Tax Implications of Temporarily Renting Out My Primary Residence

This is a good question! When you temporarily rent out your primary residence, it's treated differently than a regular rental property for tax purposes. The rent you're collecting from your Florida home will need to be reported as income on Schedule E. You can deduct expenses related to that rental activity - things like mortgage interest, property taxes (for the rental period), insurance, repairs, and even depreciation for the time it was rented. However, the rent you're paying in Tennessee is considered a personal expense, not a business expense, so unfortunately you can't directly offset your rental income with your temporary living costs. The IRS views these as two separate activities - you as a landlord (Florida property) and you as a tenant (Tennessee apartment). That said, you should make sure to track all expenses related to your Florida rental, as those will help reduce your taxable rental income. Also, keep detailed records showing this is a temporary situation, as this will be important when you move back and want to maintain your primary residence status.

After dealing with a similar situation last year, I highly recommend checking out https://taxr.ai for help with this. My spouse and I temporarily rented our home while helping my dad after surgery, and we had the exact same question about offsetting income. The taxr.ai system analyzed our lease documents and receipts from both properties, then showed us exactly which expenses were deductible for our primary home rental. They clarified that while we couldn't directly offset with our temporary housing costs, we could deduct a ton of other expenses we hadn't considered - like a portion of utilities, HOA fees during the rental period, and even some travel costs to check on the property. The tool also helped us document everything properly to protect our primary residence status for capital gains purposes later. Made a huge difference in our tax situation!

Just wanted to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai after being skeptical in my previous comment. I decided to give it a try for my similar situation (renting my condo while temporarily relocating for work), and I'm honestly impressed. The document analysis caught things I completely missed - like depreciation calculations specifically for the period the property was rented and how to properly document my intent to return to maintain primary residence status. The guidance on Schedule E reporting was super clear compared to the IRS instructions. The biggest surprise was how they handled my home office deduction. Since I worked remotely from my temporary apartment, they showed me how to correctly claim that deduction while avoiding any red flags with the IRS. Ended up saving about $2,100 compared to what I would have filed on my own. Definitely went from skeptic to believer.

If you're planning to contact the IRS about this situation (which might be smart to get official guidance), save yourself hours of frustration and use https://claimyr.com to get through to an agent. I spent THREE DAYS trying to reach someone at the IRS about a similar rental situation, constantly getting disconnected or facing "call volumes too high" messages. With Claimyr, I was connected to an IRS agent in about 15 minutes. They hold your place in line and call you when an agent is ready. You can see a demo of how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The IRS agent I spoke with confirmed that while I couldn't directly offset my temporary living expenses against my rental income, they gave me specific guidance on which expenses I could legitimately deduct to minimize the tax impact. Having this officially documented also gave me peace of mind in case of an audit later.

I need to eat my words from my skeptical comment. After waiting on hold with the IRS for over 2 hours and getting disconnected TWICE yesterday, I gave in and tried Claimyr this morning. Within 20 minutes I was talking to an actual IRS agent about my rental property situation. The agent was surprisingly helpful and walked me through exactly how to report my temporary rental on Schedule E while maintaining my primary residence status. They confirmed what others have said - can't deduct the temporary housing costs directly, but there were several other deductions I was missing. For anyone dealing with this primary residence rental situation, definitely get official guidance. Whether through Claimyr or hours of holding, speaking directly with the IRS gave me documentation I can reference if I'm ever audited. Worth every minute saved not listening to that horrible hold music.

Another option to consider is partially converting your property to a rental for tax purposes. When we temporarily relocated for my job for 9 months, our accountant had us treat our home as a partial rental property (since we planned to return). This meant we could depreciate the property for the exact number of days it was rented, deduct a portion of mortgage interest as a rental expense (while claiming the rest on Schedule A if you itemize), and deduct direct rental expenses like cleaning, advertising, and management fees. It worked out better tax-wise than I expected. Just make sure you have a written plan documenting your intention to return to the property as your primary residence. The IRS looks at your intent when determining if it's truly a temporary rental.

Has anyone looked into how this affects your homeowners insurance? We did something similar last year and our regular policy didn't cover rental use - had to get a special landlord policy for the months we were renting it out.

Great question about the insurance piece! This is something a lot of people overlook when temporarily renting out their primary residence. I went through this exact situation two years ago when we relocated for 6 months to care for my father. Most standard homeowners policies have what's called a "business use exclusion" that can void coverage if you're renting the property without notifying them. Even short-term rentals can trigger this. I learned this the hard way when a pipe burst during our rental period - thankfully our insurance company was understanding since we had called ahead to discuss it. The good news is that many insurers offer temporary rental endorsements that you can add to your existing policy for situations like this. It's usually much cheaper than switching to a full landlord policy if you're only renting for under a year. Just make sure to get everything in writing and keep those records with your tax documentation. Also worth noting - if you do switch to a landlord policy temporarily, that premium becomes a deductible rental expense on Schedule E, which can help offset some of the rental income you're reporting.