Can You Deduct Moving Expenses for Your Business?

By the TaxSoloist Editorial Team · Last updated October 12, 2026

✅ Current for tax year 2026

Quick answer: It depends entirely on what’s moving. Moving yourself for business reasons is not deductible — that personal moving expense deduction was suspended in 2018 and hasn’t come back, aside from a narrow military exception. Moving your business’s equipment, inventory, or office is a different story, and that’s generally still a normal, deductible business expense.

Why these two things get confused

“Moving expenses” sounds like one category, but the tax code treats it as two unrelated things. Section 217 covers your personal household move — boxes, movers, a moving truck for your own belongings — and that deduction has been off the table for everyone except active-duty military (and, starting in 2026, certain intelligence community personnel) since the 2017 tax overhaul. It stayed off the table under the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act too; there’s no self-employed exception hiding in there.

What’s actually still deductible

If you’re relocating your business — moving inventory to a new storage unit, shipping equipment to a new studio or office, paying movers for business-owned furniture or machinery — that’s an ordinary and necessary business expense, the same category as any other Schedule C cost. The distinction is ownership and purpose: is this a business asset moving for a business reason, or is it your own household relocating?

A common real-world case

A freelance photographer moving their home studio to a new apartment can’t deduct the cost of moving personal belongings and furniture — that’s a household move. But if they pay separately to ship or move camera equipment, backdrops, and other business gear, that portion is a legitimate business expense, worth keeping a separate receipt for specifically so it doesn’t get lost inside a bigger, non-deductible moving bill.

State taxes may differ

A handful of states still allow a state-level moving expense deduction even though the federal one is suspended. That’s a state-specific question outside what a federal calculator can tell you — check your state’s current rules if this applies to you.

Where deductible business costs end up

Whatever counts as a real business expense reduces your Schedule C net profit, which is the number that drives your self-employment tax — run it through the 1099 & quarterly tax calculator once you have a final figure.

What about moving a home office?

A self-employed person working from a home office occupies a genuine gray area. If you’re moving your entire household — including the room that happened to be your office — none of that is deductible; it’s still a personal move. But if you separately pay to relocate business-only items (a standing desk bought specifically for work, business filing cabinets, specialized equipment), that portion can be treated the same as any other business asset move, provided you can show it was a distinct, business-purpose cost rather than an undifferentiated slice of the household move. The safest approach is getting a separate quote or line-item receipt for business items specifically, rather than estimating a percentage of one combined moving bill after the fact.

Moving to a second location, not your main home

Opening a second studio, storefront, or satellite office is a different scenario from a personal household move — the costs of setting up and stocking that new business location (not your residence) are ordinary business expenses, similar to any other business expansion cost. This is common for photographers, contractors, and small business owners adding a second work location while their home address stays the same; because no personal residence is moving, the Section 217 suspension doesn’t come into play.

Keep the two costs on separate invoices

When a single moving company handles both your household items and business equipment in one job, ask for the invoice to itemize the two separately, or get two distinct invoices entirely. A single lump-sum moving bill that mixes both makes it much harder to substantiate the business portion later — you’d be estimating a percentage after the fact rather than pointing to a specific charged amount. Most moving companies are used to this kind of request, especially from small business owners and self-employed movers, and it typically doesn’t add meaningfully to the cost. This small amount of upfront organization is the difference between a clean, defensible deduction and a rough guess that’s harder to support if it’s ever questioned.

Sources

Personal moving expense suspension reflects the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Section 217) as extended by the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act — see IRS Topic no. 455 for the current military/intelligence-community exception.