A room let to a tenant, a studio you work from, the rest your home. Add the property once with those shares, tie its bills to it, and every cost lands on the right part — while each transaction keeps the category it is filed under.
The same address can be part rental, part workplace and part home, and it can be half yours. Those facts live on the property once — a rented share, a business share, the private remainder and your ownership share — and every cost there is divided by them. The category still says what a cost was; the property says where. Keep both and “what did Smith St cost this year?” and “what did I spend on repairs?” are answered from the same records. Why a category per property falls short.
Rates, insurance, strata and the loan interest are divided by the rented, business and private shares.
A lock on the tenant’s door is all rental; repainting your studio is all business; new carpet in your bedroom is all private.
Rent from a tenant is rental income in full, however big the room. Your ownership share applies to it, as to every cost.
A lens is a second way of reading the same records without touching their categories. Properties is a built-in lens on every plan, and each property you add is an entry in it. A repair at Smith St stays a repair; the property is a second axis, never a replacement for the category. In the ledger, choose By property from the lens switcher and your records group by address. On the Lenses page, Properties is listed with each property as an entry, showing its ownership share and its rented and business percentages. A bill carries its property too, so every payment it matches is counted there without a tag on each one.
Adding a property, setting its shares, tying its bills and reading how each cost divides are on every plan, including Free. Lenses you define yourself, by project, client or department, are on ELITE+ and AUTO+, and stack with the Properties lens. How a view of your own works.
This year (or This period, with your own dates) shows the total spent, how it divides between the rented, business and private parts with the net rental result from cash alone, the bills and assets at the property, where the money went by category and the latest records. Tax names the form it belongs on in your country, runs the checks and, on ELITE+, adds the write-offs and the download.
Whole-owned, with $15,600 of rent in the year. The whole-property costs divide 30 / 30 / 40; the two one-part costs go to their part in full.
| Cost | For | Rented | Business | Private |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Council rates $2,400 | Whole property | $720 | $720 | $960 |
| Home insurance $1,800 | Whole property | $540 | $540 | $720 |
| Loan interest $18,000 | Whole property | $5,400 | $5,400 | $7,200 |
| Lock on the tenant’s door $150 | Rented part | $150 | — | — |
| Repainting the studio $900 | Business part | — | $900 | — |
| Total | $6,810 | $7,560 | $8,880 |
Net rental result: $15,600 rent less $6,810 of rented-part costs is $8,790. Owned half with a partner, every figure above halves and your net rental result is $4,395. The $7,560 business part is shown separately: whether occupancy costs like rates and interest are claimable for a home business turns on whether that area is a genuine place of business, which is a question for your accountant, not a percentage. What that choice means at sale time is laid out in the business space at home tool. In its worked example — 35% of the floor area, $9,600 of occupancy costs a year for 4 years, a 32% marginal rate — the deductions and the tax on that share at sale break even at about $76,800 of growth.
The building is not a bill and not an appliance. In Australia its construction cost is written off as capital works: the ATO sets the rate by the kind of work and the date construction started — 2.5% a year for 40 years for most homes started after 15 September 1987 — and the 40 years run from completion, whoever owns it. Add the building once with its cost and dates, and Fin works out each year, counts only the days it was rented or available, and divides it by the property's shares like any whole-property cost. The building's write-off, like the depreciation of what is at the property, is on the ELITE+ and AUTO+ plans.
A construction cost of $400,000 at 2.5% is $10,000 a year: $3,000 to the rented part, $3,000 to the business part and $4,000 private. Owned half with a partner, each of you records half of each. It shows in the split marked as a write-off, not a payment, and it reduces the property's cost base when you sell.
In Australia it is the construction cost, from the builder's records or a quantity surveyor's report — never the price you paid. In the United States it is your basis in the building: for a house you bought, the part of the purchase price and settlement costs that belongs to the building, never the land. A residential rental is depreciated over 27.5 years from the day it was ready to rent; non-residential property, including a hotel-like establishment where most units are let for short stays, over 39. Elsewhere Fin records the building for your accountant rather than apply another country's rule.
Fin already recognises your strata levy, rates, insurance and the loan's monthly interest charge as repeating bills from your own bank transactions. Open the bill, choose the property on its Property & tax tab, and every payment it has matched — and every one it matches later — belongs there, with no tagging. Each bill's card shows the property it is for. What is due next shows on your Upcoming list and in the weekly review, with anything overdue flagged.
Most of a loan repayment pays the loan down, and that part is not a rental cost. Tie the interest charge on the loan account to the property, not the repayment from your everyday account. If a repayment category does land on a property, the Tax view says so with the amount it adds, before anything reaches an export.
A dishwasher bought for the rental is a depreciating asset. On ELITE+ and AUTO+ it goes on the asset register with its effective life, is listed at the property, and its depreciation for the year joins the property's split — divided by the property's shares, or given in full to the part it serves, like a bed in the tenant's room.
Not everything bought for a rental needs a depreciation schedule. When your country's rules let the cost be deducted in the income year you use it to earn income, under a verified per-item limit that you qualify for, Fin leads with Deduct it this year and does not ask you to create an asset. The asset register is kept for things that genuinely lose value over years: the dishwasher, the carpet, the hot water system.
In Australia a depreciating asset for a rental that costs $300 or less can be deducted in the income year you use it to earn rent, for the share of it that earns income (a private share is not deductible), but only when all three of these hold: you use it mainly to earn income that is not from running a business, such as rent; it is not part of a set costing more than $300 in total; and it is not one of several identical or substantially identical items costing more than $300 together. Both totals count what you buy in the same income year, so four matching $90 chairs fail the last test. The price alone does not settle it, and whether an item qualifies is for you and your accountant to decide. An item that qualifies for that deduction cannot also go in a low-value pool; other items costing less than $1,000 can be pooled at a low-value rate. The instant asset write-off is a business rule, not a landlord's. What the instant asset write-off is.
A limit appears only once it has been checked against the tax authority that sets it. Where a country's rule is still being added, Fin says confirm the current limit rather than show a number it cannot stand behind, and leaves the choice between deducting now and registering to you and your accountant.
Money and the financial year follow the country you file in — a Manchester landlord sees pounds over a year that starts on 6 April. The Tax tab names the form a property belongs on — the rental schedule in Australia, SA105 in the UK, Schedule E in the US, T776 in Canada, IR3R in New Zealand, income from house property in India — and carries that country's notes, each linked to the authority it comes from. It also runs the checks, such as a loan repayment tied to the property where only the interest belongs. On ELITE+ and AUTO+ it adds the write-offs, the net rental result including them, and Download the rental schedule (CSV), named for your country's form. Below those plans, one short note says the figures are cash only and what the write-offs would add.
Now law, from the 2027–28 income year: an established residential property acquired after 7:30pm AEST on 12 May 2026 loses negative gearing against other income, while earlier contracts are grandfathered and new residential dwellings are exempt. Add the contract date and the Tax view says which side a property is on. The CGT discount change made by the same Act is noted on every rented property.
The rule that shared costs are claimed by the share that earns income, with costs for one part claimed in full, is close to universal. How the share is measured and which costs qualify is where countries differ. Renting out part of your home, country by country.
On ELITE+ and AUTO+, each property's rental schedule downloads as a CSV named for your country's form: your ownership share, the shares of the property, income and every expense category divided into rented, business and private, and the net rental result. The year-end accountant pack carries a Properties sheet with every property, and its Transactions sheet names each row's property and part. Both include the year's depreciation of the assets and the building's capital works, marked as write-offs rather than payments. Business exports — myDeductions, the tax CSV and the profit and loss report — take only the business share of a property cost, because the rental side belongs on the rental schedule instead. Before you export, a note says how many property costs went in for their business share and how many were left for the rental side.
Step 1
Open Properties and choose Add a property. Give it a name and say what it is: a rental, your home, business premises or something else. A new rental starts as 100% rented.
Step 2
Enter the rented and business percentages; the private remainder fills itself in. Add your ownership share if you co-own it, and for an Australian rental the contract date and whether it was a new build.
Step 3
Open the strata levy, the rates, the insurance and the loan’s interest charge in Bills, and on each bill’s Property & tax tab choose the property. Every payment each bill has matched, and every one it matches from now on, belongs to the property, and the bill’s card shows which address it is for.
Step 4
From the property, choose Add records and pick the repairs and purchases that belong there. Mark them as the whole property, the rented part, the business part or private.
Step 5
This year shows what the property cost, how every category divides into its parts and the net rental result from cash alone. The Tax tab names your country’s form and runs the checks; on ELITE+ it adds the write-offs and the rental schedule download, or send the whole year in the accountant pack.
What owning one rental or several looks like in 2Fin, from the first bill to tax time.
Appliances, carpets and furniture bought for the rental, written off over their effective lives.
Interest, rates, strata, insurance and repairs — which are claimed now and which over time.
Definitions: apportionment, initial repairs, negative gearing, rental schedule, capital works, CGT discount.
Properties, answered
The rules this page and the Tax view describe come from these published sources:
Computed from published government rates and guidance. General information to prepare with, not personal tax advice — confirm what applies to you with your accountant or tax authority.
Add the property, tie the bills once, and the year adds up by itself — split the way the property is actually used.
