Reporting Rental Income

Real Estate Income on Schedule E ,  Reporting Rental Income, Partnership Income, Real Estate Income on Schedule E 

Schedule E is used to report rental income and expenses from the rental properties you owned. In addition, Schedule E is also used to report royalties, partnerships, S corporations, estates, trusts, and residual interests in REMICs.

The Schedule E form is broken into four parts.

Part I: Income or Loss from Rental Real Estate and Royalties

Use Part I to report:

• Income and expenses from rental real estate (including personal property leased with real estate), and

• Royalty income and expenses.

• For an estate or trust only, farm rental income and expenses based on crops or livestock produced by the tenant. Do not use Form 4835 or Schedule F for this purpose.

Do not use Schedule E to report income and expenses from the rental of personal property, such as equipment or vehicles. Instead, use Schedule C if you are in the business of renting personal property.

Do not use Schedule E to report income and expenses from a rental real estate business that is a qualified joint venture by you and your spouse, if you file a joint return for the tax year.

Personal Use:

If you rented out a dwelling unit that you also used for personal purposes during the year, you may not be able to deduct all the expenses for the rental part.

 A day of personal use is any day, or any part of a day, that the unit was used by:

• You, for personal purposes,

• Any other person for personal purposes, if that person owns part of the unit (unless rented to that person under a 'shared equity' financing agreement),

• Anyone in your family (or the family of someone else who owns part of the unit), unless the unit is rented at a fair rental price to that person as his or her main home,

• Anyone who pays less than a fair rental price for the unit, or

• Anyone under an agreement that lets you use some other unit.

 Do not count as personal use:

• Any day you spent working substantially full time repairing and maintaining the unit, even if family members used it for recreational purposes on that day, or

• Any days you used the unit as your main home before or after renting it or offering it for rent, if you rented or tried to rent it for at least 12 consecutive months