The short answer

Store both the date rent arrived and the rental period it covers. Those dates answer different questions.

Calculator, coins, glasses, and a red pen on a lined notepad.
Illustrative stock photo · Photo: Tara Winstead / Pexels · Pexels License

Do not overwrite the received date

A ledger can apply a payment to a future month without pretending the payment arrived in that month. Preserve the bank reference and agreement describing what the money covers. Flag unusual prepayments for your tax preparer rather than changing dates to make reports look tidy.

For U.S. federal tax purposes, IRS guidance includes advance rent in income in the year received. [1]

Illustrative scenario: January rent reaches you in December. Label the covered period January and the actual receipt December. A refundable deposit is a different category; resolve ambiguous payment instructions before recording them.

Sources

This article was generated by AI using the sources below. Editorial standards.

  1. Tips on rental real estate income, deductions and recordkeeping — IRSSupports the attributed passage: For U.S. federal tax purposes, IRS guidance includes advance rent in income in the year received. The practical workflow and labeled examples are the publication’s own applications, not source-reported cases. Source checked Sep 8, 2026.

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