Kitchens and furniture: separate depreciation records for a furnished rental

In a furnished rental, the kitchen and each piece of furniture are separate from the building, with their own depreciation lines. A fitted kitchen, including its sink, hob and built-in appliances, is one asset written off over ten years. An item costing no more than €800 before VAT can be deducted in full in the year you buy it. Everything else is spread over its useful life, from the month of delivery. The result is an asset register, not one large deduction.

Below, we build that register for a furnished version of our fictional Leipzig apartment; see also how to build an AfA schedule and rental property tax benefits in Germany.

Depreciation (Absetzung für Abnutzung, AfA) is an income-related expense (Werbungskosten) set against rent (§ 9(1) sentence 3 no. 7 EStG). Assets lasting more than a year are depreciated in equal annual amounts over their useful life (§ 7(1) EStG); the Anlage V instructions name a fitted kitchen as one (Anlage V instructions).

In 2016 the Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof, BFH) held that a fitted kitchen (Einbauküche), with its sink, hob, built-in units and fixed appliances, is a single asset depreciated over ten years. It dropped its earlier view that a sink and cooker belonged to the building, and rejected the landlord's attempt to treat each cabinet as a separate low-value item (BFH, IX R 14/15, 3 August 2016). Loose furniture and freestanding appliances are separate assets, judged one by one.

• €800 net: deduct at once. An asset usable on its own and costing no more than €800 excluding VAT (a low-value asset, geringwertiges Wirtschaftsgut) can be deducted in full in the year of acquisition (§ 6(2) EStG, applied to letting by § 9(1) sentence 3 no. 7 sentence 2 EStG). The test uses the net price even if you cannot reclaim the VAT (R 9b(2) EStR, as summarised by Haufe); you then deduct the gross amount, up to €952 at 19 per cent VAT.
• No pool. Businesses may pool items costing €250 to €1,000 net over five years (Sammelposten, § 6(2a) EStG). The letting rule refers only to § 6(2), so the pool does not apply against rent.
• Straight line, by month. Above €800 net, cost is spread evenly over the useful life, and in the first year you lose one twelfth for each full month before the month of acquisition (§ 7(1) sentence 4 EStG). The declining-balance method for movable assets bought from July 2025 to December 2027 (§ 7(2) EStG) covers business assets; commentary treats it as unavailable against rent (Haufe).

Useful lives come from the Federal Finance Ministry's table for general-purpose assets (AfA-Tabelle für allgemein verwendbare Anlagegüter). It is administrative guidance written for businesses, offering its lives as a benchmark (BMF, AfA-Tabelle AV), and the BFH relied on such tables for the kitchen's ten years. There is no line for household furniture; the office-furniture line of 13 years is the usual analogy.

Residential letting is VAT-exempt, so a private landlord cannot reclaim input VAT, and it stays in the acquisition cost (§ 4 no. 12 UStG; § 15(2) UStG; § 9b(1) EStG). Record net for the €800 test and gross for depreciation.

Illustrative example. Fictional figures, not quotes. Apartment A from our AfA schedule: Leipzig, 65 m², €240,000, benefits and burdens passing on 1 April 2026. Unlike the tenanted original, the previous tenant leaves at handover and takes their own kitchen. A new kitchen is fitted on 22 April 2026 (€5,000 including VAT, like Apartment B's in our new-build comparison), the furniture arrives on 28 April and the flat is let furnished, open-ended, from 1 May 2026. All invoices carry 19 per cent VAT and are paid on delivery. One owner, not VAT-registered; illustrative marginal tax rate 42 per cent; furniture life 13 years. In March 2028 the sofa's frame breaks beyond repair; no insurance or tenant payment. Rent not modelled.

Totals reconcile: €6,283.00 deducted over three years plus €5,976.00 remaining equals the €12,259.00 paid. The kitchen's final €125.00 falls in 2036 (January to March).

The owner paid €10,950 in April 2026 and deducts €3,858.05 for 2026: about €1,620 less income tax at 42 per cent, arriving with the 2026 assessment, so in 2027 at the earliest. The other €7,091.95 follows in later years. Each chair passes the €800 test because it can be used on its own; the kitchen's cabinets cannot.

• A whole new kitchen is a new ten-year asset, not maintenance (BFH, IX R 14/15); the old one leaves the register as a disposal.
• Replacing one broken part of an existing kitchen, such as the hob, is a point the BFH left open. Commentary treats it as maintenance, deductible when paid, even above €800 (Haufe, December 2016). Agree this with your tax adviser (Steuerberater).
• A repaired sofa is maintenance; a replaced sofa is a new line.

In Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig, Alpha Minoris's Vermieter-Autopilot service can coordinate agreed replacements of furniture or appliances with the tenant and suppliers, within the spending limits of the written mandate, and keep the invoices on file; you need not live in the city. Bookkeeping and the tax return stay with you and your Steuerberater.

• Scrapped. When an item breaks beyond repair, take AfA up to that month and deduct the remaining value as extraordinary wear (Absetzung für außergewöhnliche Abnutzung, § 7(1) sentence 7 EStG), as with the sofa.
• Sold. Depreciation stops and the proceeds are not rent. Selling assets other than property within a year of purchase, or ten years for assets that have earned income, is a taxable private sale, but everyday objects (Gegenstände des täglichen Gebrauchs) are excluded (§ 23(1) sentence 1 no. 2 EStG). Letting an item out does not change that (BFH, IX R 4/25, 27 January 2026), and a tax court applied the exclusion to furniture sold with a holiday flat (FG Münster, 5 K 2493/18 E). The remaining value is generally not deductible on a sale (lohnsteuer-kompakt, on the parallel rule for employees' equipment).
• Low-value items have nothing left to write off; note the date.

The rent brake (Mietpreisbremse) limits a new letting's rent to 10 per cent above the local comparative rent (§ 556d(1) BGB), in Dresden and Leipzig until 30 June 2027 (Saxon ordinance). Furnished flats are not exempt; the exceptions cover genuinely temporary use and rooms in the landlord's own home (§ 549(2) BGB). A furniture surcharge (Möblierungszuschlag) must be justified within that limit, usually from the furniture's value; the Federal Court of Justice had not settled the method by February 2025 (Bundestag research service), and we found no later ruling. Tenants can ask for the facts behind the rent (§ 556g(3) BGB), so the register doubles as evidence. A government bill before the Bundestag since July 2026 would require the surcharge to be shown separately (Federal Ministry of Justice; Bundestag). Furnishing is not a way around rent control: see how much rent you can charge.

• The register, one line per asset, with net and gross cost.
• Each invoice with its delivery date, and proof of payment. For a kitchen bought with the flat, its separate price in the deed; a used kitchen needs a shorter remaining-life estimate.
• A dated note of each disposal and its reason.

The Anlage V instructions put depreciation of assets other than buildings on their own lines and items written off at once among other expenses (Anlage V instructions; see our Anlage V guide).

Planning a furnished letting in Berlin, Dresden or Leipzig? Budget the furniture as assets with records, not as an instant deduction. Discuss your first rental property with Alpha Minoris.