Personal use days for renting part of my house out

[jackzhang84]

Hello, I am using Turbotax personal and business edition for preparing my taxes. I bought my house in July 2017, and started renting a room out in Aug 2017, at fair market price. I have been staying in my house during the time. I put down personal use days as 183 days (July 2017 ~ end of year), and 152 days for renting it out (Aug 2017 ~ end of year). I put down 183 days for me owning the place. 

However, the smart check shows an error that the number of days owned needs to equal or be higher than personal use days + rent out days. So are my personal use days only the ones I am the only occupant of my house? 

It was really confusing when I try to read the details of turbotax and IRS rules. 

Thank you

[whollycow]

Is there a reason you only owned it for 183 days / the same number of days you stayed in the home for personal use? I can see why TT gave you an error.

[jackzhang84]

Thank you whollycow. I bought the house in August 2017, and have stayed in the house since. In the meanwhile I rented out part of the house for some income. So it's been hard to figure out what counts as personal use days and rent out days. The total number of days I own is from August till end of year. Thx

[PaulaM]

@jackzhang84 

First, indicate under the Property Profile section that you are renting a part of your home. Then enter the number of days rented if rented less than a full year.

Note: Personal Use days is referring to the number of days you occupied the rental unit after it was placed in service. If you never used the room after it was rented, enter 0 for personal use days.

[whollycow]

So you get an error when you counted the number of days from August until the end of the year? End of August to December 31st doesn't equal 183 days, so I would look at a calendar and re-calculate.