Tax window until 2028: which renovation still pays off now

Value-preserving or value-enhancing: the distinction that decides your deduction

Swiss tax law recognises exactly two categories for renovations, and only one of them reduces your income tax. Deductible from income are exclusively value-preserving maintenance costs: everything that preserves, repairs or replaces the existing state on an equivalent basis. Value-enhancing investments, meaning everything that lifts your property above its original standard, are not deductible from income (sources: FTA and cantonal factsheets, VZ, HEV, cantons ZH, SO, AG).

The word investment is misleading in tax terms. Anyone who replaces a twenty-year-old kitchen with a new, equivalent kitchen is performing maintenance and may deduct it. Anyone who replaces that same kitchen with a clearly more upmarket one creates added value and may deduct nothing or only a part. The yardstick is not the price of the new kitchen, but the jump in standard compared with the old one.

This boundary is not always sharp, and that is exactly where the expensive misunderstandings arise. So before every larger job comes one question: am I restoring the old state, or lifting it?

What counts where: the classification table

The following overview assigns the most common works to the three tax-relevant categories. It sorts the most common cases, but in case of doubt does not replace the judgement of your tax office or trustee.

This separation belongs not only in your head, but on the tradesperson invoice. If the quote clearly states the value-preserving and value-enhancing shares, you save yourself the later discussion with the tax office.

When one invoice belongs in both buckets: the mixed case

In practice a single invoice often contains both: a value-preserving and a value-enhancing share. Then the value is split (sources: VZ, hausinfo).

The standard example is the kitchen steam oven. If you replace an old, broken microwave with a new, equivalent microwave, that is pure maintenance, fully deductible. If instead you install a steam oven, you do replace the appliance, but you also raise the standard. Tax-deductible is then only the hypothetical price of an equivalent new microwave. The extra cost of the steam oven over that comparison value counts as value-enhancing (sources: VZ, hausinfo).

The same logic applies to the upmarket kitchen, the higher-grade floor covering, the bathroom with added comfort. The value-preserving share remains deductible, the added value is split off and moves into the property gains tax calculation at a later sale.

Here lies the practical lever: the more credibly you can document the value-preserving share, the more remains deductible. Before-and-after photos of the renovation help to prove that share (source: VZ). A quote that separately states the comparison value of a simple replacement decides, in a dispute, how much stays deductible.

Energy-efficient renovations: the exception that still allows a deduction despite added value

For energy-efficient renovations the legislator makes a deliberate exception to the strict separation. Energy-saving, environmental and demolition costs for a replacement new build are deductible, even when they are partly value-enhancing, as long as they were not subsidised (sources: hausinfo, VZ). So anyone who insulates, installs a photovoltaic system or switches to better-insulating windows may deduct these costs from income, even though they objectively increase the value of their property.

Since 2020 there has additionally been relief for large projects. If such energy costs cannot be fully deducted from income in the year they arise, because they exceed income, the unused part can be carried forward to the next two tax periods, that is spread over up to three years in total, again only for non-subsidised measures (sources: hausinfo, VZ, weka). This keeps even an expensive full renovation tax-usable, even if the deduction exceeds your income in a single year.

But this advantage has an expiry date. With the imputed rental value reform, the deduction for energy measures at the level of direct federal tax falls away from 2029. The cantons may then grant it only on a time-limited basis, until 2050 at the latest (sources: FDF, BDO, VZ). For anyone renovating for energy reasons, the tightest window therefore closes at federal level: from 2029 this deduction is gone there, while at cantonal level it may remain for a while depending on your canton of residence.

One point that is often overlooked: energy costs you have deducted from income cannot additionally be counted as value-enhancing investment costs in the property gains tax. Double counting is excluded. Anyone planning here should clarify with their trustee at which level the deduction brings more.

Flat-rate or actual: you choose anew every year

You do not have to collect every invoice in order to deduct something: in all cantons you may decide anew each year whether to deduct the flat rate or the actual costs, and you get the flat rate without a single receipt (sources: hausinfo, VZ, Vontobel, ZKB, zh.ch).

The flat-rate deduction at federal level and in most cantons is 10 percent of the imputed rental value or of the gross rental income for buildings up to 10 years old and 20 percent for older ones; the canton of Zurich grants 20 percent generally (sources: hausinfo, VZ, ZKB, zh.ch). What matters is the age of the building since construction, not how long you have owned the property. Rate and age threshold can differ by canton, Zurich is only an example.

From this follows the simple decision rule: the actual deduction pays off only when your real maintenance costs are higher than the flat rate (sources: hausinfo, VZ). In a quiet year without larger works you take the flat rate. In a renovation year you account for the actual costs. From this follows a lever: anyone who bundles several works into a single tax year lifts the actual costs above the flat-rate threshold and gets the maximum out.

Spread before, bring forward now: why the timing rule reverses

Value-preserving costs are deductible only in the year of execution. Depending on the canton, the invoice or the payment date is decisive, which is why, to be safe, both should occur by the end of 2028 (sources: hausinfo, VZ). Timing has therefore always been a lever, and the classic rule of thumb was: spread large renovations over two years to break the tax progression (source: hausinfo).

• Previous logic (owner-occupied, before the reform): spread a large renovation over two tax years to break the progression in both years.
• New logic (owner-occupied, 2026 to 2028): bring deferred maintenance forward, execute and pay it by the end of 2028. From 2029 the deduction is gone.
• Bundle instead of spread: place several works into one tax year so the actual costs exceed the flat rate and the actual deduction pays off.
• Investment property (rented): no hurry. The maintenance deduction remains in place even after 2029. Here the classic spreading logic still applies.

For owner-occupied property this rule of thumb flips. Because the maintenance deduction, under the current state, only exists up to and including tax year 2028, value-preserving maintenance you pay from 2029 no longer reduces income tax for owner-occupied property. Spreading beyond the year 2028 is therefore lost money. Instead of spreading, it is therefore often worth bringing deferred value-preserving maintenance forward into the years 2026 to 2028 (sources: imputed rental value reform, planned entry into force 1.1.2029; Raiffeisen, FDF).

Brought forward also means fully booked: what 2027 and 2028 threaten

The following is experience from management, not tax law: when very many owners make the same calculation at the same time, demand hits a limited market all at once. The expected pull-forward effect is likely to tighten tradesperson capacity in 2027 and 2028 and push up prices.

That shifts the real calculation. A tax saving that an overpriced tradesperson eats up again is no saving. Anyone who only calls the joiners in autumn 2028 competes with all the other procrastinators for the same slots and pays the scarcity price.

The tax advantage therefore belongs to those who act early: early enough to pay before the end of 2028, and early enough to commission on reasonable terms and with choice. 2026 is the quietest year that remains for this.

Anyone who has no time to chase quotes and secure dates themselves from 2026 onwards can delegate the tendering and scheduling to a property management. What that looks like in concrete terms is set out below.

For landlords little changes: the investment property as a contrast

The entire pull-forward pressure concerns only owner-occupied residential property. For rented properties the maintenance deduction remains in place even after 2029 (sources: FDF, Raiffeisen).

So anyone who rents out a flat or a house does not have to squeeze their renovations into the window up to 2028. Here the classic reasoning still applies: carry out maintenance when it is needed, and for large amounts check whether spreading over two tax years breaks the progression more favourably. The separation between value-preserving and value-enhancing of course remains the same for investment properties, only the time pressure is absent.

For mixed-use properties, for example an owner-occupied house with a rented granny flat, the matter becomes more demanding, because both logics apply side by side. That is a clear case for individual review by the trustee.

More on this in the related guide: Real estate gains tax on sale: calculate and legally reduce it

Your roadmap until 2028

Where BoVita comes in

The tax deadline is one thing. The other is the logistics behind it: tendering in good time, documenting cleanly, keeping receipts findable for years. We take this part off your hands. BoVita is your property management, not a tax adviser. The tax assessment belongs with your trustee or tax office. What we deliver is the operational implementation on which your tax advantage depends in practice:

• Tender early, before tradespeople are fully booked: we coordinate deferred value-preserving maintenance in time so that execution and payment reliably fall before the end of 2028, and obtain the quotes while the market still offers choice.
• Document audit-proof: every invoice is recorded separately, value-preserving versus value-enhancing, self-used versus rented. This way the basis for the tax return is cleanly prepared rather than in a shoebox.
• Secure before-and-after photos: we record the condition before and after the work so the value-preserving share is verifiable in a dispute.
• Archive receipts for the property gains tax: value-enhancing shares reduce your tax later at a sale, but only if the receipts are still findable years afterwards. We archive them in an audit-proof way.