Line G — Instruction 1040 (Schedule C)

If your business activity is not a rental activity and you meet any of the material participation tests, explained next, or the exception for oil and gas applies, check the “Yes” box. Otherwise, check “No.” If you check “No,” this activity is passive. If you have a loss from a passive activity, see Limit on losses , later. If you have a profit from the rental of property to a nonpassive activity, see Recharacterization of Passive Income in Pub. 925 to find out how to report the net income.

Material participation. For purposes of the seven material participation tests listed later, participation generally includes any work you did in connection with an activity if you owned an interest in the activity at the time you did the work. The capacity in which you did the work does not matter. However, work is not treated as participation if it is work that an owner would not customarily do in the same type of activity and one of your main reasons for doing the work was to avoid the disallowance of losses or credits from the activity under the passive activity rules.

Work you did as an investor in an activity is not treated as participation unless you were directly involved in the day-to-day management or operations of the activity. Work performed as an investor includes:

Studying and reviewing financial statements or reports on the activity,
Preparing or compiling summaries or analyses of the finances or operations of the activity for your own use, and
Monitoring the finances or operations of the activity in a nonmanagerial capacity.

Participation by your spouse during the tax year in an activity in which you own an interest can be counted as your participation in the activity. This rule applies even if your spouse did not own an interest in the activity and whether or not you and your spouse file a joint return. However, this rule does not apply for purposes of determining whether you and your spouse can elect to have your business treated as a qualified joint venture instead of a partnership (see Qualified Joint Venture , earlier).

For purposes of the passive activity rules, you materially participated in the operation of a trade or business activity during 2025 if you met any of the following seven tests.

You participated in the activity for more than 500 hours during the tax year.
Your participation in the activity for the tax year was substantially all of the participation in the activity of all individuals (including individuals who did not own any interest in the activity) for the tax year.
You participated in the activity for more than 100 hours during the tax year, and you participated at least as much as any other person for the tax year. This includes individuals who did not own any interest in the activity.
The activity is a significant participation activity for the tax year, and you participated in all significant participation activities for more than 500 hours during the year. An activity is a “significant participation activity” if it involves the conduct of a trade or business, you participated in the activity for more than

100 hours during the tax year, and you did not materially participate under any of the material participation tests (other than this test 4).

You materially participated in the activity for any 5 of the prior 10 tax years.
The activity is a personal service activity in which you materially participated for any 3 prior tax years. A personal service activity is an activity that involves performing personal services in the field of health, law, engineering, architecture, accounting, actuarial science, performing arts, or consulting, or any other trade or business in which capital is not a material income-producing factor.
Based on all the facts and circumstances, you participated in the activity on a regular, continuous, and substantial basis for more than 100 hours during the tax year. Your participation in managing the activity does not count in determining if you meet this test if any person (except you) (a) received compensation for performing management services in connection with the activity, or (b) spent more hours during the tax year than you spent performing management services in connection with the activity (regardless of whether the person was compensated for the services).

Rental of personal property. Generally, a rental activity (such as long-term equipment leasing) is a passive activity even if you materially participated in the activity. However, if you met any of the five exceptions listed under Rental Activities in the Instructions for Form 8582, the rental of the property is not treated as a rental activity and the material participation rules explained earlier apply.

Exception for oil and gas. If you are filing Schedule C to report income and deductions from an oil or gas well in which you own a working interest directly or through an entity that does not limit your liability, check the “Yes” box. The activity of owning a working interest is not a passive activity, regardless of your participation.

Limit on losses. Your business activity loss may be limited if you checked the “No” box on line G. In addition, your rental activity loss may be limited even if you materially participated. In general, a business activity in which you do not materially participate or a rental activity is a passive activity and you have to use Form 8582 to apply a limitation that may reduce the loss, if any, that you may enter on Schedule C, line 31. For details, see Pub. 925 .

Note: Line G doesn’t apply to filers of Form 1040-SS.