What this line means
Total rent payments you received (or that were received on your behalf) for each property during the tax year. This includes all rent regardless of when the tenant was supposed to pay — if you received January rent in December, report it in the year you received it. Advance rent, lease cancellation payments, and tenant-paid expenses that count as rent all go here.
Does this apply to you?
- You collected rent from tenants for a house, apartment, or condo you own
- You received income from listing a property on Airbnb, Vrbo, or a similar platform
- You received advance rent payments covering future months
- A tenant paid your property expenses directly (mortgage, utilities) instead of rent
Easy to overlook
Advance rent is taxable in the year received, not the year it covers If a tenant pays the last month’s rent at signing, you report that income in the year you received the payment, not when the lease ends. A landlord who collects $2,400 in advance rent in December 2025 for a lease running through December 2026 owes tax on that $2,400 in 2025. Deferring it to 2026 creates a mismatch the IRS catches through information reporting. 1 IRS Publication 527 — Residential Rental Property
Short-term rental platforms report your gross income to the IRS Airbnb, Vrbo, and similar platforms issue Form 1099-K when your gross bookings exceed the reporting threshold. The 1099-K reports the gross amount before the platform’s service fees. If you enter only the net amount deposited to your bank account, the IRS sees a mismatch between the 1099-K and your Schedule E. Report the gross amount on line 3 and deduct the platform’s service fee as a commission on line 8. 2 CP2000 pattern — unreported short-term rental income
Watch out for this
Forgetting to include security deposits that you kept. A security deposit returned to the tenant at the end of the lease is not income. But if you keep part or all of the deposit — for damage repair, unpaid rent, or early termination — the amount you kept becomes rental income in the year you apply it. Report the kept portion on line 3.
Footnotes
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IRS Publication 527, Residential Rental Property, Advance Rent. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p527.pdf ↩
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IRS Form 1099-K Reporting Requirements, Third-Party Payment Networks. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/understanding-your-form-1099-k ↩