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Most commercial studies run about $5,000 to $15,000. The fee tracks the work — the building's size, type, and records — and stays well under the deduction it frees up. With 100% bonus depreciation permanent after January 19, 2025, the year-one benefit and the return on the fee are both larger than before.
Quotes for the same study vary widely: a few hundred dollars from a software tool, several thousand from an engineering firm. That is not the same product under the same name — the IRS judges a study on the documentation behind each classification, not the fee you paid. A cheap report that cannot support its numbers gets adjusted back under review, and you lose the deduction you counted on.
The spread between the fee and the deduction it pulls into earlier years stays wide, and 100% bonus depreciation widened it further for property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025.
Four drivers set the fee. All four move the payoff too:
A larger, higher-basis building takes more analysis and carries more to reclassify. Size lifts the fee AND the payoff together — the ratio typically stays favorable.
A <a href="https://dimovtax.com/restaurant-cost-segregation-study/">restaurant</a> or <a href="https://dimovtax.com/self-storage-cost-segregation/">self-storage facility</a> — dense with short-life property — is more work than a bare warehouse, and returns more per dollar of fee. Property type is the biggest single variable.
Detailed construction costs make it faster; a lump-sum purchase price means more estimating and site work. Clean records = lower fee, cleaner study, easier defense in audit.
Reaching back several years adds a change-in-accounting-method filing (Form 3115). More work, but claims every missed depreciation dollar at once as a §481(a) adjustment — no amended returns.
A short look at the property — its cost, type, and placed-in-service date — tells you whether the deduction beats the fee. You do not commit to learn whether a study is worth it.
Each component identified and documented against the IRS framework — not pulled from averages by a spreadsheet. This is the version that holds under audit.
We do the study, the Form 3115 filing (if applicable), and the modeling against your return in one place. A deduction you cannot use this year — passive loss or low income — is wasted without that planning.
The deduction the study frees up is the number worth measuring — and these figures track it.
Set against the first-year deduction it produces, the fee is small. An illustrative $1 million commercial property with $250,000 reclassified into 5-, 7-, and 15-year lives generates a $250,000 year-one deduction under 100% bonus depreciation — against a fee in the low five figures. Ratios vary by building; the direction rarely changes.
The year-one deduction is a federal benefit. Some states — including California — do NOT conform to bonus depreciation, so the state result can be smaller and spread over a longer schedule. That's part of what we model before you commit.
A study may not be worth it in a few specific situations — and the honest answer, before you spend a dollar, is worth more than the fee saved.
Sources: IRS Publication 946; IRS Publication 544 (Sales & Dispositions); Form 3115 Instructions
A good fit if you:
Two verticals we handle often: restaurant cost segregation and self-storage cost segregation. Both dense with short-life property, both high-return.
A short note with the building, its cost, and when it went into service is all it takes to get the payoff read back to you, before you spend a dollar.
"About a quarter of the clients' returns that I look at are not fully utilizing the deductions that they have available. I think that number is even more."
— George Dimov, CPA, Founder of Dimov Tax
Before you spend a dollar. If it doesn't beat the fee, we'll tell you.
