Home office allowance and home study: what the self-employed can deduct in Germany in 2026

Home office allowance or home study: the two options at a glance

Since 2023, the German Income Tax Act clearly distinguishes between two models. The daily allowance is the simple option for everyone who works at home – whether at the kitchen table or in a separate room. The home study (häusliches Arbeitszimmer) is intended for those who essentially do their work from home and have an enclosed room used (almost) only for work.

As a self-employed person you deduct both as a business expense in your cash-basis income statement (EÜR). Unlike employees, you don’t have to exceed a lump-sum allowance first: every euro directly reduces your profit and therefore income tax, solidarity surcharge (if due) and – for traders – trade tax.

How does the €6 per day home office allowance work?

You may claim €6 for each calendar day on which you mainly carry out your activity in your home and do not visit a first place of business – such as a rented office. “Mainly” means: more than half of your working time that day. The allowance is capped at €1,260 per year; this corresponds to 210 home office days.

If no other workplace is permanently available to you – typical for solo self-employed people without an office – the allowance also applies on days when you are additionally out and about, for example working at home in the morning and visiting a client in the afternoon. You then deduct the trip to the client in addition as travel costs for a business trip.

The allowance applies per person, not per activity. If you are employed and self-employed on the side, you split the home office days between both activities; together they remain at most €1,260. If two people work in one home, each gets the allowance for themselves.

• Keep a simple calendar: date, place (home office, client, coworking), approximate hours.
• Only count days on which you actually worked – holidays, sick days and weekends without work don’t count.
• Running costs such as rent, electricity and heating are covered by the allowance; you can claim internet and phone additionally with the business share.

When can I deduct a home study?

A home study is an enclosed room in your flat or house that is set up for professional purposes by location, furnishing and function and is hardly used privately at all (rule of thumb: at least 90% for work). A walk-through room, a guest bed in the room or an open work corner are not enough.

Since 2023 the deduction is only possible if the room is the centre of your entire business and professional activity. What matters is where you qualitatively perform the essential work. For a translator, a programmer or a graphic designer who works almost exclusively at the desk, this is regularly the study. For craftspeople, trainers or consultants who mainly work at the client’s premises, it usually is not – then only the daily allowance remains.

If the centre is there, you have a choice: actual costs without an upper limit or an annual flat rate of €1,260. If the requirements are not met for the whole year (for example when founding in April), the annual flat rate is reduced by one twelfth – i.e. €105 – for each month without the requirements.

• Proportional rent or – if you own the property – proportional building depreciation and interest on debt.
• Proportional service charges: heating, water, waste, property tax, building insurance, house cleaning.
• Proportional electricity if there is no separate meter; renovation costs of the room in full.
• Furnishing of the room: lamps, curtains, carpet, wallpaper.

Worked example: proportional costs versus flat rate

Lena is a self-employed translator and works exclusively at home. Her flat has 80 m² of living space, the enclosed study 12 m². The floor area share is 12 ÷ 80 = 15%; the total living space including the study is what counts.

Result: with actual costs Lena deducts €2,322 – €1,062 more than with the annual flat rate. At a personal marginal tax rate of 30% she saves a good €300 extra. If she had no enclosed room, with 220 working days at home she would only get the capped daily allowance of €1,260.

Self-employed and employees: where is the difference?

Employees claim the home office allowance as income-related expenses (Werbungskosten) in Anlage N. There it only has an effect once all income-related expenses together exceed the employee lump sum (Arbeitnehmer-Pauschbetrag) of €1,230. Many employees therefore get no noticeable benefit from the allowance.

The self-employed deduct the allowance in the EÜR as a business expense – from the first euro. In addition: if you run a trade, every business expense also lowers your trade income. If you are self-employed on the side, you may allocate home office days to the activity you mainly worked for that day – but the €6 is only available once per day.

For freelancers and traders alike: the allowance is a calculated value without an invoice, so there is no input VAT on it. With actual study costs, as a business liable for VAT you can deduct input VAT from invoices that show VAT, for example for electricity or renovations – but not from the flat rent, which is usually VAT-exempt.

Work equipment: what is deductible on top of the allowance

Furniture and devices you use for work are not study costs. You always deduct them in addition – even if you only use the daily allowance. The net price is what matters: up to €800 net an item is a low-value asset (GWG) and immediately fully deductible; you spread more expensive furniture over its useful life according to the AfA table using depreciation (AfA).

Since 2021, computer hardware and software may be deducted in full in the year of purchase regardless of price (useful life one year). If you also use a device privately, you only deduct the business share, for example 70% for a laptop that you also use privately in the evening.

• Desk for €650 net: GWG, immediately fully deductible.
• Height-adjustable desk for €1,100 net: depreciation over 13 years (AfA table office furniture), i.e. around €85 per year.
• Laptop for €1,800 net, 80% business use: €1,440 immediately in the year of purchase.
• Internet: business share, for example 50% of €40 a month = €240 a year, if you can plausibly document the share.

Combining coworking, office and home office

If you rent a desk in a coworking space or your own office, the rent is a fully deductible business expense. If the invoice shows 19% VAT, you get it back as input VAT – unless you use the small business scheme (Kleinunternehmerregelung).

On days when you mainly work in the coworking space there is no daily allowance. If the coworking desk is permanently available, it counts as your first place of business; you then calculate the trip there with the commuting allowance (Entfernungspauschale), not with €0.30 per kilometre driven. In this case a home study is only deductible if it still remains the centre of your activity – which is rare with regular office use.

Which option pays off? Decision in four steps

The question is less “Which is more?” than “What am I allowed at all?”. Check the steps in order – as soon as an answer is no, you are left with the daily allowance.

Example of a borderline case: an IT consultant works 60% of his time on site at the client and 40% in his own study. He performs the qualitatively decisive work – workshops, implementation, acceptance – at the client. The study is therefore not the centre; he claims €540 daily allowance for his roughly 90 home office days and claims the trips to the client as travel costs. A graphic designer who only occasionally travels to client meetings, on the other hand, can claim the study with actual costs.

Calculate the actual costs once a year: if they are below €1,260, choose the annual flat rate – then you need no cost list and no floor area calculation. If they are above, the effort usually pays off from a difference of a few hundred euros. Especially in large cities with high rents, the proportional costs of a 10–15 m² room almost always exceed the flat rate.

• Step 1: do you have an enclosed room that you use (almost) only for work? If not: daily allowance.
• Step 2: is this room the centre of your entire activity – also taking any employment into account? If not: daily allowance.
• Step 3: are the proportional actual costs above €1,260? If yes: actual costs with proof; if not: annual flat rate of €1,260.
• Step 4: in any case, record work equipment, the business share of internet and phone and coworking costs in addition.

Ownership, receipts and typical mistakes

For the self-employed, a study in your own house or flat generally belongs to business assets. This has consequences on a later sale: the proportional increase in value is then taxable. An exception applies to parts of a property of minor value (§ 8 EStDV): at most one fifth of the total building value and at most €20,500. With the daily allowance the question does not arise, because no room becomes a business asset.

Keep the rental contract, service charge and energy bills and a floor area calculation. For the daily allowance, a traceable list of the days is enough. These documents are part of your accounting records and are subject to the GoBD retention rules.

• Claiming a study although the room is also a guest room – the tax office then strikes out everything.
• Claiming the daily allowance and study costs twice for the same months.
• Forgetting the laptop, monitor or desk chair because you think they are included in the allowance.
• Claiming more than 210 days – the allowance is capped at €1,260.
• Not reducing the annual flat rate pro rata when founding during the year.

Recording home office costs with Kontelio

In Kontelio you record work equipment, coworking invoices, internet and phone as an expense with category, tax rate and business share; the private remainder does not reduce your profit. You upload or photograph the receipt, and it is archived for ten years in line with GoBD. You create devices over €800 net as fixed assets; Kontelio calculates the depreciation and transfers everything to the EÜR and the advance VAT return. More on the page recording expenses.

Frequently asked questions