(2023) Who can claim a home office?

The tax deductibility of expenses for a home office and its equipment depends on whether this office is the centre of all professional activities. From 2023, there is an option to choose an annual allowance of 1,260 Euro instead of the actual costs. This allowance can be reduced proportionally for each full calendar month in which the conditions for the deduction are not met.

The regulations apply particularly to professions such as writers, translators, and IT professionals who mainly work from home. A "real" home office is required, defined as an enclosed room.

In other situations, the home office allowance can be used, which is 6 Euro per day, up to a maximum of 1,260 Euro per year.

Furthermore, expenses for professionally used rooms at home can also be deducted without limit in the following cases:

• if it is not a home "office", e.g. a storage room, exhibition room, sales room, recording studio for a composer, studio for a painter, lawyer's office, practice rooms for a speech therapist.
• if it is not a "home" office. This is the case if the room is not integrated into the domestic sphere and does not form a structural unit with the residential part, e.g. renting an office in another house, additionally rented room in a multi-family house on a different floor from the private flat.
• if the office is open for intensive and permanent public access. In this case, the office is not considered a home office.
• if the room is considered a business premises for the self-employed. This may apply if the office is in close proximity to other business premises, e.g. next to the baker's flat are the bakery, sales room, staff room for sales personnel, and the office where bookkeeping is done.