Upholsterer Tax Deductions: 2026 Schedule C Guide to Fabric, Foam & the Customer's-Own-Material Job

Published: September 21, 2026 · Reading time: 11 min

TL;DR: A self-employed upholsterer runs a materials business and a labor business out of the same shop, and the return has to keep them straight. The walking-foot machine, compressor, and foam saw go under Section 179 on Line 13; fabric, foam, springs, and decking you supply are Cost of Goods Sold in Part III, while staples, thread, and adhesive are Line 22 supplies; on a customer's-own-material job you deduct nothing for the fabric, because you never bought it. The pickup-and-delivery van is Line 9 at $0.725/mile (Jan 1–Jun 30) and $0.76/mile (Jul 1–Dec 31) — 2026's rate changed mid-year; bailee coverage for customer furniture in your shop is Line 15; state bedding-law registration is Line 23; and a detached shop qualifies on Line 30 under §280A(c)(1)(C) without being your principal place of business — but the simplified method stops at 300 square feet, which a sofa-sized shop blows past. Upholstery isn't an SSTB, so the QBI phase-out doesn't apply — the worked example below still checks all three §199A limits, and shows the taxable-income cap clearing by $5,160.00 rather than assuming it does.

Most trade guides treat materials as a footnote. Upholstery cannot, because the single biggest variable in the shop is not what you buy — it is whether you buy it at all. Half the work in a typical reupholstery shop arrives as a COM job: the customer walks in with fourteen yards they picked out at a decorator showroom, and you supply labor, foam, and the hardware that holds it together. The other half is full-service, where you source the yardage and bill one number. Those two jobs can produce the exact same take-home and look nothing alike on Schedule C.

Layer on a shop full of other people's furniture — an insurance exposure almost no other trade has — a bench that needs to be big enough to flip a sofa, and a van that spends its life on pickups and deliveries, and the upholsterer's return has a shape of its own. Here is every write-off mapped to the right line for 2026, with a full §199A worked example at the end.

The Shop Equipment — Line 13 (Section 179 & De Minimis)

Section 179 — the year-one route

Anything with a multi-year life can usually be expensed 100% in year one under Section 179 on Line 13, as long as business use stays above 50%:

• A walking-foot or compound-feed industrial sewing machine, and a blind-stitch or serger if you run one
• An air compressor and pneumatic staple guns, the core of any production shop
• A foam cutting saw, hot-wire table, or band-style foam cutter
• A cutting and layout table, sewing table, and shop lighting
• A commercial steamer, spring-tying clamps, webbing stretchers with real service life, and a trestle or sawhorse set

The 2026 aggregate Section 179 limit is $2,560,000 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32, §4.24) — orders of magnitude beyond what a one-person shop spends, so the limit itself is never the binding constraint here. Section 179 versus bonus depreciation is the choice worth actually thinking about.

One thing you do not have to worry about: none of this is listed property. §280F(d)(4)(A) reaches passenger automobiles, other property used as a means of transportation, and property of a type generally used for entertainment, recreation, or amusement. An industrial sewing machine is none of the three, so there is no listed-property substantiation regime hanging over your shop equipment — only over the van.

De minimis safe harbor — the everyday gear

Items costing $2,500 or less per invoice can skip depreciation entirely with the de minimis safe harbor election and go straight to supplies on Line 22. That $2,500 is not in the regulation text — §1.263(a)-1(f)(1)(ii)(D) still reads $500 — it comes from Notice 2015-82, which raised the limit for a taxpayer without an applicable financial statement, exactly as the regulation's "or other amount as identified in published guidance" clause contemplates. Ripping chisels, staple removers, a regulator, hand tools, a shop vac: receipt in, deduction done.

Materials: COGS, Line 22, or Nothing At All

This is the section that separates upholstery from every other trade in this series, because there are three possible answers, not two.

1. Goods that end up inside the customer's furniture → Cost of Goods Sold, Part III. Fabric yardage you buy, foam, Dacron wrap, batting, jute webbing, sinuous or coil springs, burlap, deck fabric, welt cord, and the hardware that ships with a replacement mechanism. These are identifiable with a specific piece. Their cost is deducted against the job's revenue rather than in the year you bought the bolt — see COGS vs. supplies on Schedule C for the mechanics.

2. Consumables used across many jobs → Line 22 supplies. Staples, thread, spray adhesive, cardboard tack strip, blade cartridges, sandpaper, shop rags, gloves, and dust masks. Nobody can point to which sofa consumed which staple, and nobody needs to. Deducted in the year purchased.

3. Customer's own material → nothing. On a COM job the fabric is the customer's property from the moment they bought it. You never paid for it, so there is nothing to deduct — not in COGS, not on Line 22, not anywhere. This sounds obvious until a year's worth of work orders is in front of you and the temptation is to value the yardage you handled rather than the yardage you bought.

What COM actually does to your return

Take one sofa, one day of labor, two billing models. The customer's fabric runs 14 yards at $52 per yard.

node -e "
// Same sofa, same labor, two billing models
const yards = 14, pricePerYard = 52;
const fabric = yards * pricePerYard;
const foamAndFill = 180;

// Job A - COM (customer's own material): customer supplies the fabric
const comReceipts = 1850;
const comCogs = foamAndFill;
const comNet = comReceipts - comCogs;

// Job B - shop supplies the fabric, billed into one price
const supReceipts = comReceipts + fabric;
const supCogs = fabric + foamAndFill;
const supNet = supReceipts - supCogs;

const pct = n => (n * 100).toLocaleString('en-US', {minimumFractionDigits:2, maximumFractionDigits:2}) + '%';
const fmt = n => n.toLocaleString('en-US', {minimumFractionDigits:2, maximumFractionDigits:2});

console.log('fabric (14 yd x \$52)', fmt(fabric));
console.log('COM  receipts', fmt(comReceipts), '| COGS', fmt(comCogs), '| gross profit', fmt(comNet), '| margin', pct(comNet / comReceipts));
console.log('SUP  receipts', fmt(supReceipts), '| COGS', fmt(supCogs), '| gross profit', fmt(supNet), '| margin', pct(supNet / supReceipts));
console.log('gross profit difference', fmt(supNet - comNet));
console.log('gross receipts difference', fmt(supReceipts - comReceipts));
"

Output:

fabric (14 yd x $52) 728.00
COM  receipts 1,850.00 | COGS 180.00 | gross profit 1,670.00 | margin 90.27%
SUP  receipts 2,578.00 | COGS 908.00 | gross profit 1,670.00 | margin 64.78%
gross profit difference 0.00
gross receipts difference 728.00

Identical gross profit — $1,670.00 either way — off a gross-receipts figure that differs by $728.00 and a stated margin that swings 25.49 percentage points. Neither number is wrong. Line 1 gross receipts measures what came through the business, and on a COM job the fabric simply never did. But it means a shop that drifted from mostly-supplied to mostly-COM over two years will show falling revenue and rising margin on a flat income, and you should be able to say why before a lender, a preparer, or an examiner asks. Keep the COM/shop-supplied flag on the work order; it is the whole explanation.

Do you need formal inventory?

Probably not. Under IRC §471(c), a small-business taxpayer — average annual gross receipts for the prior three years at or below the §448(c) threshold, which is $32,000,000 for 2026 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32, §4.30) — may treat inventory as non-incidental materials and supplies rather than maintaining a formal year-end count. Every one-person shop clears that by a mile. What §471(c) simplifies is how you arrive at the COGS figure; it does not convert a bolt still sitting unsold on the shelf at December 31 into a current deduction. See Schedule C lines 33–34 and inventory valuation for the method election.

The Van — Line 9

Reupholstery is a pickup-and-delivery business. Sofas do not come to you, and the miles pile up fast: two trips per job minimum, plus runs to the foam supplier and the fabric house. Two methods on Line 9:

• Standard mileage rate: 2026 has two rates, because the IRS revised the rate mid-year. 72.5 cents per mile applies January 1 through June 30 under Notice 2026-10, and 76 cents per mile from July 1 under Announcement 2026-11, which modifies Notice 2026-10 and applies "to deductible transportation expenses paid or incurred for business, medical, or moving expense purposes on or after July 1, 2026." A full-year log must be split at the July 1 boundary and each half multiplied by its own rate — one annual number understates every mile driven after the change.
• Actual expenses: fuel, insurance, repairs, tires, and depreciation × business-use percentage. A box truck or heavy cargo van over 6,000 lbs GVWR may qualify for heavy-vehicle Section 179 treatment rather than standard mileage.

You must elect the standard mileage rate in the vehicle's first year of business use if you want the option of using it in later years. Either method requires a contemporaneous mileage log — date, miles, destination, business purpose — and the commuting rule still applies. Tolls and parking stack on top of either method.

The Shop Itself — Line 30

An upholstery shop is usually a detached garage, a converted barn, or a backyard building, because the work needs floor space and makes noise and dust. That physical fact lands you in the easiest of the three home-office doors. §280A(c)(1) reads, in full:

"(c) Exceptions for certain business or rental use; limitation on deductions for such use (1) Certain business use Subsection (a) shall not apply to any item to the extent such item is allocable to a portion of the dwelling unit which is exclusively used on a regular basis— (A) as the principal place of business for any trade or business of the taxpayer, (B) as a place of business which is used by patients, clients, or customers in meeting or dealing with the taxpayer in the normal course of his trade or business, or (C) in the case of a separate structure which is not attached to the dwelling unit, in connection with the taxpayer's trade or business."

The three subparagraphs are independent — you need one, not all three. (C) asks only that the structure be separate, not attached, and used in connection with the business. It does not require the shop to be your principal place of business and does not require customers to meet you there. It is also not a loophole around exclusivity: the lead-in words "exclusively used on a regular basis" govern all three subparagraphs, so a shop that still houses the family car or the lawn mower fails on the spot.

Nor do you drift outside §280A by building a shed. §280A(f)(1)(A) defines the term: "The term 'dwelling unit' includes a house, apartment, condominium, mobile home, boat, or similar property, and all structures or other property appurtenant to such dwelling unit." The backyard shop is inside the definition; subparagraph (C) is the exception that makes it deductible.

Where the simplified method fails this trade

Rev. Proc. 2013-13 §4.01 sets the safe harbor: "The allowable square footage is the portion of a home used in a qualified business use of the home, but not to exceed 300 square feet," and "The prescribed rate is $5.00." That is a hard $1,500 annual ceiling, and §3.02 of the same revenue procedure confirms the safe harbor reaches §280A(c)(1) uses — subparagraph (C) included.

Here is the problem: 300 square feet is smaller than a working upholstery shop. A two-car garage runs closer to 400. Every foot above 300 is simply not counted under the simplified method, so a 380-square-foot shop gets the same $1,500 as a 300-square-foot one. Before defaulting to the easy method, run the actual-expense allocation on Form 8829 — mortgage interest or rent, utilities, insurance, repairs, and depreciation, times business-use percentage — and compare. The simplified vs. actual comparison walks the trade-offs, including the fact that simplified-method years generate no depreciation and therefore no depreciation to recapture later.

Insurance — Line 15, and One Coverage Most Trades Don't Need

Your shop is full of property that belongs to other people. That is the defining insurance fact of this trade and it is worth naming explicitly, because a standard general liability policy does not cover it.

• General liability — the customer's floor scratched on a delivery, the injury on your premises
• Bailee or customers'-goods coverage — the heirloom wing chair in your shop when the pipe bursts or the shop burns. A general liability policy insures your liability; bailee coverage insures the property in your care, custody, and control. Upholsterers, along with dry cleaners and repair shops, are the classic buyers of it
• Shop contents and equipment coverage — the machines, compressor, and fabric stock
• Inland marine for furniture in transit on the van, if the delivery leg is a meaningful part of your exposure

All of it is deductible on Line 15. Commercial auto coverage travels with the vehicle — folded into actual expenses if you use that method, and never stacked on top of the standard mileage rate, which already has insurance priced into the per-mile figure. Health insurance premiums take the separate self-employed health insurance deduction on Schedule 1, not Line 15.

Registration, Licensing & Certification — Line 23 / Line 27a

• State bedding and upholstered-furniture registration. Most states regulate anyone who manufactures, renovates, or resells upholstered furniture and bedding, requiring a permit and the familiar sewn-in law label. Requirements and fees vary by state and some require separate registration in each state you sell into, so confirm yours — but wherever it applies, the annual fee is a Line 23 tax-and-license deduction
• Local business license and any home-occupation permit for the shop
• Sales tax permit, plus a resale certificate so the fabric you buy for resale is not taxed twice
• Trade association dues and training — a guild membership, a foam or frame-repair course, a trade show registration — typically Line 27a as continuing education, or Line 23 when billed together with a licensing fee

Everything Else — Lines 8, 11, 18, 24

• Advertising (Line 8): website, before/after galleries, local search ads, a fabric sample library used for marketing, van lettering
• Phone & software (Line 22 / Line 18): business share of the cell plan, estimating and work-order software, the yardage calculator you actually pay for
• Contract labor (Line 11): the 1099'd helper on two-person pickups and deliveries, or a sewer you send cushion covers out to
• Travel (Line 24a) for an out-of-town estimate or a supplier market; 50% of business meals (Line 24b)

The QBI Deduction: Check All Three Limits, Not Just SSTB Status

Upholstery is fabrication and repair work, not a specified service trade or business under 26 U.S.C. §199A(d)(2). §199A(d)(2)(A) pulls its list from §1202(e)(3)(A) — "health, law, engineering, architecture, accounting, actuarial science, performing arts, consulting, athletics, financial services, brokerage services, or any trade or business where the principal asset of such trade or business is the reputation or skill of 1 or more of its employees" — expressly read "without regard to the words 'engineering, architecture,'" — and §199A(d)(2)(B) adds investing, trading, and dealing. Reupholstering a sofa is on none of those lists.

That is a genuine advantage, and it is also where most people stop. §199A has three independent limits, and SSTB status is only the first:

1. SSTB phase-out — does not apply; upholstery is not an SSTB
2. W-2 wage / 2.5%-of-property cap — under §199A(b)(2)(B), the greater of 50% of the business's W-2 wages or 25% of W-2 wages plus 2.5% of the unadjusted basis of qualified property. It only engages above the 2026 threshold amount: $201,750 for single filers and $403,500 for joint returns (Rev. Proc. 2025-32, §4.26)
3. 20%-of-taxable-income cap — §199A(a)(2) limits the deduction to 20% of taxable income over net capital gain, and §199A(e)(1) says that taxable income is computed "without regard to any deduction allowable under this section." This one applies to every filer, every year, at every income level

The third is the one that quietly bites a solo trade business in a thin year. Here it is, checked rather than assumed.

A Realistic Shop Year

A married-filing-jointly household in 2026. One spouse runs a home-based upholstery shop out of a 380-square-foot detached garage, no employees; the other has $58,000 in W-2 wages. No other income, no capital gains, no itemizing.

node -e "
const grossReceipts = 132500;

const cogsMaterials = 31200; // fabric yardage, foam, batting, Dacron, webbing, springs, decking

const sec179Equipment = 8400; // walking-foot machine, compressor + pneumatic staplers, foam saw, cutting table, steamer
const supplies = 2150; // staples, thread, tack strip, cardboard tack strip, spray adhesive, blades, gloves
const milesH1 = 5200, milesH2 = 5800;
const rateH1 = 0.725, rateH2 = 0.76;
const mileageH1 = milesH1 * rateH1;
const mileageH2 = milesH2 * rateH2;
const vehicle = mileageH1 + mileageH2;
const insurance = 2650; // general liability + bailee/customers-goods + shop contents
const licensing = 475; // state bedding/upholstered-furniture registration, local business license
const contractLabor = 4200; // 1099 helper for two-person pickups and deliveries
const advertising = 1350;
const phoneSoftware = 720;
const other = 640; // guild dues, training, trade show

const partIIExpenses = sec179Equipment + supplies + vehicle + insurance + licensing + contractLabor + advertising + phoneSoftware + other;

const shopSqFt = 380;
const allowableSqFt = Math.min(shopSqFt, 300);
const homeShop = allowableSqFt * 5; // Line 30, simplified method

const grossProfit = grossReceipts - cogsMaterials;
const netProfit = grossProfit - partIIExpenses - homeShop;

const seTaxable = netProfit * 0.9235;
const seTax = seTaxable * 0.153;
const halfSeTaxDeduction = seTax / 2;

const spouseWages = 58000;
const standardDeductionMFJ = 32200;

const qbi = netProfit - halfSeTaxDeduction;
const taxableIncomeBeforeQBI = netProfit + spouseWages - halfSeTaxDeduction - standardDeductionMFJ;

const tentativeQbiDeduction = qbi * 0.20;
const taxableIncomeCap = taxableIncomeBeforeQBI * 0.20;
const qbiDeduction = Math.min(tentativeQbiDeduction, taxableIncomeCap);

const finalTaxableIncome = taxableIncomeBeforeQBI - qbiDeduction;

const forfeitedSqFt = shopSqFt - allowableSqFt;

const fmt = n => n.toLocaleString('en-US', {minimumFractionDigits:2, maximumFractionDigits:2});

console.log('mileageH1 (5,200 mi x \$0.725)', fmt(mileageH1));
console.log('mileageH2 (5,800 mi x \$0.76)', fmt(mileageH2));
console.log('vehicle total', fmt(vehicle));
console.log('grossProfit (Line 5)', fmt(grossProfit));
console.log('partIIExpenses', fmt(partIIExpenses));
console.log('homeShop (Line 30, 300 sq ft cap)', fmt(homeShop));
console.log('shop sq ft not counted', forfeitedSqFt);
console.log('netProfit (Line 31)', fmt(netProfit));
console.log('seTax (15.3% of 92.35%)', fmt(seTax));
console.log('halfSeTaxDeduction', fmt(halfSeTaxDeduction));
console.log('QBI', fmt(qbi));
console.log('taxableIncomeBeforeQBI', fmt(taxableIncomeBeforeQBI));
console.log('tentativeQbiDeduction (20% of QBI)', fmt(tentativeQbiDeduction));
console.log('taxableIncomeCap (20% of TI before QBI)', fmt(taxableIncomeCap));
console.log('qbiDeductionAllowed', fmt(qbiDeduction));
console.log('cap headroom', fmt(taxableIncomeCap - tentativeQbiDeduction));
console.log('finalTaxableIncome', fmt(finalTaxableIncome));
"

Output:

mileageH1 (5,200 mi x $0.725) 3,770.00
mileageH2 (5,800 mi x $0.76) 4,408.00
vehicle total 8,178.00
grossProfit (Line 5) 101,300.00
partIIExpenses 28,763.00
homeShop (Line 30, 300 sq ft cap) 1,500.00
shop sq ft not counted 80
netProfit (Line 31) 71,037.00
seTax (15.3% of 92.35%) 10,037.21
halfSeTaxDeduction 5,018.60
QBI 66,018.40
taxableIncomeBeforeQBI 91,818.40
tentativeQbiDeduction (20% of QBI) 13,203.68
taxableIncomeCap (20% of TI before QBI) 18,363.68
qbiDeductionAllowed 13,203.68
cap headroom 5,160.00
finalTaxableIncome 78,614.72

Gross receipts of $132,500.00 less $31,200.00 of Cost of Goods Sold leaves $101,300.00 in gross profit. Subtract $28,763.00 of Part II operating expenses and the $1,500.00 home-shop deduction on Line 30 and net profit is $71,037.00.

Note what the Line 30 figure costs: the shop measures 380 square feet, the simplified method counts 300, and those 80 square feet are simply not counted. At the safe-harbor rate that is $400 of deduction left behind before you even compare methods — and the gap grows with the shop. A Form 8829 actual-expense allocation across a real 380 square feet would very likely beat $1,500 here, which is exactly why the comparison is worth running once rather than defaulting forever.

On the QBI side: half the self-employment tax deduction ($5,018.60) brings qualified business income to $66,018.40. Adding the spouse's $58,000.00 in wages and subtracting the $32,200.00 joint standard deduction puts taxable income before the QBI deduction at $91,818.40 — far under the $403,500 joint threshold, so neither the SSTB phase-out nor the W-2-wage/2.5%-property cap is in play. The tentative deduction is 20% of QBI, $13,203.68. The taxable-income cap is 20% of $91,818.40, or $18,363.68. Here the cap does not bind — it clears by $5,160.00 — so the allowed deduction is the full $13,203.68 and final taxable income is $78,614.72, inside the 2026 joint 12% bracket, which runs from $24,800 to $100,800 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32, §4.01).

That headroom is not a property of the trade; it is a property of the household. The second income is what creates it. Strip the spouse's $58,000.00 of wages out and taxable income before QBI falls to $33,818.40, the cap drops to $6,763.68, and it binds hard — cutting the deduction roughly in half. A solo filer with no other income sees the cap bind essentially every year, by exactly 20% of the standard deduction. The point is not that the cap always bites or never does; the point is that it has to be computed, because nothing about clearing the SSTB test tells you which way it goes.

Audit Triggers & Common Mistakes

1. Deducting the customer's fabric on a COM job. You never bought it, so there is nothing to deduct. Valuing the yardage you handled rather than the yardage you paid for inflates COGS against receipts that never included it — an inconsistency visible on the face of Part III.
2. Running the same material through both COGS and Line 22. Foam bought for a specific chair belongs in one place, not two. Pick a treatment per category and stay consistent across the year.
3. Deducting unused fabric stock at year end. §471(c) simplifies inventory accounting; it does not make a bolt still on the shelf a current-year deduction. The cost follows the sale.
4. Taking the simplified home-office deduction on more than 300 square feet. The safe harbor's ceiling is absolute. If the shop is 500 square feet, the simplified answer is still $1,500 — and the actual-expense method is probably leaving four figures on the table.
5. Claiming a detached shop that isn't exclusively used. §280A(c)(1)(C) has a low bar, but "exclusively used on a regular basis" is in the statute's opening words and applies to it. A shop with the family car in one bay does not qualify — and a half-shop is not a fallback, it's a failed test for that space.
6. Skipping the July 1 mileage-rate split. Multiplying a whole year of pickup and delivery miles by one rate understates the deduction for every mile after June 30 and reads like an estimate rather than a log.
7. Assuming general liability covers customer furniture. It does not — that is what bailee coverage is for. This is an insurance mistake before it is a tax one, but it becomes a tax question fast when an uninsured loss has to be written off.
8. Claiming a flat "20% of profit" for QBI. Not being an SSTB clears one of three limits. The taxable-income cap is independent of it, and any preparer or examiner can recompute it in under a minute.

The defense in every case is the same: decide at the work order, not at the filing. Flag the job COM or shop-supplied, photograph and categorize each supplier receipt the day it arrives, log the miles at the stop, and keep records for the period the IRS expects.

How CentSense Helps

CentSense tags every receipt and mileage entry to the right Schedule C line at the moment you capture it, which is the only moment you still remember which job the foam was for:

• Scan the fabric-house and foam-supplier receipt with AI the day you buy it, and tag it to Cost of Goods Sold or Line 22 supplies right there — no April reconstruction from a supplier statement
• Categorize machines, the compressor, and the foam saw as Section 179 equipment on Line 13, separately from consumables
• Log pickup, delivery, and supplier miles as business use, with the two 2026 half-year rates applied to the right halves of the log
• Keep insurance, bedding-law registration, and license renewals visible as they're paid, so they land in your quarterly estimated taxes instead of surfacing in April
• Export a CPA-ready category breakdown as CSV when the return is due

For closely related trades, see Seamstress, Tailor & Alterations Tax Deductions, Freelance Carpenter & Woodworker Tax Deductions, and Blacksmith Tax Deductions.

Authoritative References

• IRS — About Schedule C (Form 1040)
• IRS — Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property (Section 179)
• IRS — Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-04 (Notice 2026-10, 2026 standard mileage rates effective Jan 1: 72.5 cents per business mile)
• IRS — Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-29 (Announcement 2026-11, revised standard mileage rates effective July 1, 2026: 76 cents per business mile)
• IRS — Internal Revenue Bulletin 2025-45 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32, §4: 2026 inflation adjustments — §4.01 rate tables, §4.14 standard deduction, §4.24 Section 179 limit, §4.26 §199A thresholds, §4.30 §448(c) gross-receipts threshold)
• IRS — Internal Revenue Bulletin 2013-6 (Rev. Proc. 2013-13, simplified home-office safe harbor: $5.00 per square foot, 300 square feet maximum)
• IRS — Internal Revenue Bulletin 2015-50 (Notice 2015-82, de minimis safe harbor raised from $500 to $2,500 for taxpayers without an applicable financial statement)
• 26 U.S.C. §280A — Disallowance of certain expenses in connection with business use of home (Cornell LII)
• 26 U.S.C. §280F — Limitation on depreciation for luxury automobiles; limitation where certain property used for personal purposes (Cornell LII)
• 26 U.S.C. §199A — Qualified business income (Cornell LII)
• 26 U.S.C. §1202 — Partial exclusion for gain from certain small business stock (source of the §199A(d)(2)(A) SSTB field list) (Cornell LII)

Stop guessing whether that bolt of fabric was yours or the customer's by the time April arrives. Start a free CentSense account, scan every fabric-house and foam-supplier receipt with AI the day you buy it, flag each job COM or shop-supplied while the work order is still on the bench, log pickup and delivery miles at the correct half-year rate, and export a CPA-ready Schedule C breakdown at tax time. Free tier includes 10 AI scans per month.

This guide is general education for U.S. self-employed upholsterers and furniture reupholstery businesses filing a Schedule C in 2026. It is not personalized tax advice — your facts determine the right treatment, and state bedding and upholstered-furniture registration requirements vary. Consult a CPA or EA for your situation.