Working From Home as an Employee: What Renters and Homeowners Can Deduct With a T2200

Same floor plan, same spare room, very different claims. Four household profiles show what the CRA lets a work-from-home employee deduct, and where renters and owners part ways.

I’m Arthur Zhao. I sell homes, I don’t prepare tax returns, but this question reaches me often enough, usually from people deciding between renting and buying, that I went to the CRA’s own pages and the Income Tax Act to sort it out.

Picture two neighbours on the same floor of a mid-rise. Same two-bedroom layout, same second bedroom turned into an office, same employer telling them both to work from home. One pays rent to a landlord; the other pays a mortgage on the unit next door. When tax season arrives, the renter has a line item the owner doesn’t, and the owner discovers that the biggest housing cost she pays each month isn’t on the CRA’s list at all.

The rules aren’t complicated once you know which household you are. So instead of walking through the law clause by clause, this piece takes four common profiles and, for each one, lays out what qualifies, what doesn’t, what you have to prove, and the misunderstanding I hear most.

What every profile has in common

Start with the rule that sits above everything else. Section 8(2) of the Income Tax Act says that, except as permitted by section 8, no deductions are allowed against employment income. So an employee’s home office claim exists only because s.8(13) carves out a specific space for it, and only on its terms.

That subsection allows a deduction for a work space in the home you live in only if the space is either (i) the place where you principally perform your duties, or (ii) used exclusively to earn that employment income and used on a regular and continuous basis to meet customers or other people. According to the CRA (2026), the first branch becomes a practical test: you worked from your home work space more than half the time for at least four consecutive weeks in the year.

Then the paperwork. Under s.8(10), these deductions can’t be taken unless your employer confirms the conditions on the prescribed form, which is T2200, Declaration of Conditions of Employment. The CRA also requires that your employer actually required you to work from home (a written or verbal agreement is enough, and a telework arrangement you voluntarily signed counts), that you paid the expenses yourself, and that anything your employer reimbursed stays out of your claim. The expenses go on Form T777.

One thing this article is not about: if you are self-employed, as many real estate agents are, your home office is claimed under different rules. Everything below applies to employment income only.

Profile 1: Salaried, renting an apartment

What you can claim. The CRA’s list says every eligible employee, salaried or commission, can deduct the work-use portion of electricity, heat and water; home internet access fees (the monthly service, not connection fees or router rental); maintenance and minor repairs; and rent paid for the house or apartment you live in. For a renter, that last item is usually the one that matters.

What you can’t. Home insurance sits on the CRA’s commission-only list, so a salaried renter leaves it out. Furniture is excluded for everyone, and so are durable items like a desk, chair, monitor or printer, even though consumable supplies such as paper, ink and pens are.

The math. Only the work-use share of rent counts. According to the CRA (2026), the method is floor area: the size of your work space divided by the size of your home. A dedicated spare room of 20 m² in a 200 m² home is 10%. If you work at the dining table instead, you also factor in your work hours out of the 168 in a week, which shrinks the percentage considerably.

The common misread. Renters often assume they can claim the whole bedroom’s share of rent for the whole year. You can only claim expenses from the part of the year you actually worked from home, so if you were back in the office from September, the months after that are out.

Profile 2: Salaried, owning a condo or house

What you can claim. The same utilities, internet access and minor repairs as the renter. If you own a condo, the CRA allows the portion of your condo fee that covers electricity, heat and water, as long as you can reasonably calculate it from your corporation’s numbers.

What you can’t. This is where the two neighbours split. The CRA’s list of expenses no employee can claim includes mortgage interest, principal mortgage payments, and capital expenses such as replacing windows, flooring or a furnace. Capital cost allowance is a “No” for both salaried and commission employees. And if you own, the CRA says you cannot claim a notional rental value for your work space in place of rent. Property tax and home insurance are also off the table for a salaried owner.

The qualifying tests are identical to the renter’s: the employer requirement, the 50%-for-four-weeks or client-meeting test, and a signed T2200.

The common misread. Owners tend to assume that because a renter deducts rent, an owner must be able to deduct the equivalent, whether that is interest, taxes, or depreciation. Under the CRA’s rules for employees, none of those substitutes for rent. In practice a salaried owner’s claim is limited to running costs of the space.

Profile 3: Commission-paid, owning a home

Who fits here. Section 8(1)(f) describes the employee it covers: someone employed to sell property or negotiate contracts for their employer, who under the employment contract had to pay their own expenses, was ordinarily required to work away from the employer’s place of business, and was paid in whole or part by commissions tied to sales volume. A performance bonus that isn’t tied to sales volume doesn’t fit that description. Your employer’s T2200 is where those conditions get confirmed.

What you can claim. Everything a salaried owner can, plus two items the CRA reserves for commission employees: home insurance and property taxes, each at the work-use percentage. Commission employees can also deduct the cost of leasing a cell phone, computer, laptop, tablet or fax machine that reasonably relates to earning commission income.

What you still can’t. Mortgage interest, principal, and capital cost allowance remain excluded for commission employees too. Buying (rather than leasing) a computer doesn’t become deductible either.

The common misread. Commission earners sometimes assume they can claim against all of their pay. Section 8(1)(f) caps those expenses at the commissions received in the year, and the CRA notes a commission employee’s total expenses may be limited where they exceed commission income.

Profile 4: Two people working from one home

What changes. Nothing about the list of eligible expenses; what changes is who claims them. The CRA says that when spouses or common-law partners both work from home and both qualify, they decide which expenses each will claim, and each expense can be claimed only once. In the CRA’s own example (2026), a couple paying $1,400 a month in rent can have one partner claim the full rent or split it between them, as long as the shares together don’t exceed what they actually paid, and only the employment-use portion is deductible.

The qualifying tests run separately. Each person needs their own employer’s requirement to work from home, their own time test, and their own signed T2200. One partner qualifying does not carry the other.

Sharing a room. If you share one office, the CRA’s worked example splits the floor area between you; if you share a dining table, each person’s share is then cut by their own weekly hours. Two people at one table each end up with a small percentage, not a double one.

The common misread. Couples sometimes each claim the same utility bill in full on two returns. That is exactly what the claimed-once rule prohibits. If your pay types differ, for instance one salaried and one commission-paid owner, the property tax and insurance can only sit on the commission earner’s return.

When the claim is bigger than the paycheque

Section 8(13)(b) limits the work-space deduction to your income from that employment, calculated before the work-space deduction itself. The CRA puts it plainly: you can’t use these expenses to create or increase a loss from employment, and you can only claim expenses against the income they relate to.

The unused part isn’t lost. Section 8(13)(c) treats it as deductible in the following year, and the CRA adds the practical condition: you can carry it forward only if you report income from the same employer. This matters most for part-year employees and people who started a new job late in the year.

Before you file a work-space claim

Sorted by when the step happens, not by who does it.