The IRS depreciation life for an RV is five years when the RV is used as a vehicle in your business, seven years if it functions as general business equipment rather than transportation, and 27.5 years only in the unusual case where it qualifies as residential rental property. Most business owners land in the five-year class, because the IRS groups RVs with automobiles and light trucks under the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 946 – How To Depreciate Property Only the business-use portion of the cost can be depreciated, and the recovery period you use is only part of the picture: Section 179 and bonus depreciation can collapse most of that write-off into year one.
Which Recovery Period Applies to Your RV
Recovery period depends on what the RV does in the business, not what it looks like on the lot.
Five-Year Property
An RV used primarily for transportation in a trade or business is five-year MACRS property. That covers RVs driven to job sites, used as mobile offices, taken on business-related trips, or used to haul equipment. Five-year property depreciates under the 200% declining balance method within the General Depreciation System, which front-loads the deductions.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 168 – Accelerated Cost Recovery System It is the fastest standard schedule an RV can qualify for and the classification most business owners want.
Seven-Year Property
Seven years is the MACRS default for tangible personal property that doesn’t slot into a more specific asset class.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 946 – How To Depreciate Property An RV can land here when it functions as specialized business equipment and the driving is incidental: a motorhome built out as a mobile medical screening unit, a workshop, or a testing lab. Seven-year property also uses 200% declining balance under GDS, just stretched over a longer period.
The 27.5-Year Question
The tax code assigns a 27.5-year straight-line life to residential rental property, defined as any building or structure where 80% or more of the gross rental income comes from dwelling units. Some practitioners argue an RV rented on Outdoorsy or RVshare fits, because it functions as a dwelling. The statute requires a “building or structure,” though, and a motorhome on wheels is personal property.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 168 – Accelerated Cost Recovery System – Section: (e)(2) Most rental fleets depreciate as five-year transportation property, which produces far larger annual deductions. If you permanently affix an RV to a foundation so that it functions like a cabin, the analysis could shift, but that is the outlier case.
The 50% Business-Use Rule
An RV is “listed property” under the tax code because it lends itself to personal use, checking both the transportation box and the entertainment-or-recreation box.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 280F – Limitation on Depreciation for Luxury Automobiles; Limitation Where Certain Property Used for Personal Purposes That label carries two consequences that shape what your recovery period is actually worth.
First, business use has to stay above 50%. If it falls to 50% or below, you lose accelerated depreciation entirely and switch to the Alternative Depreciation System, which uses straight-line depreciation over a longer recovery period. The 50% test is not a one-time hurdle. It applies every year you own the RV. If business use was 75% when you placed the RV in service and drops to 45% two years later, you must recompute prior depreciation under the ADS straight-line method and pick up the excess as income.
Second, only the business-use percentage is depreciable in any given year. Drive 10,000 miles with 7,000 for business, and 70% of the depreciable cost is eligible. The IRS challenges RV depreciation claims often enough that the number has to be defensible: contemporaneous mileage logs, calendar entries, trip-purpose notes, and receipts.
Section 179 and Bonus Depreciation Can Replace the Multi-Year Schedule
The five- or seven-year MACRS schedule is the default, not the ceiling. Two provisions let you front-load much or all of the write-off into year one, and both require business use above 50%.
Section 179
Section 179 lets you expense the full cost of qualifying business property in the year you place it in service, up to an annual limit. For the 2026 tax year, the maximum Section 179 deduction is $2,560,000, with a phase-out that begins when total qualifying property placed in service exceeds $4,090,000. The deduction cannot exceed net taxable business income for the year, though unused amounts carry forward.
Weight matters. An RV with a gross vehicle weight rating of 6,000 pounds or less is treated like a passenger car and hits the annual depreciation caps described below. An RV with a GVWR between 6,001 and 14,000 pounds escapes the passenger-car caps but may face a separate SUV-type limit of roughly $32,000 for 2026. Most motorhomes exceed 14,000 pounds and qualify for full Section 179 expensing without any vehicle-specific cap. Section 179 generally isn’t available for property held for the production of income that isn’t an active trade or business, so a rental activity treated as a passive investment may not qualify.
100% Bonus Depreciation
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in 2025, permanently restored 100% bonus depreciation for qualifying property acquired after January 19, 2025.5Internal Revenue Service. Treasury, IRS Issue Guidance on the Additional First Year Depreciation Deduction Amended as Part of the One Big Beautiful Bill That reversed the prior phase-down, which had dropped bonus depreciation to 60% for 2024 and 40% for 2025 before the law changed.
For an RV acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025, you can deduct 100% of the business-use portion in the first year, and unlike Section 179 there is no cap tied to taxable income. The IRS issued Notice 2026-11 with guidance on how the permanent 100% rate applies.6Internal Revenue Service. Notice 2026-11, Interim Guidance on Additional First Year Depreciation Deduction You may elect 40% bonus depreciation instead of 100% for the first tax year ending after January 19, 2025, which can help if you want to spread deductions across multiple years for income-planning reasons.
Depreciation Caps for Lighter RVs
Bonus depreciation and Section 179 don’t override the Section 280F caps that apply to RVs with a GVWR of 6,000 pounds or less. Those vehicles are treated like passenger automobiles regardless of purchase price. For an RV placed in service in 2026, the maximum depreciation deduction is capped at:7Internal Revenue Service. Rev. Proc. 2026-15
- Year 1: $20,300 with bonus depreciation, or $12,300 without it
- Year 2: $19,800
- Year 3: $11,900
- Each year after: $7,160 until the cost is fully recovered
A lightweight $80,000 camper van is technically five-year property, but these caps stretch the actual write-off across many more years. A Class A motorhome at 20,000 pounds is not subject to the caps and can be fully written off in year one using Section 179 or bonus depreciation. The manufacturer’s GVWR on the door label, not the vehicle’s actual loaded weight, is what determines which side of the line you are on.
What Happens When You Sell: Depreciation Recapture
Depreciation creates tax on the way out as well as deductions on the way in. When you sell a depreciated RV for more than its adjusted basis (original cost minus accumulated depreciation), the gain attributable to prior depreciation is taxed as ordinary income under Section 1245, not at capital gains rates.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1245 – Gain From Dispositions of Certain Depreciable Property
Bought for $100,000, depreciated by $60,000, sold for $70,000: adjusted basis is $40,000, and the $30,000 gain is ordinary income because it sits below the $60,000 of depreciation you already claimed. Sold instead for $120,000: $60,000 is ordinary income (the full recapture) and the $20,000 above original cost is taxed at capital gains rates. Recapture applies whether you took straight-line MACRS, accelerated MACRS, bonus depreciation, or Section 179. The bigger the front-loaded deduction, the bigger the potential recapture. Report the sale on Form 4797.9Internal Revenue Service. About Form 4797, Sales of Business Property
A separate recapture is triggered if business use on a listed-property RV drops to 50% or below after you’ve claimed accelerated or bonus depreciation. You recompute prior years under ADS straight-line and include the difference in income.9Internal Revenue Service. About Form 4797, Sales of Business Property
Records and Forms
Because the personal-use temptation is obvious, the IRS scrutinizes RV depreciation more heavily than most business assets. You carry the burden of proof for the entire recovery period. Keep a contemporaneous trip log with the date, starting and ending odometer readings, destination, and specific business purpose for each trip. “Business travel” is not enough; “drove to Dallas trade show, met with three vendors” is. For rentals, keep every rental agreement, platform booking, guest communication, maintenance record, and expense receipt.
Depreciation and Section 179 deductions go on Form 4562. Part V of that form is for listed property, where you disclose total mileage and business-use percentage.10Internal Revenue Service. About Form 4562, Depreciation and Amortization The deduction then flows to Schedule C for a sole proprietor, Form 1065 for a partnership, or Form 1120 for a corporation.