Property Depreciation Excel Template – Free (2026)
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Negative Gearing Calculator Excel - Free Template
Investment property calculator for rent, expenses, loan interest, net rental result, tax benefit and after-tax cash flow.
This negative gearing calculator is an Excel spreadsheet for working out the rent, deductible expenses, net rental result, tax benefit at your marginal rate and after-tax cash flow for one or more investment properties. It includes a property input sheet, a summary dashboard, an assumptions sheet and instructions.
Use it when you want a clear view of whether your rental property is running at a loss and what that loss is doing to your tax position. The layout is built for Australian investors, with fields for loan balance, interest rate, council rates, insurance, depreciation and annual rental income.
If you are comparing two properties, or checking whether the numbers still stack up after a rate rise, this template gives you the figures in one place. It is also handy at BAS time for keeping the bookkeeping side tidy, even though the actual tax result is worked through in your income tax return.
The key benefits of this Excel template
- Tracks annual rental income against a full list of deductible property costs in one place.
- Shows the net rental result so you can see the loss or profit before tax.
- Calculates the tax benefit at a chosen marginal tax rate, with the default set at 37%.
- Works across multiple properties, so you can compare a portfolio instead of one house at a time.
- Includes an after-tax cash flow figure, which is the number most owners care about when rates and repairs bite.
- Separates property-level inputs from the dashboard, which makes the file easier to update each year.
- Uses plain Australian dollar formatting and percentage fields, so the numbers are easy to read and check.
Step-by-step guide
- Open Property_Inputs and enter each investment property on its own row. Add the property ID, name, owner, city, state and purchase date first.
- Fill in the financial inputs, including purchase price, loan balance, interest rate, council rates, water rates, insurance, repairs, management fees, body corporate, depreciation and other deductible expenses.
- Enter the annual rental income for each property. The spreadsheet will then calculate total expenses, the net rental result, whether the property is negatively geared, the tax benefit and the after-tax cash flow.
- Check the Marginal Tax Rate in cell AA1 and change it if needed. The template defaults to 0.37, which is 37%.
- Review Summary_Dashboard to see the portfolio totals and compare properties side by side. Use it for a quick monthly or end-of-year check.
- Read Assumptions and Instructions before you start entering data for the first time. That keeps the file consistent if someone else picks it up later.
What is included
Property input sheet with 24 columns covering the main rental income and expense lines.
Portfolio summary dashboard for a fast view of totals across all properties.
A dedicated assumptions cell for the marginal tax rate, set up as a percentage.
Negative gearing result column that flags whether each property is running at a loss.
Tax benefit calculation based on the net rental result and marginal tax rate.
After-tax cash flow calculation to show the real cash effect of the property.
Instructions sheet to help you keep the workbook consistent from one review period to the next.
How investors use this Excel calculator for rental losses
People usually reach for a negative gearing spreadsheet when the numbers start to move and they want a quick answer, not a full tax work-up. That includes a sole investor with one unit, a couple with two rentals, or a bookkeeper helping a client with a small portfolio at tax time.
The Property_Inputs sheet is where the work happens. Image 1 shows the columns for property ID, property name, owner name, city, state, purchase date, purchase price, loan balance, interest rate and the expense lines that matter in real life: council rates, water rates, insurance, repairs, management fees, body corporate, depreciation and other deductible expenses.
Where the spreadsheet helps most
Say you have 2 units. One brings in $31,200 a year in rent and the other brings in $28,600, but the first one has $34,900 in total expenses because of interest, rates and repairs. This template shows the loss straight away, then carries it through to the tax benefit and after-tax cash flow.
Who benefits from the dashboard
Image 2 is the Summary_Dashboard, which gives you the portfolio view instead of forcing you to add rows by hand. That is useful when you are comparing a property with $18,000 of annual interest against one that is only lightly geared and close to break-even.
Why a simple workbook is enough for many owners
For most landlords, a spreadsheet is enough until the file gets messy or the portfolio becomes too large. If you can update 3 or 4 properties in under 10 minutes, you are still in the sweet spot where Excel beats more clunky software.
What the ATO expects from your rental property records
For Australian tax, the key thing is not the label “negative gearing” but whether the expenses are deductible and properly recorded. The ATO expects records to be kept for 5 years, and that includes loan statements, agent statements, insurance invoices, council notices and repair receipts.
Rent and expenses feed into your income tax return, not your BAS unless you have a separate GST-registered activity. Residential rent is generally input-taxed for GST, so you do not add GST to the rent and you do not claim input tax credits on the residential rental itself.
Marginal tax rate matters
This workbook uses a marginal tax rate cell, set to 37% in the file. If your net rental loss is $8,500, the tax benefit at that rate is $3,145, because $8,500 × 37% = $3,145.
Negative gearing is an income tax issue
Negative gearing happens when deductible costs, such as interest and repairs, are higher than the rental income. If a property brings in $24,000 and costs $29,000 to hold, the result is a $5,000 loss before tax and a smaller cash loss after the tax deduction is counted.
Keep the structure clean
If the property is in a Pty Ltd company or trust, the tax treatment can change, but the spreadsheet still helps you organise the figures cleanly. It is built around property-level tracking so you can hand the numbers to your tax agent without digging through bank feeds and PDFs.
When the property sits inside a self-managed super fund, the same clean tracking becomes essential for separating rental figures from the fund’s other transactions.
Where rental spreadsheets go wrong and cost you money
The biggest mistake is mixing cash flow with tax deductibility. A landlord can pay $12,000 in loan interest and still have a property that looks profitable on paper if repairs or depreciation have been left out, which means the after-tax figure is wrong from the start.
Another common problem is forgetting one-off costs, especially council rate catch-ups, insurance renewals and body corporate levies. On a property with $40,000 of annual rent, missing just $2,400 of expenses changes the net rental result by the same amount and can distort the tax benefit by $888 at a 37% marginal rate.
Data entry errors that distort the result
If the loan balance is typed as $280,000 instead of $820,000, the interest expense will be wildly off and the annual picture becomes useless. The same goes for using a monthly rate instead of an annual interest rate, which can understate costs by thousands.
Forgetting depreciation and other deductible items
Depreciation is easy to skip because it is not a cash payment, but it can still matter to the result. If the building and fittings schedule produces $4,500 of depreciation and you leave it out, you may overstate your taxable profit by that amount.
Why bad numbers create bad decisions
People often refinance, sell or hold a property based on a rough feel, then find the spreadsheet was understating the true annual drag by $6,000 or more. That is the difference between a property that is mildly negative geared and one that is chewing through cash every month.
How to make the calculator part of your monthly routine
The easiest way to keep this spreadsheet alive is to tie it to a routine you already do, like your month-end bookkeeping or the date your agent sends the rental statement. If you update it once a month, you will spot rate rises, repair spikes and vacancy gaps before they turn into a nasty surprise.
Use a simple update rhythm
- Copy the prior month’s figures and change only the new rent, interest and expenses.
- Check the Summary_Dashboard after each update so you can see whether the portfolio is drifting further negative.
- Use the Assumptions sheet for the tax rate and keep it in one place instead of typing it into every row.
Make the file easier to keep tidy
Turn your own checklist into a habit: enter the rent, then the loan interest, then the fixed holding costs. If one property has $2,150 in monthly rent and $2,480 in monthly costs, the monthly loss is obvious before you get to tax time.
Know when Excel is no longer enough
If you are tracking a portfolio of 10 or more properties, or you need linked bank feeds and live statements, it may be time to move to proper accounting software such as Xero or MYOB. Excel is still great for analysis, but it is not a substitute for source records when the job gets bigger.
That shift usually means you also need a BAS tracking sheet to keep tax reporting tied to the source records as the portfolio grows.
Frequently asked questions about this template
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File format
Excel (.xlsx)
Compatible software
Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice
Price
Free