Adding Personal Leisure Days to Business Trips
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If you're self-employed or run your own company, then it is important to realize the possibilities when it comes to mixing business and leisure travel. Some smart planning and diligent record-keeping can help you enjoy some of the time and cost spent traveling for business as leisure while maintaining the deductibility of said costs.

For domestic travel, the IRS allows you full travel deductions (including airfare, airport parking, cabs, car rentals and tips) if the trip is "primarily for business." Be sure that the majority of the days spent away are "business days" wherein you materially conduct business. So if you are away for a week, be sure to include at least 4 business days. Also, you don't need to devote the entire day to business for it to count as a business day, but the business activity must be a significant part of the day. So if you have a couple of meetings, include the travel time and follow-up activities, you are on the right track. However, an unannounced stop-in at a client without any sort of real plan or agenda would likely not qualify that day as a business day. Just remember to use common sense and to be honest about the purpose of the trip. Are you trying to add in business to make the leisure trip qualify as a business or the opposite?

Days spent traveling to and from a business trip are counted as business days. Also, if you stay a few extra days to get a much better ticket price on your return flight, those days will also count as business days. So say you have business meetings in New York throughout the week and you are able to get a much lower return rate on Sunday night than you could on Saturday or Friday. You can stay the two extra days spent touring the city, both of them counting as business days.

Always be sure to document your trips thoroughly by saving receipts. A good idea is to mention business-related activities in follow-up correspondence with your business contacts to serve as proof of the businessrelated nature of your trip. Also, with some advanced planning, you can often schedule meetings in areas you would like to vacation, and as long as more than half of the days are spent dedicated primarily to business, your trip is fully deductible. If practical, however, try to minimize the days spent entirely on pleasurable pursuits to stay in the good graces of the IRS.

If you have further questions on this issue, please contact our offices.