How to Deduct Meals and Entertainment in 2023

Tax Tips

From a company-wide Beer Friday to a fancy steak dinner with your biggest client, we'll walk you through the different meal deductions your business can take advantage of so you can save big on your tax return.

And if you need a bookkeeper (and tax expert) to guide you through some of this, check out Accracy.

2023 meals and entertainment deduction

As part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act signed into law on December 27, 2020, the deductibility of meals is changing. Food and beverages will be 100% deductible if purchased from a restaurant in 2021 and 2022. This applies to filing your taxes in 2023.

But for purchases made in 2023 onwards, the rules revert back to how they were defined in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This means purchases at restaurants are no longer 100% deductible.

Here's a breakdown of meal deductions using examples:


Type of Expense	Deduction
Entertaining Clients (Concert tickets, golf games, etc.)	0% deductible
Business meals with clients	50% deductible
Office snacks and meals	50% deductible
Company-wide party	100% deductible
Meals & entertainment (included in compensation)	100% deductible

Fully deductible meals and entertainment

Here are some common examples of 100% deductible meals and entertainment expenses:

A company-wide holiday party
Food and drinks provided free of charge for the public
Food included as taxable compensation to employees and included on the W-2

50% deductible expenses

Here are some of the most common 50% deductible expenses:

A meal with a client where work is discussed (that isn't lavish)
Employee meals at a conference, above and beyond the ticket price
Employee meals while traveling (here's how the IRS defines "travel")
Treating a few employees to a meal (but if it's at least half of all employees, it's 100 percent deductible)
Food for a board meeting
Dinner provided for employees working late

Entertainment tax deduction

If you were deducting meals and entertainment in previous years, you might have noticed the deduction amounts have changed. The 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act brought a few big changes to meals and entertainment deductions.

The biggest one: entertainment expenses are no longer deudctible. But some things haven't changed.

Here's a summary table of the most popular deductions, and how they've changed since 2017.


Type of Expense	2017	2018-2020	2021-2022	2023 onwards
Entertaining clients (concert tickets, golf games, etc.)	50% deductible	0% deductible	0% deductible	0% deductible
Business meals with clients	50% deductible	50% deductible	100% deductible	50% deductible
Office snacks and meals	100% deductible	50% deductible	50% deductible	50% deductible
Company-wide party	100% deductible	100% deductible	100% deductible	100% deductible
Meals & entertainment (included in compensation)	100% deductible	100% deductible	100% deductible	100% deductible

So what's nondeductible?

Most work-related meal purchases you can think of are either 100 or 50 percent deductible. But there are a few exceptions. For example, if you pay for your clients' night out but you don't actually go with them, it's nondeductible. The same applies to a client meal at a restaurant where you invite friends or spouses—the cost of your friends is nondeductible (but you can write off half the client bill).

And of course, with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, client entertainment is also nondeductible—no more golf games or courtside tickets.