The “Augusta Rule” Lets Homeowners Rent Their House for 14 Days a Year and Report $0 of the Income. Masters Week Made It Famous
A permanent line in the tax code lets homeowners collect rent and report absolutely nothing to the IRS, but the window is razor thin and crossing it by even a single day wipes out the entire benefit.
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A homeowner two blocks from a college football stadium rents her four-bedroom to visiting alumni for six home weekends and reports none of the rent on her federal return. Legally.
The provision is Internal Revenue Code Section 280A(g), and it is a permanent part of the code, not a temporary break scheduled to expire. If you use a dwelling as a residence and rent it for fewer than 15 days during the tax year, the rental income is excluded from gross income and is not reported at all.
Section 280A(g) in Plain English
The rule has two conditions. The property must be one you use as a residence (your primary home or a second home you actually stay in qualifies; a pure investment rental does not). And total rental days in the calendar year must be 14 or fewer.
Meet both and the cash you collect is invisible to the IRS. No Schedule E, no line on the 1040, no rental income at all. That is the whole deal.
Why Augusta, and Why It Applies Everywhere
The nickname comes from Augusta, Georgia, where homeowners rent their houses to visitors during the Masters tournament each April. The rule became famous there because a single tournament week of rent can rival a year of ordinary rental income in the same neighborhood.
But Section 280A(g) is nationwide and month-agnostic. It works for a homeowner near an SEC stadium on football Saturdays, a family on a marathon route, a couple near a state fair, a neighbor to a music festival, or anyone whose town swells for an annual conference or a graduation weekend. The trigger is the 14-day cap, not the event.
National context matters here. The Case-Shiller national home price index sat at 335.1 as of May 2026, near its listed high for the year. Home equity is the largest asset most retirees own, and a well-placed home during a high-demand week is a real short-term earner.
Rent on Day 15 and You Lose the Whole Year
This is where people torch the benefit. The 14-day limit is a cliff, not a phase-out. Rent on a 15th day and the property drops out of Section 280A(g) entirely, and the entire year’s rental income becomes reportable, with the home falling under the ordinary vacation-home rental rules on Schedule E.
One extra weekend can flip a tax-free result into a full-year taxable one. Count conservatively, keep a written log of the exact dates the property was rented, and understand that day-counting rules have edge cases. If you are anywhere near the line, confirm the count with a tax professional rather than estimating.
Deductions You Give Up, and Ones You Keep
The trade is baked into the rule: no income in, no deductions out. You cannot write off cleaning, staging, supplies, linens, or wear and tear tied to those rental days. The IRS will not let you exclude the revenue and subsidize the costs.
Your ordinary homeowner deductions are unaffected. Mortgage interest and property taxes continue to work the way they always have on Schedule A if you itemize.
A separate, far more heavily scrutinized version of this rule lets a business owner rent their own home to their own company for meetings. That is not this article, and the IRS treats it very differently.
1099-K Mismatch That Triggers IRS Letters
If you book through Airbnb, Vrbo, or a similar platform, the platform may issue you a Form 1099-K reporting the payments. The IRS gets a copy. If you correctly exclude the income under Section 280A(g), your return will not match the 1099-K, and the mismatch alone can generate an automated notice.
The exclusion still applies. But keep documentation and work with your preparer on how to reflect the 1099-K on the return so the notice either never lands or gets resolved with one response.
Paperwork That Makes the Exclusion Stick
Documentation turns Section 280A(g) from a claim into a defensible position. Keep a written rental agreement for each booking, the exact dates rented, proof of what you received, and evidence that your rate was consistent with what comparable homes charged in the area during the same period. A 2024 Tax Court case rejected an aggressive use of the Augusta Rule partly because the rates charged did not look like arm’s length market rates.
Check your state, too. Federal exclusion under Section 280A(g) does not automatically mean state conformity, and some states treat the income differently.
This article is general information, not tax advice. Anyone renting close to the 14-day line, or receiving a 1099-K from a booking platform, should run the specifics past a CPA before filing.
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