Three things determine whether a home office tax deduction claim succeeds in South Africa: qualification, calculation, and documentation. You need a dedicated room used regularly and exclusively for work, with more than 50% of your duties performed there. You then apply the floor-area formula to SARS-approved premises costs, and treat equipment wear-and-tear as a separate deduction. Get any one of the three wrong and you either underclaim or attract SARS verification.
Qualifying room must be regularly and exclusively used for work · Salaried employees need 50%+ of duties performed from home · Floor-area formula: office m² ÷ total home m² · Internet/Wi-Fi subscriptions not deductible · Claimed under source code 4028 on the ITR12.
SARS requires a specific, dedicated room at your primary residence, regularly and exclusively used for work. A dining room that converts into a workspace in the evenings doesn't qualify. Neither does a corner of your bedroom. The room must also be specifically equipped for the job, a desk, computer, or the relevant tools that signal a professional environment, not a general-purpose space that happens to have a laptop on the table.
There are two distinct qualification tests depending on how you earn. For salaried employees, SARS requires that you perform more than 50% of your duties from the home office during the year of assessment. For employees who earn more than 50% of their remuneration from commission or other variable pay, the test is different: you must perform more than 50% of your duties away from your employer's office. Commission earners can qualify even if they frequently work outside the home, provided they're not based primarily at the employer's premises.
SARS confirmed that the legal requirements for home office deductions are the same as they were before the pandemic. Working from home during lockdown didn't automatically create a qualifying deduction. If the dedicated room, exclusive-use, and 50% duty tests weren't met, the deduction wasn't available, even during the periods when physical offices were closed by government regulation.
SARS approves rent, rates and taxes, electricity, and cleaning costs for home office deductions, claimed in proportion to your office's share of the total floor area. None of these are claimed in full. Each is multiplied by the business proportion calculated using the floor-area formula. Your electricity bill for the entire home isn't deductible in full, only the fraction attributable to your home office is.
Office equipment, furniture, and fittings used for trade are treated separately from premises costs. SARS allows a wear-and-tear allowance on these assets under section 11(e) of the Income Tax Act, calculated on a straight-line basis over SARS's prescribed write-off periods. For the 2026 tax year, computer equipment is written off over three years (approximately 33.3% per year), while office furniture is written off over six years (approximately 16.7% per year). Items costing less than R7,000 can generally be written off in full in the year of acquisition. This allowance is a standalone deduction, not bundled into the floor-area apportionment.
Internet and broadband subscription costs are not listed by SARS as qualifying home office expenses for ordinary employees. SARS has specifically stated that monthly Wi-Fi subscriptions are not permitted in this category, though Wi-Fi equipment you own may qualify for a wear-and-tear allowance; the monthly service fee doesn't form part of the home office premises cost. Commission earners should confirm their specific position with a tax professional, as the rules differ in limited circumstances.
The formula is A divided by B, where A is the area of your home office in square metres and B is the total area of your home in square metres. The resulting percentage is your business proportion, applied to the total qualifying premises costs for the year. Floor area is the default method for space-related costs like rent, rates, and cleaning. It is not based on time worked, and it cannot be adjusted upward simply because you work long hours.
Take a home of 90 m² with a dedicated home office of 15 m². The business proportion is 15 divided by 90, which equals 16.67%. Applied to the annual premises costs:
Total claimable premises cost: R25,600. The proportion itself stays fixed for the year even if individual expenses vary month to month; substitute your own numbers using the same logic.
If you only worked from home for part of the tax year, the claim must reflect the actual period of home office use. If you reported to your employer's office for the first six months and worked from home for the second six months, the claimable costs are those incurred during the qualifying period only. Applying the full-year apportionment to a part-year arrangement is a common error SARS picks up during verification.
If your employer reimburses actual, substantiated home office costs under an accountable arrangement, those costs are generally not taxable to you as an employee. The trade-off is that you can't claim the same expense as a personal deduction on your ITR12, since the cost has already been covered. If your employer pays a flat allowance without substantiating it against actual costs, SARS is likely to treat it as taxable income in your hands. You may still attempt a home office deduction, but only if you can demonstrate that the allowance didn't cover the full qualifying cost claimed.
Only the portion of a qualifying expense that you actually bear out of your own pocket can form part of your personal deduction. If your employer covers 40% of your home office electricity cost, you can claim the remaining 60%, provided all other qualifying criteria are met. To use a simple example: if the total qualifying home office cost is R10,000 and your employer reimburses R4,000, the maximum amount you can enter under source code 4028 is R6,000, subject to the floor-area apportionment and all other qualification tests.
Prepare and retain the following before you file your return:
Missing or vague employer letters are the most common trigger. Photographs or floor plans that don't clearly show a dedicated, exclusively used workspace raise immediate questions. Other common audit triggers include a claimed amount that's disproportionately large relative to the stated office size, missing invoices for the expenses included in the calculation, and a sharp change in the claimed amount compared to prior years with no supporting explanation. Keep a complete documentation file, not just the items you submitted with the return, since SARS can request additional documents at any point after filing, sometimes months later.
Home office expenses are declared under source code 4028 on the ITR12, in the "Other Deductions" container. To access this field, you must answer yes to the ITR12 form wizard question that asks whether you incurred expenditure not covered by earlier questions. Before the field is available, the eFiling questionnaire will ask you to confirm each qualifying condition: dedicated room, specific equipment, regular and exclusive use, and that more than 50% of your duties were performed from the home office. All conditions must be confirmed before the deduction can be entered.
Home office claims are one of the most commonly miscalculated sections on an ITR12. Dyantyi Chartered reviews the apportionment, the documentation, and the claim before it goes anywhere near SARS.
If you qualify, you can claim a pro-rata share of rent, rates and taxes, electricity, and cleaning costs using the floor-area formula, plus a separate wear-and-tear allowance on office equipment and furniture. Internet and Wi-Fi subscription costs are not allowed for ordinary employees.
You need a dedicated room used regularly and exclusively for work. Salaried employees must perform more than 50% of their duties from the home office. Commission earners who receive more than 50% of their pay from commission must instead perform more than 50% of their duties away from their employer's office.
Divide the area of your home office in square metres by the total area of your home in square metres. A 15 m² office in a 90 m² home gives a business proportion of 16.67%, which is then applied to your qualifying premises costs for the year.
No. SARS does not list monthly Wi-Fi or internet subscription costs as a qualifying home office expense for ordinary employees, though Wi-Fi equipment you own may qualify for a separate wear-and-tear allowance.
Home office expenses are declared under source code 4028 on the ITR12, in the Other Deductions container. You must first answer yes to the eFiling wizard question about expenditure not covered by earlier questions, and confirm each qualifying condition before the field becomes available.