Track your Real Estate Professional hours. Prove them if the IRS asks.
Effortlessly track your hours to qualify as an IRS Real Estate Professional. Audit-ready documentation for the 750-hour requirement and material participation tests.
- Hour threshold
- 751
- hour threshold — more than 750, never exactly
- Second test
- 50%
- of all your working hours
- Participation tests
- 7
- Treas. Reg. §1.469-5T(a)
About 20 hours a week gets you there.
Track both REPS tests, not just the 750.
If you work a 2,000-hour job, your real target is not 750 — it is 2,001. The dashboard shows the number you actually have to beat.
Section 469(c)(7)(B) is conjunctive. You need more than 750 hours in real property trades or businesses and more than half of all the personal services you perform in any trade or business during the year. Most tools show you one bar. We show you the binding one.
The 50% test binds, not the 750. With 2,000 hours of other work you need more than that — 2,001 hours in real estate — before you qualify at all.
Everything the qualification actually requires.
Hours are the easy part. The rules around whose hours count, which property they belong to and which test applies are where returns get lost.
Property Tracking
Every hour is attached to a specific property, because material participation is judged activity by activity.
Spouse & Partner Hours
A spouse’s hours count toward material participation under IRC §469(h)(5) but never toward the 750-hour or 50% tests.
All Seven Material Participation Tests
Each of the seven routes in Treas. Reg. §1.469-5T(a) is scored continuously against your log, per property.
A Separate 100-Hour Path
A property with an average stay of seven days or less is tracked on its own material participation path, not the 750.
Year-over-Year
Closed years stay intact and comparable, which is what the 5-of-10-years test and an examiner both ask for first.
IRS Defense Package
One click produces a PDF narrative of how you qualify plus a CSV of every entry with date, property, duration and category.
Seven ways to materially participate. You only need one.
- 01 · 1.469-5T(a)(1)
500+ Hours
More than 500 hours in the activity during the year.
- 02 · 1.469-5T(a)(2)
Substantially All
Your participation is substantially all of the participation by anyone.
- 03 · 1.469-5T(a)(3)
100+ Hours and No One More
More than 100 hours, and no other individual spends more.
- 04 · 1.469-5T(a)(4)
Significant Participation
Activities of more than 100 hours each totalling more than 500.
- 05 · 1.469-5T(a)(5)
5 of 10 Prior Years
Material participation in any five of the ten preceding years.
- 06 · 1.469-5T(a)(6)
Personal Service, 3 Prior Years
A personal service activity you materially participated in for any three prior years.
- 07 · 1.469-5T(a)(7)
Facts & Circumstances
Regular, continuous and substantial participation, with a 100-hour floor.
- Note
Tested per activity
Each property is its own activity unless you make a valid grouping election.
A taxpayer needs to meet only one of the seven, and each is judged per activity — property by property unless you have grouped them.
The 7-day rule puts short-term rentals on a different path.
If the average guest stay is seven days or less, the property is not a rental activity at all under Treas. Reg. §1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii)(A). That means it does not need Real Estate Professional Status and its hours do not count toward the 750. What it needs instead is material participation in that specific property.
In practice that usually means the 100-hour test: more than 100 hours on the property, with nobody else — the cleaner, the co-host or the management company — putting in more than you.
- Measured against
- More than 100 hours, and more than anyone else
- In progress
- Counts toward the 750-hour test
- Non-rental activity — tested on its own
- No
- Spouse hours included
- Attributed under IRC §469(h)(5)
- Yes
An audit asks for the log, not the conclusion.
Everything you record is kept as a timestamped entry. When you need it, the export takes seconds.
- Qualification summaryHow each REPS test is met, with the figuresPDF
- Per-property material participation analysisHours and the applicable test for each activityPDF
- Full timestamped time logEvery entry in the order it was recordedPDF
- Complete time log exportDate, property, hours, category, descriptionCSV
Every entry is filed under one of seven categories, so the log reads as a business record rather than a spreadsheet of round numbers.
- Property management
- Leasing
- Repairs & maintenance
- Administrative
- Travel
- Acquisition research
- Construction
Accessing the Suite
Two ways in. Both give you the whole product — no feature is held back on a lower tier.
Standard Subscription
For independent investors seeking professional-grade tracking.
Apex Reserve Exclusive
Complimentary for our Cost Segregation customers.
Get a Cost Segregation Study- Unlimited Time LoggingPrecise tracking for all real estate activities
- All 7 Material Participation TestsAutomated analysis of IRS-specific thresholds
- Property & Portfolio ManagementDetailed categorization for unlimited properties
- IRS-Ready Defense PackageOne-click audit-ready PDF and CSV exports
- Household & Spouse SyncCombine hours for joint filing scenarios
- Timestamped Audit TrailAutomated timestamps for every entry
Guides to the parts people get wrong.
The 750-Hour Test for Real Estate Professional Status
Everything you need to know about the 750-hour requirement — what counts, what doesn't, and how to track your hours effectively.
Read the articleShort-Term RentalsDo Short-Term Rentals Count Toward the 750-Hour Test?
Usually the wrong question. If you are running the short-term rental strategy you do not need the 750-hour test at all — here is what you actually have to prove.
Read the articleTax StrategyMaterial Participation Tests for Real Estate Investors
The IRS defines seven tests for material participation. Learn which ones real estate investors most commonly use and how to satisfy them.
Read the articleProve your hours before anyone asks.
Contemporaneous records are the difference between a position you can defend and one you have to argue. Seven-day free trial.