Home MaintenanceMaintenance ResourceTips for Homeowners
Owning a home comes with plenty of expenses. From fixing a leaky faucet to replacing a roof or remodeling a kitchen, homeowners can spend thousands of dollars maintaining and improving their property over the years.
But can any of those costs help you at tax time?
The answer depends largely on whether the work is considered a repair or maintenance expense, a home improvement, or an expense connected to a qualifying business or rental use of your home.
For a home you use as your personal residence, routine repairs and maintenance generally aren’t deductible. Certain improvements, however, can affect your home’s tax basis, which may become important when you eventually sell your home. Internal Revenue Service
Understanding the difference and keeping good records along the way can make managing your home much easier!
Home Maintenance vs. Home Improvement: What's the Difference?
It can be easy to think of maintenance, repairs, and improvements as the same thing. From a tax perspective, however, they’re not necessarily treated the same way.
A repair or maintenance task generally keeps your home in ordinary working condition without materially adding value, substantially extending its useful life, or adapting it to a new use.
Examples can include:
- Fixing a leak
- Patching a hole or crack
- Replacing broken hardware
- Routine painting
- Repairing a portion of a roof or gutter
A home improvement, on the other hand, generally adds value to your home, prolongs its useful life, or adapts the property to a new use. The IRS lists examples such as additions, a new roof, a heating system, central air conditioning, new plumbing, wiring, insulation, and certain landscaping improvements. Internal Revenue Service
That distinction becomes important when determining how you should keep records of the money you’ve spent on your home.
Can You Deduct Home Repairs and Maintenance?
For most homeowners, routine repairs and maintenance performed on a personal residence generally aren’t deductible on your federal income tax return.
The IRS also generally doesn’t allow these ordinary maintenance costs to be added to your home’s basis.
For example, simply fixing a leak, filling a crack, painting your home, or replacing broken hardware generally falls into the repair and maintenance category rather than being treated as a capital improvement. Internal Revenue Service
That doesn’t mean maintenance isn’t worthwhile.
Regular maintenance can help keep your home’s systems working properly, identify problems earlier, and help you maintain a useful history of the work performed on your property. It just generally doesn’t create a federal income-tax deduction for a homeowner using the property as a personal residence.
Are Home Improvements Tax Deductible?
Here’s where the terminology can get confusing…
A home improvement generally isn’t an immediate federal income-tax deduction simply because you spent money improving your personal residence.
Instead, qualifying improvements can generally be added to the basis of your home. Internal Revenue Service
Your home’s basis starts with what you paid for the property, with various adjustments made over time. The cost of qualifying improvements can increase that basis.
Why does that matter?
Your adjusted basis is one of the figures used when calculating gain or loss when you sell your home. So even though replacing a roof or remodeling your kitchen may not produce an immediate tax deduction, records of qualifying improvements can still become important years later.
That’s one reason homeowners should keep documentation of major improvements rather than throwing away the paperwork once the project is finished.
Why Home Improvements Can Matter When You Sell
While most home improvements aren’t an immediate tax deduction, certain improvements can still matter at tax time later. That’s because qualifying improvements may be added to your home’s tax basis. This is essentially the amount used as a starting point when calculating your gain if you eventually sell the property.
The IRS provides a wide range of examples of improvements that may increase a home’s basis.
These include improvements such as:
Additions and outdoor improvements
- Bedrooms and bathrooms
- Decks, porches, and patios
- Garages
- Driveways and walkways
- Fences and retaining walls
- Certain landscaping
Major home systems
- Heating systems
- Furnaces
- Central air conditioning
- Ductwork
- Electrical wiring
- Security systems
- Sprinkler systems
- Water filtration systems
Exterior improvements
- New roofing
- New siding
- Storm windows and doors
- Insulation
Plumbing improvements
- Water heaters
- Septic systems
- Water filtration or softening systems
Interior improvements
- Kitchen modernization
- Built-in appliances
- Flooring
- Fireplaces
The tax treatment of a particular project depends on the facts and circumstances, so homeowners shouldn’t assume that every project automatically qualifies. Internal Revenue Service
What If a Repair Is Part of a Larger Remodel?
There’s an interesting exception to the normal distinction between a repair and an improvement.
Something that would normally be considered a repair may be treated as part of an improvement when it’s completed as part of an extensive remodeling or restoration project.
For example, replacing an individual broken windowpane would normally be a repair. But if that work occurs as part of a project replacing all the windows in your home, the IRS says it can be treated as part of the improvement. Internal Revenue Service
That’s another reason it’s helpful to document not only what you spent, but what the overall project involved.
What About Home Offices?
Different rules can apply when part of your home qualifies for business use.
Under current IRS guidance, a homeowner who meets the requirements for the business-use-of-home deduction may be able to deduct certain expenses attributable to the business portion of the home.
For example, a repair made exclusively to a qualifying business area can potentially be a direct business expense. A repair benefiting the entire home may potentially be allocated according to the percentage of qualifying business use.
However, simply working from home doesn’t automatically make your household expenses deductible. The IRS has specific requirements for qualifying business use of a home, and deduction limits and other rules can apply. Internal Revenue Service
If you use your home for business, it’s a good idea to consult a qualified tax professional about your individual circumstances.
What About Rental Properties?
Rental properties are also subject to different tax rules than a home used exclusively as your personal residence.
Expenses associated with maintaining, repairing, improving, and depreciating rental property can receive different tax treatment. How an expense is handled can depend on the nature of the work and how the property is being used.
If you rent out all or part of your home, don’t assume the general personal-residence rules described in this article apply to your situation. Consult current IRS rental-property guidance or a qualified tax professional.
What About Energy-Efficient Home Improvements?
This is one area where homeowners should be particularly careful with older information online.
Federal energy-related home tax incentives have changed.
For 2025 returns, IRS Publication 530 states that the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit cannot be claimed for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, and the Residential Clean Energy Credit cannot be claimed for expenditures made after December 31, 2025. Internal Revenue Service
That means articles written only a few years ago may describe federal credits that are no longer available for new 2026 expenditures.
Tax law can change, and state or local programs may be different from federal incentives. Before making a home improvement based on an expected tax benefit, check current guidance or speak with a qualified tax professional.
Why Home Improvement Records Matter
You probably don’t need your roofing receipt every day.
But five, ten, or twenty years from now?
You might be glad you kept it.
Homeowners can accumulate a surprising amount of documentation over the years:
- Contractor invoices
- Receipts
- Project dates
- Product information
- Warranties
- Before-and-after information
- Permits
- Records of major improvements
Those records can help establish what improvements were made and what they cost. IRS guidance on basis also makes clear why distinguishing qualifying improvements from ordinary repairs and maintenance matters when calculating the adjusted basis of a home. Internal Revenue Service
Instead of trying to reconstruct years of home projects when you’re preparing to sell, start documenting them as they happen.
Keep Your Home's History Organized With HomeManager
Your home changes over time, and keeping track of those changes shouldn’t mean digging through drawers, old emails, and boxes of receipts.
HomeManager gives homeowners a place to organize important information about their property, including maintenance history, project details, receipts, and other home records.
Keeping those records organized can help you better understand what’s been done to your home, what may need attention next, and where to find important documentation when you need it.
Keep your home’s maintenance and improvement history in one place with HomeManager.
