Deductible Moving Expenses

If you meet the requirements discussed earlier, you can deduct the reasonable expenses of:

1. Moving your household goods and personal effects (including in-transit or foreign-move storage expenses), and
2. Traveling (including lodging but not meals) to your new home.

You cannot deduct any expenses for meals.

Reasonable expenses. You can deduct only those expenses that are reasonable for the circumstances of your move. For example, the cost of traveling from your former home to your new one should be by the shortest, most direct route available by conventional transportation. If during your trip to your new home, you stop over, or make side trips for sight-seeing, the additional expenses for your stopover or side trips are not deductible as moving expenses.

Travel by car. If you use your car to take yourself, members of your household, or your personal effects to your new home, you can figure your expenses by deducting either:

1. Your actual expenses, such as gas and oil for your car, if you keep an accurate record of each expense, or
2. 10 cents a mile.

When using the standard mileage rate of 10 cents a mile, you can also deduct parking fees and tolls you pay in moving. You cannot deduct any part of general repairs, general maintenance, insurance, or depreciation for your car.

Member of your household. You can deduct moving expenses you pay for yourself and members of your household. A member of your household is anyone who has both your former and new home as his or her home. It does not include a tenant or employee, unless you can claim that person as a dependent.

Location of move. There are different rules for moving within or to the United States than for moving outside the United States. These rules are discussed separately, next.

Moves Within or to the United States

If you meet the requirements under Who Can Deduct Moving Expenses, earlier, you can deduct allowable expenses for a move to the area of a new main job location within the United States or its possessions. Your move may be from one United States location to another or from a foreign country to the United States.

Form 3903. Use Form 3903 to deduct your moving expenses. An example of a filled-in Form 3903 is shown later. A separate Form 3903 must be completed for each move.

Household goods and personal effects. You can deduct the cost of packing, crating, and transporting your household goods and personal effects and those of the members of your household from your former home to your new home. If you use your own car to move your things, see Travel by car, earlier. You can include the cost of storing and insuring household goods and personal effects within any period of 30 consecutive days after the day your things are moved from your former home and before they are delivered to your new home.

You can deduct any costs of connecting or disconnecting utilities required because you are moving your household goods, appliances, or personal effects.

You can deduct the cost of shipping your car and your household pets to your new home.

You can deduct the cost of moving your household goods and personal effects from a place other than your former home. Your deduction is limited to the amount it would have cost to move them from your former home.

Example. Paul Brown is a resident of North Carolina and has been working there for the last 4 years. Because of the small size of his apartment, he stored some of his furniture in Georgia with his parents. Paul got a job in Washington, DC. It cost him $300 to move his furniture from North Carolina to Washington and $1,100 to move his furniture from Georgia to Washington. If Paul shipped his furniture in Georgia from North Carolina (his former home), it would have cost $600. He can deduct only $600 of the $1,100 he paid. The amount he can deduct for moving his furniture is $900 ($300 + $600).

You cannot deduct the cost of moving furniture you buy on the way to your new home.

Travel expenses. You can deduct the cost of transportation and lodging for yourself and members of your household while traveling from your former home to your new home. This includes expenses for the day you arrive. You can include any lodging expenses you had in the area of your former home within one day after you could not live in your former home because your furniture had been moved. You can deduct expenses for only one trip to your new home for yourself and members of your household. However, all of you do not have to travel together or at the same time. If you use your own car, see Travel by car, earlier.

Moves Outside the United States

To deduct allowable expenses for a move outside the United States, you must be a United States citizen or resident alien who moves to the area of a new place of work outside the United States or its possessions. You must meet the requirements under Who Can Deduct Moving Expenses, earlier.

Form 3903. Use Form 3903 if you moved outside the United States or its possessions. A filled-in Form 3903 is shown later. A separate Form 3903 must be completed for each move.

For an explanation of expenses that you can deduct, see the discussion Moves Within or to the United States, earlier. The following discussion gives additional information on expenses that you can deduct on Form 3903.

Storage expenses. You can deduct the reasonable expenses of moving your personal effects to and from storage. You can also deduct the reasonable expenses of storing your personal effects for all or part of the time the new job location remains your main job location. The new job location must be outside the United States.

You do not have to complete Form 3903 if all of the following apply.

1. You moved in an earlier year.
2. You are claiming only storage fees while you are away from the United States.
3. Any amount your employer paid for the storage fees is included as wages in box 1 of your Form W-2.

Instead, enter the storage fees (after the reduction for the part that is allocable to excluded income) on line 26, Form 1040, and write "Storage" next to the amount.

Moving expenses allocable to excluded foreign income. If you live and work outside the United States, you may be able to exclude from income part or all of the income you earn in the foreign country. You may also be able to claim a foreign housing exclusion or deduction. If you claim the foreign earned income or foreign housing exclusions, you cannot deduct the part of your allowable moving expenses that relates to the excluded income.

Publication 54, Tax Guide for U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad, discusses the foreign earned income exclusion, the foreign housing exclusion, and the foreign housing deduction. It also explains how to figure the part of your moving expenses that relates to excluded income. You can get the publication from most United States Embassies and consulates, or see How To Get Tax Help at the end of this publication.

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