Is your phone bill tax deductible?
Partly. The share of the bill you use for the business is deductible, and the rest is personal.
The rule
Most people use one phone for everything, so the IRS lets you deduct the business share of the bill. Work the share out honestly from how you use it: calls, texts and data for clients and work against everything else. A month or two of your bill is a fair basis, and the share should stay the same from month to month unless the work changes.
The phone itself works the same way. Buy a $1,000 phone you use 60% for work and $600 of it is deductible, usually all in the year you buy it.
A second line used only for the business is deductible in full.
A $95 monthly bill used 60% for work puts $57 a month on the return.
Priced at 36¢ on the dollar, the rate of a $95,000 sole proprietor in California. Work out yours.
- Where it goes
- Schedule C line 25, utilities
- What to keep
- The bills, and a note of how you worked out the share, made once and kept with the year’s records.
- Watch for
- A landline is different. The basic charge for the first line into your home is never deductible, even if you use it for work. Business long-distance calls on it are, and so is a second line just for the business.
Checked on September 25, 2026 against Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home and Instructions for Schedule C. An estimate for your records, not tax advice.
By the kind of work
What else each of these can deduct, and what they tend to miss.
See it on every receipt.
Snap it and Reimburse files it on the right Schedule C line, takes the deductible share and shows what it puts back.