Home office: No deduction for business expenses without records

Federal Fiscal Court ruling for self-employed individuals: All costs associated with a home office must be documented continuously and individually. Without timely records, no business expense deduction is possible.

Self-employed individuals who wish to deduct a home office as a business expense must take note of a recent ruling by the Federal Fiscal Court (BFH) . The highest fiscal court recently clarified that self-employed individuals are subject to strict record-keeping requirements.

Simply collecting evidence is not enough.

Expenses for a home office within the meaning of Section 4 Paragraph 5 Sentence 1 No. 6b of the German Income Tax Act (EStG) must be recorded individually and separately from other business expenses . Fulfillment of this obligation is a prerequisite for the deduction of business expenses.

The (proportional) costs for the home office must be recorded individually and promptly in a separate column of the expense records, or at least compiled in a separate written or digital document (for example, in an Excel spreadsheet, a separate accounting account, or a digital document). A mere collection of receipts is not sufficient, the judges ruled.

This means that anyone who is self-employed and wants to deduct a home office expense should include all relevant costs.

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✔️ capture promptly,

✔️ Calculate the home office portion separately ,

✔️ keep the records separately and, above all,

✔️ not to reconstruct everything retrospectively at the end of the year – as the plaintiffs had done in this specific case with collected evidence.

➡️ Even if the home office could be recognized in principle, the deduction is completely disallowed if the formal requirements are violated. This is therefore regulated just as strictly as with entertainment expenses, mileage log requirements, or cash register management.

Which costs need to be itemized proportionally? Examples:

• Electricity
• Heating
• Building insurance
• land tax
• debt interest
• Cleaning costs
• AfA
• Renovation costs

Federal Fiscal Court (BFH), Judgment of 24 March 2026 – VIII R 6/24  

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