IRS Definition of Rental Days and Personal Days

[Justin Unck]

Good morning, I’m trying to understand a little more about how the IRS views “days” when applied to rental days and personal days.

Does the IRS consider a customer overnight stay as 1 or 2 rental days?

What I’m really getting at is an IRS “rental day” from midnight to midnight, or from the afternoon on one day to the morning of the next day? And do Personal Days follow the same convention?

This is important for us when it comes to calculating Personal Days (and average rental duration). Our frequent scenario will be to arrive at the property to do monthly maintenance on Friday evening and depart on Sunday morning. If a “day” is midnight to midnight, it’s unlikely we will be able to meet the “Days used for repairs and maintenance” criteria on Friday, therefore causing a Personal Day. Same issue on our departure day as we may leave in the morning and not have time to do much work.  The bulk of work would be done through the day on Saturday.

Our primary purpose to be at the property is do monthly maintenance and repairs, and I understand 4+ hours is the requirement to meet the “Days used for repairs and maintenance” criteria. I’m not sure how to prevent the accumulation of Personal Days with a midnight to midnight definition of day.  Any information would be helpful.  Thank you.

What is a day of personal use?

A day of personal use of a dwelling unit is any day that the unit is used by any of the following persons.

Days used for repairs and maintenance.

Any day that you spend working substantially full time repairing and maintaining (not improving) your property isn’t counted as a day of personal use. Don’t count such a day as a day of personal use even if family members use the property for recreational purposes on the same day.

[John Underwood]

I believe the general consensus of a day is how many nights.

So if you show up on a Tuesday and leave on a Wedsday that is one night.