What is the workroom deduction?

The workroom deduction is a relatively rare deduction. Although it has been in the media a lot during Corona, the rules are very restrictive. For example, a temporary desk in the living room or children's room is not enough under Corona. But exactly what it takes to get the deduction, we will go through in this article. And then we will go through an example that SKAT has approved.

The deduction falls under the group of work-related expenses, which we have also written a post about here. So if you want to see the full overview of work-related expenses that can be deducted, it's worth taking a look.

In this article we will go through:

• What deductions for working room are
• An example approved by SKAT
• Other conditions to be aware of
• Whether you can get deductions yourself

What is the workroom deduction?

The workroom deduction has been much debated, especially during Corona, when up to 40% of the population worked at home. But unfortunately, the rules are very strict and have not been updated for a long time, so they are not adapted to the new norm of working at home to a much greater extent.

The main elements of SKAT's assessment are the following three.

• First and foremost, it has to be permanent. This means that it can't just be a desk that you set up while Corona is on.
• Secondly, the room must be arranged in such a way that it CANNOT be used for private purposes. In other words, it doesn't matter if you actually use the room privately, because it must be designed so that it cannot be used for anything other than work.
• In addition, it is also required that you actually spend a significant part of your working time in the room during normal working hours. In other words, it must be necessary for you to be able to do your work at all. For example, 1-2 hours a day is not sufficient.

These are the three main requirements that most people fail - especially the first two. There are a number of additional requirements, which are described in the section below.

If you actually meet all the requirements, then comes the calculation of the deduction itself. The expenses you can deduct are a proportion of your housing costs such as electricity, heating and property tax, depending on whether you own or rent your home. The proportion is calculated based on the size of the room in relation to the entire home, so if your room is 16 sqm. out of a house of 100 sqm, you will get 16% of the expenses as a deduction.