Schedule E Rental Expense Categories, Line by Line

Schedule E (Form 1040) Part I has 15 expense lines, numbered 5 through 19: advertising, auto and travel, cleaning and maintenance, commissions, insurance, legal and professional fees, management fees, mortgage interest, other interest, repairs, supplies, taxes, utilities, depreciation, and other. Line 20 totals them, and line 21 subtracts the total from your rent. Below is what goes on each line, with examples for a small landlord.

This walkthrough follows the 2025 Schedule E and its instructions, the latest the IRS has published as of October 2026. Check the current form and instructions when you file. This is general information, not tax advice, so confirm your situation with a tax professional.

You can download our free Schedule E expense worksheet (CSV) to track expenses by line through the year.

The lines before the expenses

Lines A and B ask whether you made payments in the year that required Forms 1099, and if so, whether you filed them. More on 1099s below.

Line 1a and 1b list each property's address and type (single family, multi-family, and so on). Each property gets its own column, A, B, or C.

Line 2 asks for fair rental days and personal use days. If you or your family used the property, the IRS personal use rules can limit your deductions.

Line 3, rents received, is your rental income. According to IRS Publication 527, it includes advance rent in the year you receive it, expenses a tenant pays on your behalf, and any part of a security deposit you keep. A deposit you plan to return isn't income when you receive it.

Line 4 is for royalties, which most landlords leave blank.

Schedule E expense lines at a glance

Line-by-line notes

Line 5: Advertising

Costs to find tenants: listing site fees, signs, printed flyers, and paid ads.

Line 6: Auto and travel

You can deduct either your actual vehicle expenses or the standard mileage rate, which the IRS set at 70 cents a mile for 2025. Parking fees and tolls go here too. The instructions say that if you claim any auto expenses, you must complete Part V of Form 4562 and attach it, so keep a mileage log with dates, destinations, and purpose.

If you use actual expenses, the rental share of gas, repairs, and insurance goes on line 6, lease payments go on line 19, and depreciation goes on line 18.

Line 7: Cleaning and maintenance

Recurring upkeep: cleaning between tenants, landscaping, snow removal, gutter cleaning, and pest control.

Line 8: Commissions

Fees you pay an agent or broker to find a tenant. Commissions you paid when you bought the property are part of its cost basis and don't go here. If a leasing commission covers a lease longer than a year, ask your tax professional whether to deduct it at once or spread it out.

Line 9: Insurance

Your landlord or dwelling policy, liability coverage for the rental, and flood insurance. Publication 527 says that if you prepay a policy covering more than one year, you deduct only the part that applies to each year.

Line 10: Legal and other professional fees

The instructions include fees for tax advice and for preparing tax forms related to your rentals. Other professional fees for the rental, such as an attorney reviewing your lease, generally go here too. Legal fees to defend or protect title, recover property, or develop or improve property are not deducted here. They are added to the property's basis.

Line 11: Management fees

Fees paid to a property manager. If you self-manage, this line is often blank.

Line 12: Mortgage interest paid to banks, etc.

Interest you paid to a bank or other financial institution on the rental's mortgage, usually shown on Form 1098. Principal payments aren't deductible. The instructions say points charged only for the use of money are deducted over the life of the loan.

Line 13: Other interest

Mortgage interest paid to a lender that isn't a financial institution (seller financing or a private loan), or your share of a mortgage when the Form 1098 went to someone else. Interest on other debt used for the rental can also go here, but the IRS traces interest by how the loan proceeds were used, so keep loan funds separate.

Line 14: Repairs

The instructions describe repairs as costs that keep the property in ordinarily efficient operating condition, with fixing a broken lock and painting a room as examples. Improvements that better or restore the property, or adapt it to a new use, are generally capitalized and depreciated instead. The IRS examples are adding substantial insulation and replacing an entire HVAC system. See the safe harbors section below.

Line 15: Supplies

Small items used to run the rental: light bulbs, smoke detector batteries, HVAC filters, cleaning supplies, and small hardware.

Line 16: Taxes

Property taxes on the rental. Publication 527 says charges for local benefits that increase the property's value, such as new sidewalks or sewer lines, aren't deductible and are added to basis instead.

Line 17: Utilities

Utilities you pay as the landlord, such as water and sewer, trash, or common-area electricity. The instructions also put rental-related phone calls here, and note that the base rate for the first phone line into your home is a personal expense. A separate business number for texting tenants keeps that line clean.

Line 18: Depreciation expense or depletion

You recover the cost of the building (land isn't depreciable), improvements, and appliances over time. Residential rental buildings use 27.5 years under the General Depreciation System, according to Publication 527. If you don't know the land and building values, the instructions allow splitting the purchase price using assessed values from your property tax bill.

Depreciation is figured on Form 4562. You must attach Form 4562 if you are claiming depreciation on property first placed in service during the tax year, depreciation on listed property (including a vehicle), or a section 179 deduction or amortization that began that year. Otherwise, depreciation for older property goes straight on line 18.

Line 19: Other

Any ordinary and necessary rental expense that doesn't fit lines 5 through 18. List each type on the form. Common entries include HOA dues, landlord software, bank fees, equipment rental, and amounts you deduct under the de minimis safe harbor, which Publication 527 places on line 19. Pick one line for each type of expense and use it every year.

Lines 20 and 21

Line 20 adds lines 5 through 19. Line 21 subtracts the total from your rents. If the result is a loss, passive activity rules (Form 8582) and at-risk rules may limit what you can deduct this year.

Repairs vs improvements: three safe harbors

The IRS tangible property regulations include three elections that can let you deduct items that might otherwise be capitalized. Each has conditions, so review them with a tax professional.

• De minimis safe harbor. If you don't have an applicable financial statement (most small landlords don't), you can elect to deduct items costing up to $2,500 per invoice or item. You make the election each year with a statement attached to a timely filed return.
• Routine maintenance safe harbor. Recurring work you reasonably expect to do more than once in 10 years to keep a building or its systems in ordinarily efficient operating condition can be deducted. It doesn't apply to betterments.
• Small taxpayer safe harbor. If your average annual gross receipts are $10 million or less and the building's unadjusted basis is $1 million or less, you can elect to deduct repairs, maintenance, and improvements on that building when the year's total is no more than the lesser of $10,000 or 2% of the building's unadjusted basis.

1099s for vendors you pay

Schedule E lines A and B ask about Forms 1099. For payments made in 2025, the threshold was $600 to a vendor in the year for services (Form 1099-NEC) or rents and other income (Form 1099-MISC). For payments made starting in 2026, the IRS instructions raise the threshold to $2,000, with possible inflation adjustments starting in 2027. Payments to corporations are generally exempt, but payments for legal services are not.

Whether you must file depends partly on whether your rental activity counts as a trade or business. Ask your tax professional, and collect a W-9 from each vendor before the first payment either way.

Use the worksheet

The Schedule E expense worksheet has columns for date, property, payee, description, amount, Schedule E line, category, and receipt notes. The first rows are marked EXAMPLE; delete them before you start. Open it in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers, add each expense as you pay it, then total by line and property at year end.

How Rentra handles Schedule E

Rentra connects to your bank through Plaid and uses AI to categorize transactions, then builds Schedule E reports. A depreciation tab tracks your assets and produces a Form 4562 PDF. For receipts, you can paste the text of a receipt, or upload vendor bills as a PDF or photo for the AI to read.

For 1099 prep, Rentra flags vendors you've paid over the IRS threshold and tracks each 1099 through filing. It doesn't generate the form or collect W-9s. See bank-connected books and financial reporting.

For more deductions to check, see 10 tax deductions every landlord should know, and for terms like basis and depreciation, see the landlord glossary.