The STR Tax Tracking App
Log your short-term rental hours as you go. See your 100-hour test progress. Hand your CPA a clean report at tax time.
What the app does
To use rental losses against your W-2 pay, the IRS wants you to materially participate in your rental. One common way is the 100-hour test. You need at least 100 hours, and more hours than anyone else who works on the property.
Records made at the time of the work are much easier to stand behind than a list rebuilt from memory. The app is built to make that quick. Want the full rules first? Read the 100-hour test guide.
Log hours fast
Say it out loud or type it. Pick the property, the task, and the time. Done in seconds.
See your 100-hour progress
A simple progress view shows how close you are to the 100-hour test for each property.
Keep property logs apart
Each rental gets its own log, because the hours count property by property.
Reports for your CPA
Make an audit-ready PDF of your log and send it to your CPA at tax time.
Pick 100 or 500 hours
Set the hour target for each property and track toward it all year.
Spouse and helper hours
Add your spouse so their hours count. Track cleaners, handymen, and managers too, so you can see who has the most hours.
Timestamps and edit history
Every entry is dated. Changes are tracked, so your log shows it was kept as you went.
Sync your bookings
Connect a property manager tool like Hospitable to pull guest messages into your log as hours. See the launch post for what it covers.
Rebuilding 120 hours from texts and email in January.
About 90 of 120 hours found. Roughly 30 hours missed.
Log 10 or 20 minutes as you work, all year.
All 120 hours logged, in a dated list that adds up on its own.
Why a tracking app helps your STR taxes
Here is the good news. A short-term rental can turn paper losses into real tax savings. Think of an owner who earns $250,000 in W-2 pay and has a $60,000 first-year loss on a rental. If that loss counts against the W-2 pay, the tax bill can drop by about $20,000 or more. That depends on your tax bracket and your facts, so ask your CPA.
To get there, two things must be true. Your rental must pass the 7-day average stay rule. And you must materially participate in it. The first one comes from your booking calendar. The second one comes from your hours. That is where a tracking app earns its keep.
If your hours are in a dated log you made as you worked, you can answer questions in minutes. If they are in your head, you will spend a weekend guessing. Want the big picture first? Read the STR loophole guide.
The 7-day average stay test
A rental is only "passive" by default. The 7-day rule is the door out of that box. If the average guest stay at your property is 7 days or less, the IRS does not treat it as a rental activity for the passive loss rules. The rule is in Treasury Regulation 1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii)(A).
The math is simple. Add up the days guests stayed. Divide by the number of stays. If you get 7 or fewer, you pass. Here is an example.
Last year you had 40 stays and 180 booked nights.
180 divided by 40 is 4.5 days per stay.
4.5 is under 7, so the average stay test is met.
A few long winter stays can pull the average up. Say two guests stay 45 days each. That adds 90 days and only 2 stays. Now you have 270 nights over 42 stays, or about 6.4 days. Still fine, but you can see how close it can get. Watch it during the year, not after.
The app is built for the hours side of the story. Your booking platform and your calendar are the source for the stay math. For the details, read the 7-day rule guide.
How the 100-hour test works
Material participation means you are really involved in the rental, not just an investor in the background. The IRS gives seven ways to show it. Most short-term rental owners use the 100-hour test, because it is the one that fits a hands-on owner.
The 100-hour test has two parts. You spend more than 100 hours on the rental during the year. And no one else spends more hours than you do. Cleaners, handymen, and property managers all count as "someone else." So the person with the most hours matters as much as the total.
Here is a real-feeling example. Say you log 130 hours in a year. Your cleaner logs 95 hours. You pass both parts. Now say your cleaner logs 160 hours. Your 130 is still over 100, but someone else has more, so this test fails. This is why the log should also track other people, which the app lets you do.
Your spouse's hours on the same property count toward your total too. That can be a big help for couples. See the spouse hours guide for how that works.
All seven material participation tests
For the record, here are the seven tests from Treasury Regulation 1.469-5T(a). You only need to pass one.
- 1. 500-hour test
You spend more than 500 hours on the rental during the year.
- 2. Substantially all test
Your work is basically all of the work done on the rental, by anyone.
- 3. 100-hour test
You spend more than 100 hours, and no one else spends more hours than you.
- 4. Significant participation test
You have several small activities that each take over 100 hours, and together they total over 500 hours.
- 5. 5 of 10 years test
You materially participated in any 5 of the last 10 years.
- 6. Personal service test
The activity is a personal service business, and you materially participated in any 3 earlier years. This one rarely fits a rental.
- 7. Facts and circumstances test
Based on all the facts, you take part on a regular, steady, and substantial basis for more than 100 hours. If anyone else is paid to manage the property, this test is off the table.
The app lets you pick a 100-hour or a 500-hour target for each property and shows your progress toward it. Which test fits you is a question for your CPA. See also 100 hours versus 500 hours.
What to log, and what not to
The best entries are short and specific. Each one answers four things: when, which property, what you did, and how long it took. "Tuesday, 20 minutes, replied to a guest about early check-in at the lake house" is a great entry. "Worked on rental stuff" is not.
Count these
- Answering guest questions and messages
- Booking, pricing, and managing the calendar
- Cleaning, turnovers, and restocking supplies
- Repairs, maintenance, and hiring or directing vendors
- Shopping for supplies and furnishings for the rental
- Check-ins, check-outs, and guest problems
- Handling reviews, listings, and photos
- Driving to and from the property for rental work
Be careful with these
- Reading about real estate in general, or watching videos about taxes
- Reviewing your financial statements as an investor, with no hands-on role
- Time on the property as a guest or for your own vacation
- Work you did not do, such as hours your cleaner worked
- Round numbers you cannot back up, like "about 10 hours a month"
Not sure if an activity counts? The guide to activities that count goes through the common ones.
What an audit-ready log looks like
The tax rules do not say you must keep a perfect daily diary. They say you can use any reasonable way to show your hours. But in tax court, a log made at the time of the work does much better than one rebuilt later from memory. Judges have tossed out round numbers and "ballpark" estimates before.
A strong log has these traits.
- Dated entries made close to when the work happened
- The property named on every entry
- A plain description of the task, not just a number
- Exact minutes, not rounded blocks of hours
- A record of who did the work, you, your spouse, or others
- Backup, like guest messages, booking records, or receipts, that match the entries
In the app, the PDF report is built around these ideas. It shows hours by property and activity, with timestamped entries, edit history, and voice transcripts attached when you logged by voice. It also breaks out spouse and third-party hours. You hand it to your CPA, and your CPA decides how to use it.
No app can promise a result in an audit. The app is a documentation tool. What it can do is make the good habit easy. For more, read how to audit-proof your STR time log.
App or spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet is a fair place to start. It is free, and you control it. Plenty of owners begin there. The trouble shows up around week three, when you are at a hardware store with a hand full of paint and no laptop. Here is how the two compare.
| What you need | Spreadsheet | STR Loophole app |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Free plan for 5 hours on 1 property. Paid plans start at $14.99 a month. |
| Logging on the go | Open the file, find the row, type it in | Say it by voice or tap an activity on your phone |
| Proof the entry was made on time | Easy to edit later with no record of changes | Entries are timestamped and edits are tracked |
| Several properties | You build the tabs and the totals | Each property has its own log and progress view |
| Spouse and helper hours | Extra columns you manage by hand | Spouse and third-party hours are broken out in the report |
| Report for your CPA | Print or send the file | An audit-ready PDF by property, activity, and date |
If you already have a spreadsheet, that is okay. Many owners keep what they have and start logging in the app from today. Read more in spreadsheets versus voice logs.
Who it is for
- Short-term rental owners who want rental losses to offset W-2 income
- Owners who run their own rental and want proof of the work they do
- Couples who both help with the rental and want to log hours separately
- Anyone who has tried to rebuild a year of hours from memory and never wants to do it again
How it works in 3 steps
- 1
Sign up free
Create an account on the web, or get the iOS or Android app. It all syncs.
- 2
Log your hours as you work
Answered a guest? Fixed a faucet? Booked a cleaner? Add it while it is fresh.
- 3
Share the report
Check your progress any time. At tax time, send the PDF report to your CPA.
Pricing
Start free. Upgrade when you are ready.
Free
Try it out
- 5 hours of tracking
- 1 property
- Basic progress view
Monthly
per month, cancel any time
- Unlimited hours
- Unlimited properties
- Calendar sync
- Audit-ready PDF reports
- Spouse and co-owner accounts
Annual
per year, about $12.42 a month
- Everything in Monthly
- Save $31 a year
Common questions
Start your log today
Every hour you log now is one less hour to guess at next April.
Documentation tool only, not a tax advisor. Talk to a qualified CPA about your own situation.