REPS Qualifier

Real Estate Professional Status — do you qualify to deduct rental losses against ordinary income?

Annual Hours

Hours spent in real estate trades or businesses where you materially participate. Includes property management, maintenance, deal sourcing, tenant screening, bookkeeping, contractor oversight.

Hours at your W-2 job, non-RE business, or other employment. Standard full-time is ~2,080 hours/year.

Rental Properties

Each property needs 500+ hours of material participation — or elect to aggregate all properties into one activity.

Tax Situation
$

Your ordinary income before rental income/losses.

$

Net rental income across all properties. Enter negative for a loss (e.g., -15000).

$

Annual depreciation deduction across all rental properties. This creates or increases rental losses.

%

Your highest federal tax bracket. Used to estimate tax savings.

RE Hours

800

Total hours spent in real estate trades or businesses. Must exceed 750 per year.

RE % of Work

28%

Real estate hours as a percentage of total working hours. Must exceed 50%.

Tax Savings from REPS

$0

Estimated additional tax savings if you qualify as a Real Estate Professional, compared to passive activity loss rules.

IRS Qualification Tests

PASS750-Hour Test

You must spend more than 750 hours per year in real estate trades or businesses in which you materially participate.

800 / 750 hours

FAIL50% Test

More than half of your total working hours must be in real estate trades or businesses.

800 / 2,081 hours

PASSMaterial Participation

Each property needs 500+ hours of material participation (most common test).

Property 1520 hrs

Tax Impact

Rental losses$15,000
Deductible (without REPS)$15,000
Estimated tax savings$3,600

Warnings

Consider the spouse qualification path.

For married filing jointly, only one spouse needs to qualify as a Real Estate Professional. Hours cannot be combined between spouses, but the spouse with fewer W-2 hours may have an easier path.

Run the numbers with your spouse's W-2 hours instead — they may already qualify or be closer than you think.

How to Qualify

The 50% test is the hardest to pass with a full-time W-2 job (2080 non-RE hours). You would need to either reduce W-2 hours by 1281 or increase RE hours to 2081.

If married filing jointly, only one spouse needs to qualify as a Real Estate Professional. If your spouse has fewer W-2 hours, they may have an easier path to the 50% test.

Your AGI is in the passive loss phaseout range ($100K-$150K). Without REPS, only a reduced portion of rental losses is deductible.

You have $12,000 in depreciation. Without REPS, this depreciation creates suspended passive losses. With REPS, it directly reduces your taxable income.