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QUALIFICATION TRACKER · ALWAYS ON

The STR tax strategy only works
if you stay qualified.

The IRS won't tell you mid-year whether your short-term rental still clears the four tests that make losses active. The Qualification Tracker watches all of them, every week — so the posture you set in January is still defensible on December 31. Part of The System, alongside The Ledger.

WORKS WITH YOUR EXISTING AIRBNB / VRBO / PMS EXPORTS
Blue Ridge Cabin · 2026
AS OF OCT 18
4/4
tests on track, 74 days to year-end
Average guest stay
4.3 / ≤7 NIGHTS · §469(c)(7)(B)
PASSED
Material participation
128 / 100 HRS · TEST 3 CLEARED
ON TRACK
Personal use days
9 / 14 DAYS · §280A
ON TRACK
Profit-seeking rental
$54.2K REVENUE · 62 STAYS
DOCUMENTED
EVIDENCE · 14 DOCS HASHED AUDIT POSTURE · STRONG
WHY A TRACKER EXISTS

The strategy isn't a switch.
It's a posture you hold all year.

The short-term rental tax strategy lets owners who materially participate in their property use depreciation losses against W-2 income. It's a real, well-established position — and it only works if four IRS tests all hold for the full tax year.

Most owners find out they failed in April, from their CPA, long after the year closed and the evidence window closed with it. The tests are met or missed in real time, property by property. A posture you don't measure isn't a posture at all.

01
It's evaluated annually — all four tests, every year.
The strategy isn't "set up once." A year with one bad month on any gate can disqualify the whole year's losses from offsetting W-2 income.
02
Evidence has to be contemporaneous.
Material participation hours reconstructed in April from memory carry almost no weight. Logged within the week, countersigned by a contractor, they're audit-grade.
03
The edges are thin.
One 8-night stay can push your average over 7. One extra Thanksgiving weekend can cross the §280A personal-use ceiling. You only see the edge if you're looking at it live.
04
Your CPA is not your tracker.
Preparers receive your records. They don't — and shouldn't — be the ones maintaining a daily ledger. That's upstream of the return.
THE FOUR GATES

What we watch, every week.

Each gate is a statutory or regulatory test. STRVue tracks the current posture, the evidence on file, and the projected year-end result.

GATE 01
Average guest stay
seven nights or fewer
Keeps your property outside the §469 per se rental-activity presumption. Total rental nights divided by number of stays. If the rolling average stays at or below seven, losses can be active if you materially participate.
THRESHOLD
≤ 7 nights average stay (pure math, no exceptions)
AUTHORITY
§469(c)(7)(B) · Reg §1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii)(A)
DATA
Live PMS sync · Airbnb · Vrbo · Guesty · Hospitable · iCal
GATE · THE HARDEST ONE
Material participation
any one of seven tests
You must be materially involved in operations — not just a passive investor. The regulations provide seven alternative tests; satisfying any one is sufficient. The most achievable for owner-operators is the 100-hour test, where you work more hours than anyone else.
COMMON PATH
Test 3: 100+ hours AND more than any other person (incl. cleaners, handymen)
AUTHORITY
Temp. Reg. §1.469-5T (seven tests)
DATA
Owner log + receipts + contractor hours + calendar + photos
GATE 03
Personal use days
under the §280A ceiling
Too many personal nights reclassifies the property as a dwelling unit — loss deductions get capped by §280A(c)(5). The ceiling is the greater of 14 days or 10% of rental days. Cleaning and repair days you perform don't count as personal.
THRESHOLD
Personal nights ≤ max(14, 10% of rental days)
AUTHORITY
§280A(d)(1) · §280A(d)(2)
DATA
Owner-blocked days from calendar, reconciled with hours log
GATE 04
Profit-seeking rental
not a hobby, not a residence
The property must be held and operated with genuine profit motive. Continuous listings, rental insurance, bookkeeping, market-rate pricing, and revenue all speak to this. A weak posture here invites §183 hobby-loss recharacterization regardless of how you score on the others.
EVIDENCE
Active listings, rental insurance rider, revenue history, P&L
AUTHORITY
§183 · Reg §1.183-2 (nine factors)
DATA
Listing screenshots, insurance docs, revenue, bookkeeping exports
MATERIAL PARTICIPATION · DEEP DIVE

Seven tests.
You only need one.

The regulations under §469 give you seven ways to prove material participation. Satisfy any one and you clear the gate. For most owner-operators, Test 3 is the pragmatic path — but we track your posture against all seven, because multiple satisfied tests is stronger posture than one.

We also surface which tests are disfavored for your situation, so you don't plan around a test you can't meet.

TEMP. REG. §1.469-5T · ANY ONE IS SUFFICIENT
01
500-hour test
You participate more than 500 hours during the year.
STRETCH
Rare for owner-operators with one property
02
Substantially all participation
Your hours represent substantially all the work on the property.
NARROW
Rules out using a cleaner or handyman
03
100 hours & most
100+ hours, and more than any other individual (paid help counts).
COMMON PATH
The working posture for most owners
04
Significant participation activity aggregate
Multiple 100+ hour activities summing past 500 hours.
MULTI-PROPERTY
Opens up with 2+ STRs
05
5-of-10 year history
Material participation in 5 of the preceding 10 years.
LONG-TERM
Year 6+ of ownership
06
Personal service history
Personal service activities — rental of tangible property does not qualify.
N / A
Not applicable to STRs
07
Facts & circumstances
Regular, continuous, and substantial participation, 100+ hours, backed by pattern.
BACKUP
Strengthens Test 3 posture
HOW DATA GETS IN

Three sources. Zero spreadsheets.

The tracker auto-ingests what it can, makes owner entry fast for what it can't, and keeps every document hashed and indexed for audit defense.

01
PMS & calendar sync
Live connection to your booking platforms reconciles rental nights, owner blocks, and stay lengths every night. Feeds the 7-day average stay gate and the personal use ceiling automatically.
AIRBNB · VRBO · GUESTY · HOSPITABLE · HOSTAWAY · OWNERREZ · ICAL FEEDS
02
Hours log + evidence
Log participation in seconds — mobile or web — with category, narrative, and an evidence attachment (receipt, photo, contractor note, calendar invite). Contemporaneous entries carry the strongest weight under §469.
OCR RECEIPTS · EMAIL FORWARDS · SIGNED CONTRACTOR LOGS · TIME-STAMPED PHOTOS
03
Document vault
Insurance riders, prior returns, contractor agreements, bookkeeping exports — all hashed on upload, indexed by which gate they support, and ready to export as a single audit-defense packet at year-end.
PDF · CSV · ICS · IMAGES · SHA-256 HASHED · INDEXED BY GATE
WHAT YOU LOG INTO

A single screen that says "you're still on."

The tracker is designed to answer one question in under three seconds: is my tax posture still defensible today? Green is green. Amber means there's a specific action. The rest of the product is the detail behind that answer.

STRVue · Qualification Tracker
BLUE RIDGE CABIN · 2026 · OCT 18
VIEWS
Overview
Material participation
Hours log
Booking ledger
Evidence vault
OVERALL POSTURE
4 of 4 tests on track
Average guest stay
4.3
PASSED
Material participation
128 hrs
ON TRACK · TEST 3
Personal use days
9 / 14
ON TRACK
Profit-seeking rental
$54.2K · 62 stays
DOCUMENTED
WHAT THIS IS — AND ISN'T

We are not your CPA.
We make your CPA's job easier.

✓
We cite the statute, not our opinion. Every test in the tracker ties back to a specific section of the IRC or Treasury Regulations.
✓
You and your preparer own the tax position. We produce evidence and posture. Sign-off stays where it belongs.
✓
Contemporaneous by construction. Every hour, receipt, and document is date-stamped on entry and hashed in the vault.
✓
Export-ready. Audit-defense packets include a narrative summary, full evidence index, and hash manifest in a single PDF bundle.
✓
Nothing is over-claimed. If your posture weakens, we say so — loudly — and tell you exactly what restores it.
START TRACKING TODAY

Your posture is
either live or lost.

Connect a property, import your calendar, log your first hours. The sooner contemporaneous records start, the stronger the year ends.

NO CREDIT CARD · IMPORTS IN 4 MINUTES · WORKS WITH YOUR EXISTING PREPARER
AI ASSISTANT · GROUNDED IN IRS AUTHORITIES
Ask Caroline
SCOPE
This assistant answers only questions about short-term rental tax qualification under IRC §469, §280A, §183, and their Treasury Regulations. It cites authority on every substantive answer. It does not render tax opinions, compute your return, or replace your preparer.

Ask about any of the four gates, the seven material-participation tests, or the evidence standard for your situation.

Typical questions

ENTER TO SEND · SHIFT+ENTER FOR NEWLINE
Answers cite authority but are not tax advice. Your preparer signs off on your return.