Are Home Security Systems Tax Deductible?

The general rule for a personal home

IRS Publication 530, Tax Information for Homeowners (2025 edition), is the controlling consumer-level guidance, and its list of nondeductible payments covers the categories a security system falls into. Among the items it says you cannot deduct: insurance (including fire and comprehensive coverage), the cost of utilities, wages for domestic help, internet or wifi service, and homeowners association fees. Ongoing alarm monitoring fees are a household service of the same character, and no IRS publication we could find carves out a deduction for them on a personal residence.

What about the equipment itself? Publication 530 explains that an improvement "materially adds to the value of your home, considerably prolongs its useful life, or adapts it to new uses," and that you must add the cost of improvements to the basis of your home rather than deduct it. Its examples include fences, new wiring, and new plumbing; it does not name security systems specifically. If a hard-wired system qualifies as an improvement under that definition, the practical effect is a higher cost basis (which can matter when you sell), not a deduction today. Whether a specific installation counts as an improvement versus a repair is a facts-and-circumstances call, which is exactly the kind of question to put to a tax professional.

One thing a security system can do for your wallet right now is an insurance discount rather than a tax break; many insurers offer protective device discounts, so ask your carrier directly.

The home office exception

IRS Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home (2025 edition), addresses security systems by name: "If you install a security system that protects all the doors and windows in your home, you can deduct the business part of the expenses you incur to maintain and monitor the system. You can also take a depreciation deduction for the part of the cost of the security system relating to the business use of your home."

Translated into plain terms, per the publication's own framework:

1. You must first qualify for the business use of home deduction at all, which generally requires using part of your home exclusively and regularly as your principal place of business (Publication 587 and IRS Topic 509 lay out the tests).
2. A whole-home security system is an indirect expense, like insurance or utilities: you deduct only the business percentage, typically the share of the home's floor space used for business. If your qualifying office is 10 percent of your home, roughly 10 percent of the monitoring cost is the deductible business part.
3. Equipment cost is not written off in one year as a home expense; the business portion is recovered through depreciation, per the passage above.
4. Expenses for parts of the home not used for business are classed as "unrelated" in Publication 587's expense table and are not deductible at all.

Also note who can use this: employees cannot. The current edition of Publication 587, which the IRS labels for use in preparing 2025 returns, settles it in the publication's own decision flowchart: to the question "Are you using the part of your home as an employee?", a yes answer routes straight to "No deduction." So if you work remotely for an employer, a home office does not make your alarm bill deductible under that publication.

One caveat on timing. The 2025 edition is the newest one the IRS has published, and Publication 587 itself notes that tax reform legislation affecting federal deductions was enacted in P.L. 119-21, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, on July 4, 2025. We are not going to guess how that reads for a later filing year. If you are filing for any year after 2025, treat the rule above as the 2025 position and confirm the current one with a tax professional.

What this looks like in practice

A descriptive example using Publication 587's method, not advice for any specific return. Suppose a self-employed person uses a 200 square foot room exclusively and regularly as their principal place of business in a 2,000 square foot home, so the business percentage is 10 percent. If monitoring costs $600 a year, the business part under the Pub 587 rule is $60 a year, and 10 percent of the system's equipment cost would be depreciated over time rather than deducted at once. The remaining 90 percent stays a personal expense.

Two honest caveats. First, the deduction is claimed through Form 8829 or Publication 587's worksheet, and it is subject to a gross income limit from the business, so the security line item rides along with the rest of the home office math. Second, the simplified method (a flat rate per square foot) replaces itemizing actual expenses; if you use it, you do not separately deduct a share of the security system at all. Which method is better depends on your whole return, which is a tax professional question.

If you are pricing a system and monitoring in the first place, the pre-tax numbers matter far more than the small business-percentage deduction; see home security cost per month for what monitored and self-monitored setups actually cost.