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The hours log every short-term rental owner should keep.
If you want your rental's losses to offset your regular income, your hours are your proof. This free template makes the log easy to keep. No email required. Just take it.
Why hours matter
The 7-day rule opens the door. Your hours walk through it.
Most rental losses are passive. They offset other passive income, not your paycheck. But under Treas. Reg. §1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii)(A), if the average guest stay at your property is seven days or less for the year, the activity is not treated as a rental activity at all. The automatic passive label drops off.
Then comes the second step: the loss is non-passive only if you materially participate. That means you have to be the one doing the work, and you have to be able to prove it. The most common ways to meet the test:
- You work 100 hours on the rental during the year, and no one else works more than you.
- You work 500 hours on the rental during the year.
- You do substantially all the work on the rental yourself.
Notice what two of those tests need: your hours, and everyone else's. That is exactly what this template tracks.
What is in the template
Five columns. That is the whole system.
Date
The day you did the work. Log it the same day or the next. Logs built months later are weaker proof.
Activity
What you actually did: guest messaging, cleaning, repairs, supply runs, bookkeeping. Be specific.
Hours
How long it took, in real numbers. Round trips and waiting time you spent on the rental count as work time.
Who else worked and their hours
Cleaners, handymen, co-hosts, property managers. One common test compares your hours to everyone else's, so track theirs too.
Notes
Receipts, message threads, photos. A note that points to proof makes the whole log stronger.
Printable checklist
Pin this next to your desk.
Print this page and keep the habits below where you can see them. The owners who win on material participation are the ones whose records were boring and consistent all year.
- The hours-log habits:
- Log every work session within a day or two, not at year-end
- Count real work: messaging, cleaning, repairs, supplies, bookkeeping
- Do not count travel you would have made anyway, or investor-style research. Ask your advisor what counts in your case
- Track other people's hours too: cleaners, co-hosts, managers
- Save receipts and message threads that back up your entries
- Check your average guest stay. The 7-day test is an average for the year
- Review the log with your tax advisor before you file
The honest part
A log does not qualify you by itself.
Be clear-eyed about this. Tracking hours does not, on its own, make your losses non-passive. The tests are technical. The average-stay math, what counts as participation, and how the loss lands on your return all depend on your facts. Material participation must be real and documented, and a log full of padded hours is worse than no log at all.
This template gives you the record-keeping habit. Your tax advisor tells you whether you qualify. Talk to them before you count on the loss, and read our plain-language guide to the STR exception so you know what to ask.
Tracking your hours? See what a study could add.
A cost segregation study is what turns an STR into a large first-year deduction. Enter your property and see your savings range in seconds.