First-year depreciation calculator
Works out what a vehicle or equipment purchase deducts in its first year, applies the section 280F ceiling that most calculators leave out, and shows the year the last of the basis finally comes back.
| Year | Rate | Before the cap | Ceiling | Deduction | Deferred |
|---|
One pound of weight rating, $59,700
Every depreciation calculator can multiply a cost by a percentage. Almost none of them asks the question that decides whether the percentage is allowed to reach your answer at all.
A business vehicle costing $80,000, used entirely for business, bought and placed in service in 2026. What comes off this year's return? The honest answer is that it depends on one number printed on a sticker inside the driver's door, and it moves the deduction across a range of $59,700.
- At or below 6,000 lb. A passenger automobile under section 280F(d)(5), so the deduction is $20,300 and the remaining $59,700 is pushed into later years at $7,160 a year once the third year has passed.
- 6,001 to 14,000 lb. Outside section 280F, which is the very thing that makes it a sport utility vehicle under section 179(b)(5). Section 179 is capped at $32,000, bonus is not capped at all, and the whole $80,000 comes back this year.
- Above 14,000 lb, or with a 6 foot cargo bed. Neither definition reaches it. No vehicle cap of any kind.
That middle tier is worth dwelling on, because it is not an accident of drafting. Section 179(b)(5)(B)(i)(II) defines a sport utility vehicle as one "not subject to section 280F". The two caps are wired together deliberately: escaping the first is the condition for meeting the second. And the second only limits cost taken into account "under this section", which is section 179 and not section 168(k), so bonus walks straight through it.
The default state of the calculator above is a vehicle rated at exactly 6,000 lb. Change it to 6,001 and watch the answer move. That is the tool's whole argument and it takes one keystroke to check.
The order of operations, which is where the errors live
Four deductions can apply to one purchase and they are not alternatives. They run in a fixed order, each one working on what the previous one left, and the last of them truncates the total rather than adding to it.
Section 179 first, capped four separate ways: the annual dollar limitation of $2,560,000, a dollar-for-dollar reduction once total additions pass $4,090,000, the $32,000 vehicle cap if it is a sport utility vehicle, and your taxable income from the business, with any excess carrying forward rather than being lost. Then bonus on the basis section 179 did not take. Then MACRS on what is left of that, at the percentage for the class and the convention. Then section 280F, which caps the sum of all three and is multiplied by your business use percentage.
A calculator that stops after bonus reports $80,000 on the capped car above. That is not a rounding difference. It is the wrong answer by $59,700, and it is the answer the incumbent pages give.
Where the election is worth less than nothing
One consequence of that order is easy to miss and it is expensive. On a capped vehicle, bonus depreciation already fills the ceiling on its own for anything costing more than $20,300, so electing section 179 as well raises this year's deduction by nothing. That much is merely pointless. What makes it costly is that an election of any size forfeits the safe harbor described below, and that is worth years of recovery.
So the tool elects the smallest amount that still reaches the ceiling, which on a capped vehicle is usually zero, and says so on the result. Maximising the election is the right default for equipment and the wrong one for a car.
Four answers, because one would be a lie
A calculator that always returns a number has to invent one when it does not know. This returns one of four things and the wording changes with it.
Computed means nothing was assumed. Provisional means something was, and every assumption is listed underneath. Cannot be determined is reserved for the case where guessing would be indefensible: a truck, van or SUV whose weight rating you have not given. That figure is the entire answer, so the tool reports no number at all rather than picking a side of a $59,700 line. No deduction means there is no business use to depreciate.
The third one is the important one. An aircraft weight and balance tool on this site once reported "within limits" for a load it had not finished counting, which is the same defect: treating unknown as fine. A confident answer built on a guessed weight rating would be wrong in the direction that costs the most.
The anomaly, and the fix the IRS calls a safe harbor
Claiming 100 percent bonus on a capped car has a consequence so perverse that the Treasury published a procedure to undo it, and using that procedure depends on a choice you make in the first year.
Here is the trap. Bonus depreciation writes the whole basis off at once for depreciation purposes. On a capped vehicle you cannot deduct the whole basis, so the excess becomes unrecovered basis under section 280F(a)(1)(B), and that provision does not release it until the first taxable year after the end of the recovery period. The result is that years two through six give you nothing at all, and everything held back queues up behind the recovery period to come back at $7,160 a year.
On the $80,000 car above the two schedules diverge sharply. Under the statutory default the whole basis is not recovered until 2040, and by the end of 2031 only $20,300 of it has come back. Under the safe harbor the last dollar arrives in 2033, with $68,060 recovered by 2031. Same year one, same total, 7 years apart.
Rev. Proc. 2019-13 exists to fix it, and the Service's own word for what it is fixing is "anomalous". The method is simple: take the first-year ceiling in full, then apply the ordinary Publication 946 table rate for each later year to the basis the first year did not take, still capped each year by the ordinary limits. The first-year percentage is never used, because the first year is the ceiling.
Four conditions, and one of them is a decision
The vehicle must be a passenger automobile, acquired and placed in service after 27 September 2017, with 100 percent bonus allowable, and a basis above the first-year ceiling. Those four are facts. The fifth is not: no section 179 election may have been made, at all, in any amount. Example 2 of the procedure works through a taxpayer who elects section 179 and loses the safe harbor for it.
That is the single most consequential thing on this page that no incumbent calculator mentions. A section 179 election on a capped car buys nothing this year and costs you the faster schedule. The tool refuses to make one for you, and tells you when your own inputs would.
One honest uncertainty, stated rather than buried
Commentary from 2019 says the safe harbor stops applying after 2022, and for several years that was effectively true: the procedure requires the 100 percent bonus deduction to be allowable, and under the old phase-down nobody had 100 percent after 2022. That was a consequence of the rate, not a limit in the procedure. Rev. Proc. 2019-13 has no expiry date: section 6 gives an effective date of 13 February 2019 and nothing more, and its scope turns on the deduction being allowable rather than on a year.
The OBBBA restored 100 percent bonus for property acquired after 19 January 2025, which satisfies that condition again on the face of the text. The IRS has not restated the point since, so this page will not pretend the matter is settled. Both schedules are shown, the difference between them is named, and the choice is one to put to your preparer.
Where every figure comes from
Every number in this tool was read from the primary federal document that publishes it, on 2026-09-07. None was taken from a summary, a blog or another calculator.
- Passenger automobile ceilings: Rev. Proc. 2025-16, Tables 1 and 2; Rev. Proc. 2026-15, Tables 1 and 2.
- Section 179 amounts: 2025 from 26 U.S.C. 179(b)(1)-(2); Rev. Proc. 2024-40 (SUV cap); 2026 from Rev. Proc. 2025-32, section 4.24.
- MACRS percentage tables: IRS Publication 946, Appendix A, Tables A-1 through A-5.
- Bonus depreciation and the acquisition boundary: 26 U.S.C. 168(k), as amended by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, 139 Stat. 72, with the acquisition mechanics in Notice 2026-11, 2026-6 I.R.B. 491.
- The definitions and the caps: 26 U.S.C. 280F and 26 U.S.C. 179, read from the Code itself.
- The safe harbor: Rev. Proc. 2019-13, sections 3.01 and 4.03. The implementation is checked against Example 1 of the procedure, which works a case all the way through, so the test compares against the Service's arithmetic rather than mine.
- The form: IRS Form 4562, 2025 revision, for every line number, label and column letter shown above.
None of it is licensed. Federal statutes, regulations, revenue procedures and IRS publications are works of the United States Government and are not subject to copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. That is the reason this tool can quote the figures on the page rather than paraphrasing them.
The ceilings are not transcribed, they are derived. Section 280F(d)(7) requires the Service to index the statutory amounts, and each revenue procedure states the factor it used. Applying that factor to the amounts in the statute reproduces every published figure for 2025 and 2026 exactly, and a test asserts it. So if a future revenue procedure prints a number the derivation does not produce, the test fails rather than the page quietly going wrong. A separate test recomputes all thirty MACRS columns from the declining-balance method and checks them against the transcription, so neither the table nor the formula is trusted on its own.
A test can check that a figure has a source. No test can check that the figure is right. If you find one that disagrees with the current document, please tell me. Getting a tax figure wrong is worse than not publishing one.
Deliberately out of scope: tax years before 2025, state depreciation, real property and the 27.5 and 39-year classes, lease inclusion amounts, section 1245 and 1250 recapture on disposal, like-kind exchanges and trade-ins, and the alternative depreciation system other than the 50 percent business use branch. Each is handled by saying so rather than by approximating it.
Common questions
Why does this say $20,300 when I was told I could write off the whole vehicle?
Because of a cap almost nobody selling you the vehicle has a reason to mention.
Section 168(k) really does allow 100 percent bonus depreciation on a business vehicle acquired after 19 January 2025. What it does not do is override section 280F, which limits the total depreciation deduction on a passenger automobile to a flat dollar amount per year no matter what the vehicle cost. For 2026 that first-year amount is $20,300, from Rev. Proc. 2026-15.
So on a $80,000 car at 100 percent business use, the deduction is $20,300 and not $80,000. The difference, $59,700, is not lost. It comes back in later years, but slowly: once the third year has passed the cap falls to $7,160 a year, which is why a capped vehicle can still be recovering basis a decade after it was bought.
The lenders and dealerships that rank for these searches are not lying so much as answering a different question. A bigger first-year number sells a bigger loan. Check whether the page you were reading mentions section 280F at all.
What is the 6,000 pound rule, exactly?
It is the line between a vehicle that is capped and one that is not, and it is drawn in two different ways depending on the body.
Section 280F(d)(5) defines a passenger automobile as a four-wheeled vehicle made primarily for public roads and rated at 6,000 pounds unloaded gross vehicle weight or less, except that for a truck or van the measure is gross vehicle weight rather than unloaded weight. Those are not the same number, and the difference matters: a large SUV can be well under 6,000 lb unloaded and well over it loaded.
The figure you want is the GVWR, printed on the sticker inside the driver's door jamb. At or below 6,000 lb the annual ceilings apply. Above it they do not, and a different and much softer cap takes over.
The line is inclusive, which catches people out: the statute says "6,000 pounds or less", so a vehicle rated at exactly 6,000 lb is a passenger automobile and one rated at 6,001 lb is not. On a $80,000 purchase that single pound is worth $59,700.
If my truck is over the line, is it uncapped?
Not quite, and this is the part that is usually either wrong or missing.
Escaping section 280F is exactly what triggers the other cap. Section 179(b)(5)(B) defines a sport utility vehicle as a four-wheeled passenger vehicle "not subject to section 280F" and rated at not more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight. For such a vehicle the section 179 election is capped at $32,000 for 2026.
But read what that cap applies to: "the cost of any sport utility vehicle ... which may be taken into account under this section". This section means section 179. Bonus depreciation is section 168(k), a different section, and it is not capped. So on a $80,000 SUV over the line you elect $32,000 of section 179 and bonus takes the remaining basis, and the whole $80,000 comes back in year one.
Which means the $32,000 cap is close to a dead letter while bonus sits at 100 percent. It bites when bonus has been elected out of, or when the vehicle was acquired before 20 January 2025 and is still on the old phase-down.
Does a six foot cargo bed really change the answer?
Yes, and it is a real planning decision rather than a curiosity.
Section 179(b)(5)(B)(ii) excludes three kinds of vehicle from the sport utility vehicle definition: one with seating for more than 9 behind the driver, one with an integral enclosure fully enclosing the driver compartment and load area with no seating behind the driver, and one with a cargo area of at least 6 feet in interior length not readily accessible from the passenger compartment.
An excluded vehicle is not a sport utility vehicle, so the $32,000 section 179 cap does not reach it and section 179 is available on the full cost. In practice that means two otherwise identical crew-cab pickups, one with a 6.5 foot bed and one with a 5.5 foot bed, are treated differently.
While bonus is 100 percent the year-one total is the same either way, because bonus mops up whatever section 179 could not take. The bed length starts to matter the moment bonus does not apply: if you elect out, or the vehicle is on the old phase-down, the tool shows the two answers diverging.
Why did electing out of bonus cost me more than the bonus?
Because the first-year ceiling itself depends on whether bonus applies.
Section 168(k)(2)(F)(i) increases the section 280F(a)(1)(A)(i) first-year limitation by $8,000, and only where a section 168(k) deduction is allowed. That is why Rev. Proc. 2026-15 publishes two tables rather than one. For 2026 the first-year ceiling is $20,300 with bonus and $12,300 without, and every later year is identical.
So electing out of bonus on a capped vehicle costs you the $8,000 of ceiling as well as the bonus. Table 2 also applies in three other cases: business use of 50 percent or less, a used vehicle that fails the acquisition requirements in 168(k)(2)(E), and a vehicle acquired before 28 September 2017.
There is a companion fact worth knowing, because it runs the other way. The ceiling does not care how big the bonus percentage is. Rev. Proc. 2026-15 says Table 1 applies "regardless of whether" the deduction comes from the old section 168(k) or the amended one. A vehicle on the 20 percent phase-down gets the same $20,300 ceiling as one at 100 percent.
I bought it in one year and started using it in another. Which rules apply?
Both dates matter, and they do different jobs. This is the single most confusing thing in this area right now.
The date placed in service decides which year's ceilings and section 179 amounts apply, and which MACRS convention you are on.
The date acquired decides which section 168(k) you live under. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, applies to property acquired after 19 January 2025, and gives 100 percent. Property acquired after 27 September 2017 and before 20 January 2025 stays on the former section 168(k), whose percentage phases down 20 points a year: 40 percent for 2025, 20 percent for 2026.
So a truck ordered in December 2024 and delivered in 2026 gets 20 percent bonus, not 100. The mechanics of what counts as acquired are in Notice 2026-11, sections 3.02 and 3.03. The tool asks for both dates for this reason and shows which rule set it applied.
Is the disallowed amount gone?
No. It is deferred, and the tool shows you exactly how long that takes.
Section 280F limits the deduction, not the basis. Unrecovered basis is still there and is deducted in the years after the recovery period, subject to the same succeeding-year limit of $7,160 a year for 2026 vehicles. That is the number that makes a capped vehicle feel punitive: a $80,000 car has $59,700 to recover at $7,160 a year once the early years are used up.
The schedule on this page runs the whole thing out and names the calendar year the last dollar comes back. Almost no other calculator shows that, and it is the figure that actually decides whether a capped vehicle is worth buying in the business rather than personally.
One thing that can destroy the benefit is a fall in business use. See the next answer.
Why do you show two different recovery schedules?
Because there are two, they differ by years, and which one you get depends on a choice made in the first year.
Claiming 100 percent bonus on a capped vehicle writes the whole basis off for depreciation purposes. Since you cannot deduct the whole basis, the excess becomes unrecovered basis under section 280F(a)(1)(B), which does not release it until the first taxable year after the end of the recovery period. So years two through six give nothing and the queue clears at $7,160 a year afterwards. On the $80,000 example that finishes in 2040.
Rev. Proc. 2019-13 provides a safe harbor that lets the held-back basis be recovered during the recovery period instead: deduct the first-year ceiling, then apply the ordinary Publication 946 rate for each later year to what the first year did not take, still capped annually. That finishes in 2033 instead, and has recovered $68,060 by 2031 against $20,300 the other way.
The catch is condition 3.01(4): no section 179 election, in any amount. Example 2 of the procedure works through exactly that and the taxpayer loses the safe harbor. It is the reason this tool declines to elect section 179 on a capped vehicle.
One caveat kept in plain sight: the procedure has no expiry date, and its condition is that 100 percent bonus be "allowable", which the OBBBA restored for property acquired after 19 January 2025. But the IRS has not restated the point since, and commentary written during the phase-down years says the safe harbor stopped after 2022. So both schedules are shown rather than one being presented as settled. Ask your preparer which they are adopting.
What if business use drops below 50 percent later?
Then you pay some of it back, which is why the tool warns about it whenever use is above the line.
A vehicle is listed property. If qualified business use was more than 50 percent in the year you placed it in service and later drops to 50 percent or less during the recovery period, section 280F(b)(2) requires you to recapture the excess depreciation as ordinary income in that year and add the same amount back to basis. Any section 179 taken is recaptured too, on Form 4797 Part IV.
If use is at or below 50 percent from the start, the rules are different again and simpler: no section 179, no bonus, and straight line under the alternative depreciation system. Form 4562 makes this visible, printing "S/L" in the method column of Part V line 27 for exactly that case.
The threshold is inclusive. Exactly 50 percent is on the wrong side of it.
What does the mid-quarter convention do, and why do you ask about the rest of my year?
Because it is not a property-by-property choice. It is a test on your whole year, and most calculators simply ask you which convention you want, which is the wrong question.
Section 168(d)(3) says that if the aggregate basis of property placed in service during the last three months of the tax year exceeds 40 percent of the aggregate basis of everything placed in service that year, the mid-quarter convention applies to every item placed in service that year, not just the late ones. Otherwise you use half-year.
That changes the first-year percentage substantially: five-year property takes 20 percent under half-year, and between 35 percent and 5 percent under mid-quarter depending on which quarter it landed in. So the tool asks what share of your year's additions came in the last quarter and computes the convention instead of asking you to pick.
Leave it blank and it assumes half-year, says so, and marks the answer provisional. That is the conservative direction: assuming mid-quarter would understate the first year.
Can I file from this?
Use it to understand the number and to check the one your software produced. Do not file from it without your preparer looking at the election.
Every figure here is derived from a published federal source and the source is named on the result, but this models one asset. A real return has interactions this does not touch: the section 179 election is annual and irrevocable in practice, the business income limitation looks at your whole trade or business rather than this purchase, state conformity to bonus depreciation varies and several states decouple from it entirely, and a trade-in, a like-kind exchange or a mid-year disposal all change the arithmetic.
It also deliberately does not guess. If it cannot determine your vehicle's weight rating it reports no figure at all rather than assuming one, and where it has assumed anything it labels the answer provisional and lists what it assumed. A confident number built on a guess is worse than no number, because it reads like an answer.
This is not tax advice and no professional relationship arises from using it.