Is Homeowners Insurance Tax Deductible?

You cannot deduct homeowners insurance premiums from your taxes unless you own a rental property or operate a business out of your home, in which case the premiums can be deducted as a business expense. Nevertheless, there are several other tax deduction opportunities that a larger number of homeowners can take advantage of.

Read below for more information on when home insurance is tax deductible and what other expenses you may be able to subtract from your taxable income.

On This Page

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  When Is Home Insurance Tax Deductible?

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  What Types of Tax Deductions Are Available for Homeowners?

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  Which Homeowners Costs Aren’t Tax Deductible?

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  FAQs

When Is Home Insurance Tax Deductible?

Homeowners insurance is among the expenses you can deduct from your taxes if you operate a home-based business. In general, you can only claim a home office deduction if you regularly and exclusively use a room in your house or a separate structure on your property as your primary workspace and if you are self-employed rather than a remote employee.^[1]

If you are eligible for a home office deduction, you have two options for deducting homeowners insurance premiums and other indirect home business expenses on your tax returns:^[1]

1. The regular method is to calculate the percentage of your home that is devoted to commercial use by comparing the square footage of your home office to the square footage of your entire home. Then, you can subtract that percentage of your premiums from your taxes. For example, if your home office is 150 square feet and your home is 1,500 square feet, you can deduct 10% of your home insurance premiums from your taxes.
2. For a simpler calculation, you can instead measure the square footage of your home office and deduct $5 from your taxes for every square foot up to 300 square feet. For example, if your home office is 200 square feet, you can deduct $1,000 from your taxes regardless of the size of your home, the cost of your homeowners insurance policy or the amount you spend on other indirect home business expenses like repairs and utilities.

Is Home Insurance Tax Deductible for Rental Properties?

Similarly, landlord insurance premiums are among the necessary expenses you are allowed to deduct from your taxes if you own a rental property. In many cases, 100% of your landlord insurance premiums are tax deductible.

However, if you rent out a property that you also use for personal purposes such as a vacation home, then you must add up the number of days you rented out the home to figure out the percentage of the year that it was used for commercial purposes and only deduct that percentage of your home insurance premiums from your taxes.^[2]

What Types of Tax Deductions Are Available for Homeowners?

Although most homeowners likely won’t be able to deduct home insurance premiums from their taxes, there are other common expenses for homeowners discussed below that are tax deductible. That said, you should only deduct these expenses if they collectively exceed the standard deduction, which is a blanket amount that most taxpayers are allowed to deduct from their taxable income, since you can’t take both the standard deduction and itemized deductions.

See the below table for an overview of the standard deductions for tax returns filed in 2024 based on your tax filing status.^[3]

Mortgage Interest

You can deduct interest that your home mortgage has accrued up to certain limits based on your tax filing status and when you took out the mortgage. The below table goes over the maximum amount of loan debt you can deduct interest from for tax purposes depending on your circumstances.^[4]

Previously, you were also allowed to deduct the amount that you paid for private mortgage insurance from your taxes. However, itemized deductions for private mortgage insurance premiums expired in 2022.^[4]

Home Equity Loan Interest

Currently, you can only deduct interest that a home equity loan has accrued if you used the loan to buy, build or substantially improve a house. However, after the 2025 tax year, you’ll be able to deduct home equity loan interest from your taxes up to a certain dollar amount no matter how you spend the money from the loan.^[5]

Discount Points

You may also be able to deduct discount points, which are basically a form of prepaid interest since they allow you to pay a certain amount of money up front to lower the interest rate on your monthly mortgage payments. Each point you purchase is generally worth 1% of the value of your mortgage.^[6]

Discount points are not universally tax deductible but you may be able to deduct them under certain circumstances such as when the amount of points you bought is not higher than normal for your area and when you paid for the points yourself rather than borrowing money to pay for them.^[7]

Property Taxes

You can take itemized deductions for multiple kinds of state and local taxes including property taxes, enabling you to subtract the amount you spend on these taxes from the income you pay federal taxes on. The combined amount of income, sales and property taxes you deduct cannot be more than $5,000 if you are married filing separately or $10,000 if you have another tax filing status.^[8]

Medically Necessary Home Improvements

Home accessibility upgrades are tax deductible as medical expenses as long as their primary purpose is to provide medical care for you, your spouse or a dependent. You can deduct the cost of installation minus any increase to your property value caused by the upgrade.^[9] For example, if you spend $3,000 to install a wheelchair ramp and it raises your property value by $1,000, you can deduct $2,000 from your taxes.

Rejected Insurance Claims

In some cases, you may be able to deduct the value of damaged and stolen property if your insurance company declines to reimburse you for them after you file a homeowners insurance claim. Meanwhile, if your insurer doesn’t pay out the full amount required to repair or replace the property, you may be able to deduct the difference between your insurance settlement and the actual cost of repairs or replacements.

However, this deduction only applies to losses incurred during a disaster declared by the federal government. If your loss is eligible, you can deduct the value of the lost property minus $100 per casualty or theft event minus any reimbursements from your insurance company minus 10% of your adjusted gross income (AGI).^[10]

For example, if your home incurs $10,000 worth of damage during a flood that isn’t covered by your homeowners insurance policy and you have an AGI of $50,000, you might be able to deduct $4,900 from your taxes.

Which Homeowners Costs Aren’t Tax Deductible?

Unless they qualify as business expenses due to your operation of a home-based business, the following expenses cannot be written off on your taxes:^[11]

• Insurance premiums
• Wages you pay a domestic worker
• Depreciation
• Utility costs
• Most types of settlement costs
• Money you’ve forfeited such as deposits, down payments or earnest money
• Home internet
• Homeowners association or condo fees
• Basic home repairs