Should I divide my travel cost to multiple rental property?

[Lance10]

I am living in Florida. I have 2 rental properties in Chicago area. I travel to Chicago one or two times a year. Should I divide my travel cost into these two properties? or I could put the total travel cost to one of the properties? The driving milage from FL to IL is about 2468 miles round trip. I drive about 6000 miles a year.

[tagteam]

You might be better off splitting the expenses between the two provided travel to both properties meets the guidelines for a deduction.

See https://www.irs.gov/publications/p527#en_US_2023_publink1000218997

Travel expenses.

You can deduct the ordinary and necessary expenses of traveling away from home if the primary purpose of the trip is to collect rental income or to manage, conserve, or maintain your rental property. You must properly allocate your expenses between rental and nonrental activities. You can’t deduct the cost of traveling away from home if the primary purpose of the trip is to improve the property. The cost of improvements is recovered by taking depreciation. For information on travel expenses, see chapter 1 of Pub. 463.

To deduct travel expenses, you must keep records that follow the rules in chapter 5 of Pub. 463. .