbotax only provides the second option (square feet), not the first. So, how do I use the # of rooms method in Turbotax?

[Marketstar]

Do you use an entire roomm regularly and exclusively for business? If so, are all of the rooms in your home about the same size?  If so, how many rooms in your home?

[dovg]

1. Yes, 2. more or less, 3. Eight. My question is really about the TurboTax functionality. The only option I found to enter in information is based on actual square footage, not rooms. I want to enter this information based on rooms, not square footage. Do you or anyone else in the community know if this is possible using TurboTax?

[Marketstar]

Per IRS rules, one can only use a square footage ratio to compute home office expenses. The "room method" will save you the exercise of measuring the square footage of your work space, but you still need to know the approximate square footage of your entire house. Based on your answer s above, it would appear that if you use one room for business, your ration would be approximately 1/8 or .125.

[sergepl]

I realize this is an old thread, but was wondering if anyone found a way to use the room method of deducting a home office?  There are 3 methods available (Square foot method, Simplified method, and Room method), but TurboTax only appear to support the first 2.

[Critter-3]

Ok ... to use the room option if you use 1 room  in a home with 6 rooms you will enter 1 for the business SQF  and  6 for the total SQF of the home.