What is a tax home for travel deductions?

Why the tax home decides the deduction

You can deduct travel expenses for lodging, meals and transportation only when you are traveling away from home, and Publication 463 (2025) defines “home” for this purpose as your tax home. You are away from home if your duties require you to be away from the general area of your tax home substantially longer than an ordinary day’s work and you need to sleep or rest to meet the demands of your work. Napping in your car does not count, and you do not need to be gone a whole day or from dusk to dawn as long as your relief from duty is long enough to get necessary sleep or rest. A railroad conductor with six hours off at the turnaround who rents a room is away from home; a truck driver with an hour off to eat is not.

How to find it

The publication builds the tax home in three steps. First, it is generally your regular place of business or post of duty, and it covers the entire city or general area. Second, if you have more than one regular place of business, it is your main place of business, decided by the total time you ordinarily spend in each place, the level of business activity there and whether the income from each place is significant. The publication’s example: seasonal work in Cincinnati for 8 months at $40,000 and 4 months in Miami at $15,000 makes Cincinnati the main place. Third, if the nature of your work gives you no regular or main place of business, your tax home may be where you regularly live.

The three factors

For that third case the publication gives three factors. One, you perform part of your business in the area of your main home and use that home for lodging while doing business there. Two, you have living expenses at your main home that you duplicate because your business requires you to be away. Three, you have not abandoned the area of your historical lodging and claimed main home, you have family living at the main home, or you often use that home for lodging. Meeting all three means your tax home is the home where you regularly live; two means you may have one depending on all the facts; one means you are an itinerant whose tax home is wherever you work.

An itinerant, the publication says, can never claim a travel deduction because they are never away from home. Its Boston example shows a trainee who worked elsewhere for 12 months but kept the apartment, returned often and kept community contacts: the second and third factors were met and the first was not, yet the facts supported a Boston tax home. The salesperson with a room at a sister’s house used one or two weekends a year and met none of the factors.

Family home is not the same as tax home

If you and your family live somewhere other than your tax home, you cannot deduct travel between the two or your meals and lodging at the tax home. A truck driver living in Tucson whose terminal is in Phoenix cannot deduct Phoenix meals and lodging. The publication’s Pittsburgh and Baltimore example: you work 12 weeks a year in Pittsburgh and the rest in Baltimore for the same salary, so Baltimore is the tax home, and the Pittsburgh stint is travel away from home even though you stay at your family home, so you can deduct the round trip and your share of living expenses there.

The one-year line

A temporary assignment away from your main place of work does not change your tax home, and you are away from home for the whole period. An assignment is generally temporary if it is realistically expected to last, and does last, one year or less. If it is indefinite, meaning it is realistically expected to last more than a year whether or not it does, the new location becomes your tax home and you cannot deduct travel expenses there. You decide when you start, and expectations can change: in the publication’s example a job expected to last 9 months was extended after 8, so the deduction ended once it was no longer realistic to expect one year or less. A series of short assignments in the same place that together cover a long period can also be indefinite, and a probationary job requiring you to move is indefinite.

If your assignment is indefinite, any amount your employer gives you for living expenses must be included in income, even if it is called a travel allowance. Federal employees in certain crime investigations have a limited exception.

Using the checker

Enter the months you realistically expect the assignment to last. Twelve or fewer is temporary; thirteen or more is indefinite. The three boxes record the factors for someone with no main place of business. For example 8 months with all three boxes ticked reports a temporary assignment and a regular-home tax home. Unticking two boxes reports an itinerant. This is a screening aid, not a determination, since the publication stresses that facts and circumstances apply.

Sources

• IRS Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses (2025): Chapter 1, Traveling Away From Home; Tax Home; Main place of business or work; No main place of business or work; Tax Home Different From Family Home; Temporary Assignment or Job; Determining temporary or indefinite. Read November 2, 2026.

Edition read: Publication 463 (2025), for use in preparing 2025 returns. Rates and dollar limits on this page are the 2025 figures printed in that edition; check the current publication, form instructions and GSA.gov per diem tables for your tax year. This page summarizes the publication and does not replace it.