IRS Publication 15B — Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits

during the calendar year is by your employees, their spouses, and their dependent children. For this purpose, an employee’s dependent child is a child or stepchild who is the employee’s dependent or who, if both parents are deceased, hasn’t reached the age of 25. The exclusion doesn’t apply to any athletic facility if access to the facility is made available to the general public through the sale of memberships, the rental of the facility, or a similar arrangement. On-premises facility. The athletic facility must be located on premises you own or lease and must be operated by you. It doesn’t have to be located on your business premises. However, the exclusion doesn’t apply to an athletic facility that is a facility for residential use, such as athletic facilities that are part of a resort. Employee. For this exclusion, treat the following individuals as employees.

• A current employee.

• A former employee who retired or left on disability.

• A surviving spouse of an individual who died while an employee.

• A surviving spouse of a former employee who retired or left on disability.

• A leased employee who has provided services to you on a substantially full-time basis for at least a year if the services are performed under your primary direction or control.

• A partner who performs services for a partnership. De Minimis (Minimal) Benefits You can exclude the value of a de minimis benefit you provide to an employee from the employee’s wages. A de minimis benefit is any property or service you provide to an employee that has so little value (taking into account how frequently you provide similar benefits to your employees) that accounting for it would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable. Cash and cash equivalent fringe benefits (for example, gift certificates, gift cards, and the use of a charge card or credit card), no matter how little, are never excludable as a de minimis benefit. However, meal money and local transportation fare, if provided on an occasional basis and because of overtime work, may be excluded, as discussed later. Examples of de minimis benefits include the following.

• Personal use of an employer-provided cell phone provided primarily for noncompensatory business purposes. See Employer-Provided Cell Phones, later in this section, for details.

• Occasional personal use of a company copying machine if you sufficiently control its use so that at least 85% of its use is for business purposes.

• Holiday or birthday gifts, other than cash, with a low fair market value (FMV). Also, flowers or fruit or similar items provided to employees under special circumstances (for example, on account of illness, a family crisis, or outstanding performance).

• Group-term life insurance payable on the death of an employee’s spouse or dependent if the face amount isn’t more than $2,000.

• Certain meals. See Meals, later in this section, for details.

• Occasional parties or picnics for employees and their guests.

• Occasional tickets for theater or sporting events.

• Certain transportation fare. See Transportation (Commuting) Benefits, later in this section, for details. Some examples of benefits that aren’t excludable as de minimis fringe benefits are season tickets to sporting or theatrical events; the commuting use of an employer -provided automobile or other vehicle more than 1 day a month; membership in a private country club or athletic facility, regardless of the frequency with which the employee uses the facility; and use of employer-owned or -leased facilities (such as an apartment, hunting lodge, boat, etc.) for a weekend. If a benefit provided to an employee doesn’t qualify as de minimis (for example, the frequency exceeds a limit described earlier), then generally the entire benefit must be included in income. Employee. For this exclusion, treat any recipient of a de minimis benefit as an employee.

Dependent Care Assistance This exclusion applies to household and dependent care services you directly or indirectly pay for or provide to an employee under a written dependent care assistance program (DCAP) that covers only your employees. The services must be for a qualifying person’s care and must be provided to allow the employee to work. These requirements are basically the same as the tests the employee would have to meet to claim the dependent care credit if the employee paid for the services. For more information, see Can You Claim the Credit? in Pub. 503. Employee. For this exclusion, treat the following individuals as employees.

• A current employee.

• A leased employee who has provided services to you on a substantially full-time basis for at least a year if the services are performed under your primary direction or control.

• Yourself (if you’re a sole proprietor).

• A partner who performs services for a partnership. Exclusion from wages. You can exclude the value of benefits you provide to an employee under a DCAP from the employee’s wages if you reasonably believe that the employee can exclude the benefits from gross income. An employee can generally exclude from gross income up to $7,500 ($3,750 if married filing separately) of benefits received under a DCAP each year. 10 Publication 15-B (2026)