Can You Rent Out Your Home While You Travel and Keep Your Tax Home?
IRS Publication 463 does not say that renting out your home ends your tax home, but its three tax home factors ask whether you duplicate living expenses at that home and whether you often use it for lodging, and a home leased to a tenant for the whole contract may meet neither. Renting out a room while you keep your own space, or renting the home for short stretches between your stays, can leave those factors standing, and any rent you collect is income under Publication 527.
What does the IRS look at to decide where your tax home is?
A travel therapist who moves from contract to contract usually has no single regular place of work, so the question turns on the factors Publication 463 lists for that case. In its words:
- “You perform part of your business in the area of your main home and use that home for lodging while doing business in the area.”
- “You have living expenses at your main home that you duplicate because your business requires you to be away from that home.”
- “You haven’t abandoned the area in which both your historical place of lodging and your claimed main home are located, you have a member or members of your family living at your main home, or you often use that home for lodging.”
The count matters. Publication 463 says: “If you satisfy all three factors, your tax home is the home where you regularly live. If you satisfy only two factors, you may have a tax home depending on all the facts and circumstances. If you satisfy only one factor, you are an itinerant; your tax home is wherever you work and you can’t deduct travel expenses.” Without a tax home, your housing and meals stipends, which are capped by the federal per diem rates GSA publishes, lose their tax-free footing, which is why the rest of this page reads every rental plan against those three factors.
What changes when a tenant lives in your home while you travel?
Read each factor against the lease you are planning. Publication 463 does not answer these for you, and neither does this page; they are the questions a tax professional will ask.
- Duplicated expenses. The second factor is about costs you carry at home because work takes you away. If a tenant’s rent covers the mortgage, utilities and upkeep, ask whether you are still duplicating anything.
- Lodging. The first and third factors both mention using the home for lodging. A home leased to someone else for the whole year is not one you can sleep in between contracts.
- Ties to the area. The third factor can also be met by family living at the home or by not having abandoned the area, so voting, licensing and other ties still count, but they are one factor, not three.
The site’s tax home checklist asks a plain version of the same thing: could you walk into your tax home right now and live there? A full-time tenant usually means the answer is no.
If you want a contract offer laid out against your housing plans before you sign, ask a ProTherapy recruiter: Find my next contract.
Is renting out a room or renting between contracts different?
Yes, in two ways. First, keeping part of the home for yourself keeps a place you can lodge. Publication 527 treats a shared home as two properties: “If you rent part of your property, you must divide certain expenses between the part of the property used for rental purposes and the part of the property used for personal purposes, as though you actually had two separate pieces of property.”
Second, Publication 527 decides whether a home you also live in counts as your home or as a rental. You use it as a home if you use it for personal purposes “more than the greater of: 14 days, or 10% of the total days it is rented to others at a fair rental price.” Days a relative stays for less than a fair rental price count as personal days, and the publication defines a fair rental price as “the amount of rent that a person who isn’t related to you would be willing to pay.”
A short rental between your own stays has its own rule: “If you rent property that you also use as your home and you rent it less than 15 days during the tax year, don’t include the rent you receive in your income.”
How is the rent you collect taxed?
As ordinary rental income, separate from your wages and stipends. Publication 527: “In most cases, you must include in your gross income all amounts you receive as rent. Rental income is any payment you receive for the use or occupation of property.” Rental expenses such as mortgage interest and real estate taxes on the rented part are reported against it on Schedule E, and a home that becomes a rental partway through the year has its yearly expenses divided between rental and personal use.
Rent also does not count as pay for retirement savings. Publication 590-A lists, among things that are not compensation for an IRA, “Earnings and profits from property, such as rental income, interest income, and dividend income.”
What records should you keep if you rent out your home?
- The lease, with the dates, the rent and which rooms the tenant has.
- The days you stayed at the home yourself, and the days relatives stayed, with what they paid.
- Your own costs at the home during each contract: mortgage or rent, utilities, insurance and repairs.
- Rent received, deposits held and expenses for the rented part, by year.
- Contract dates and locations, so each stay at home lines up with a gap between assignments.
Bring the set to a tax professional before you sign the lease, not after; the site’s guide to finding a CPA covers what to ask. The checklist on this site lists the other records a tax home needs.
Frequently asked questions
Does the IRS have a rule that renting out my home ends my tax home?
Publication 463 has no single rule about renting. It uses three factors: working in the area of your main home and lodging there, duplicating living expenses at that home, and not having abandoned the area. A full-time tenant can make the lodging and duplicate-expense factors hard to meet, so read your plan against all three with a tax professional.
Can a family member live in my home while I travel?
Publication 463's third factor can be met if you have a member or members of your family living at your main home. If a relative pays you less than a fair rental price, Publication 527 counts those days as personal use of the home rather than rental days.
Do I report rent if I rent my home for a few days between contracts?
Publication 527 says that if you rent property you also use as your home and you rent it less than 15 days during the tax year, you do not include the rent in your income, and the expenses are not rental expenses.
Sources
- IRS Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, read October 22, 2026
- IRS Publication 527 (2025), Residential Rental Property, read October 22, 2026
- GSA: Per diem rates, read October 22, 2026
- IRS Publication 590-A, Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs), read October 22, 2026