Vacant but intended for rent: what evidence supports ongoing tax deductions?

An empty apartment's costs can stay deductible in Germany, but only while you still intend to let it and can prove that you are trying. Loan interest, depreciation (AfA) and the service charge you pay between tenants remain income-related expenses (Werbungskosten) as long as your intention to earn rental income (Einkünfteerzielungsabsicht) continues and your letting efforts are serious and sustained. Keeping the flat free for yourself or a relative, marketing it only for sale, or letting a vacancy drift can end the deductions. And a deduction is worth your marginal tax rate on the costs, not the rent you lost.

This guide covers the tax evidence. The letting process is in finding tenants in Germany; a tenant who stays but stops paying is covered in what if your tenant stops paying.

Werbungskosten are expenses to acquire, secure and maintain income, and they expressly include interest and depreciation (§ 9(1) EStG). Rent is income under § 21 EStG. Costs in a month without rent still count if they are linked to rent you are genuinely trying to earn.

The Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof, BFH) distinguishes two starting points (BFH IX R 14/12):

• Empty after long-term letting. Costs stay deductible as long as you have not finally given up the decision to let. This is the stronger position, and it covers the ordinary gap between tenants.
• Empty after purchase, construction or your own use. Costs can be deductible in advance, but only once you have visibly taken up the intention to let.

The Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) applies the same principles (BMF letter of 8 October 2004, paras. 25 and 26; still listed as applicable in March 2026). An intention can only be judged from outward facts, and the owner bears the burden of proving the letting efforts (IX R 14/12, headnote 4).

Empty months belong to the letting only if the apartment is held ready for a new tenant (BFH IX R 19/11). Once you keep it available for yourself, a child or another relative, the empty months are private, even if nobody has moved in. The BMF counts free use by others as own use (BMF 2004, para. 8). In IX R 14/12, a room used as private storage was found never to have been intended for letting.

Belongings kept there for personal use, occasional overnight stays, a relative registered at the address or adverts paused "until we decide" all count against you. From the date you decide to use the flat yourself, rental deductions stop; see moving into your investment property. Letting to a relative at a reduced rent raises a separate question: renting to family below market rent.

The BFH leaves the method to you: portal adverts, an agent, replies to rental requests or notices in closed forums can all count, although informal channels need more persistence (IX R 14/12, para. 12). Three points recur:

• Adapt when it is not working. If your own efforts are clearly failing, you are expected to find better channels or intensify them, for example by instructing an agent (para. 13).
• Be prepared to make concessions. An owner may need to give ground on the rent, the lease term or the kind of tenant acceptable (para. 13). In that case, an owner who kept repeating the same newspaper adverts for a flat empty since 1997, while insisting on his rent and tenant requirements, lost the deduction.
• Price against the market. Record comparable adverts and what the rent brake allows (setting a lawful asking rent). A rent well above both, held while nothing happens, makes the advert look like a formality.

Neither the law nor the BMF letter sets a number of months after which deductions end. Long vacancy can, however, end the intention without any fault of yours: the BFH accepts this where, even with reasonable effort, the apartment cannot be let in the foreseeable future because there is no market for it or because of other structural obstacles (strukturell bedingter Leerstand) (IX R 14/12, headnote 3). If failed efforts show there is no market for the flat as it is, you must act, if necessary by altering it; staying passive counts against you (BFH IX B 84/22, citing IX R 54/08).

Works that prepare the next tenancy and keep moving do not interrupt the letting. Courts look at how long a renovation takes and whether it is foreseeable when the flat will be let (IX R 14/12, para. 14; IX B 84/22). The BMF treats a multi-year renovation with no visible effort to finish it as an indicator that there is no decision to let long term (BMF 2004, para. 24). Nine years without works exceeded the owner's limited window for deciding (BFH IX R 46/13), and a flat that could not be made lettable because the other owners would not cooperate lost the deduction (BFH IX R 17/16).

Keep the schedule, quotes, invoices, dated photos and any resolutions of the owners' association (WEG). Within three years of purchase, works costing more than 15 per cent of the building's acquisition cost, excluding VAT, are added to the building and depreciated (§ 6(1) no. 1a EStG); see the 15% rule.

Offering the flat for sale at the same time does not end the intention while your letting efforts stay serious. An agent instructed only to sell, and sale-only adverts, can show that you have given up letting (BFH IX R 9/12). Once the intention ends:

• Running costs and interest from that date are no longer rental expenses.
• AfA is no longer deducted. On a sale within ten years of purchase, only depreciation actually deducted reduces your cost base (§ 23(3) sentence 4 EStG).
• Earlier years generally keep their deductions if you had firmly decided to let (BMF 2004, para. 24). A sale within about five years of purchase, with only losses so far, is an indicator that you never meant to let long term, unless you can show the decision came later (para. 7).

For a new build claiming special depreciation, temporary vacancy is harmless while the flat is held ready for letting (BMF letter of 21 May 2025, para. 33), but ending the letting early reverses it (Sonder-AfA under § 7b).

Write it as things happen; a file rebuilt the following summer persuades nobody. One row per step:

Keep the proof alongside it: dated advert copies, portal statistics, enquiry emails, viewing lists, saved comparable listings, the handover record and any management mandate. Receipts are not normally sent with the return; ELSTER says it is enough to keep them for queries (ELSTER help). The costs go on Anlage V as usual (our Anlage V checklist).

If you live elsewhere, Alpha Minoris's Vermieter-Autopilot can coordinate tenant finding for apartments in Berlin, Dresden or Leipzig: the advert, viewings and the review of applications, with the agreed letting activity documented in advert copies and viewing records. You remain the landlord and approve the tenant and the rent, and the tax assessment of the vacancy stays with your tax adviser (Steuerberater).

Illustrative example. Fictional figures. Apartment A from our cash-flow guide: Leipzig, 65 m², completed 1996, bought for €240,000 with benefits and burdens from 1 April 2026 and let to the existing tenant since then. Building base €199,026, AfA 2 per cent: €3,980.52 a year. Loan €216,000 at an assumed 3.7 per cent nominal, 2 per cent initial repayment, €1,026 a month. Cold rent €900; Hausgeld €330 (€210 recoverable from the tenant, €30 administration, €70 maintenance reserve, €20 other); unit management €35. The tenant gives notice on 1 March 2027 and leaves on 31 May; the flat is empty from June to October 2027; a new lease starts on 1 November. Advert fees €180 (assumed). Marginal rate 42 per cent, excluding solidarity surcharge and church tax. Hausgeld is deducted when paid, except the reserve share.

The log shows a decision to re-let before the tenant left, prompt adverts, wider channels when responses slowed and a rent adjustment backed by comparable listings: the serious, adapting effort the BFH describes. On that evidence, the €6,552.65 belongs in the 2027 Anlage V. At 42 per cent, it is worth about €2,752 of income tax, received with the 2027 assessment, in 2028 at the earliest.

That is not a refund of the €7,135 paid over the five months, and the €4,500 of cold rent not received is no deduction at all: it was never income. Had the owner paused the adverts in August to keep the flat for a nephew, the costs from then on would generally have been private.

If your apartment is between tenants, start the log today and ask your Steuerberater which documents they want to see. Discuss your first rental property with Alpha Minoris.