Cost Segregation for RV Parks and Campgrounds

A Site-Dominant Property Type

Most of an RV park or campground's value sits in site work, not structures. The RVs themselves are guest-owned and guest-brought, not part of the landlord's building basis, which shifts the property's own component story toward the ground beneath the vehicles rather than the vehicles themselves. That is a similar profile to a mobile home park, though the two differ in use: a mobile home park generally involves more permanent site placement, while an RV park or campground serves more transient and seasonal stays, pads rented by the night, the week, or the season rather than occupied indefinitely.

The Site Infrastructure

• Paved or graveled pads for each RV site
• Utility pedestals delivering water, sewer, and electric service to each site
• Internal roads and loop drives connecting the sites
• Perimeter fencing around the property
• Site lighting along roads, pads, and common areas

All of this falls into the 15-year land improvement bucket, the same category that covers parking lot paving and site utilities at any commercial property. On a park where nearly every site needs its own utility connection, that bucket tends to carry a large share of the property's total reclassifiable basis.

Utility Distribution: Water, Sewer, and Electric

A park's utility distribution is a network, not a single connection. Water and sewer lines run underground from a central connection, often a well and septic system or a tie-in to municipal service, out to each individual pedestal, and the electric service follows a similar path, typically stepping down from a main panel through a series of sub-panels feeding clusters of sites. That underground and pedestal-level distribution is site utility infrastructure, the same 15-year category that covers site utilities at any commercial property, and on a park with a hundred or more individually served sites, the utility run itself, not just the pad each site sits on, is a real share of the property's total site cost.

Septic fields and dump station plumbing serving the park as a whole follow the same logic. Where a park does not connect to municipal sewer, the septic infrastructure serving multiple sites is part of the same site utility picture, reviewed alongside the water and electric distribution rather than treated as a structure of its own.

Bathhouses, Camp Stores, and the Office

The structures on a park, the bathhouse, the camp store, the office, generally sit on the 39-year commercial schedule, the same as any small commercial building. Inside those structures, the components reviewed are the same kind reviewed in any small commercial interior: commercial-grade plumbing fixtures in a bathhouse, decorative lighting, and camp store shelving or refrigeration if the store sells food. The structure and its interior components are reviewed separately from the site work around them.

A bathhouse in particular tends to carry more reviewable interior detail than its small footprint suggests, since it is almost entirely plumbing fixtures, showers, sinks, and toilets on dedicated supply and drain lines, plus the tile or specialty flooring built to handle constant water exposure. A camp store's interior runs closer to any small retail space: shelving, a checkout counter, and refrigeration units if it sells cold drinks or food, each reviewed the way the same components would be reviewed in a standalone convenience store.

Recreational Amenities and Seasonal Infrastructure

• Pools and patios, explicitly part of the same 15-year land improvement category as paving and landscaping
• Playground equipment pads
• Propane or fuel distribution infrastructure, where a park offers it
• Dump station plumbing
• Seasonal water shutoff infrastructure at parks that close or limit service in winter

Each of these adds to the 15-year total on top of the core pad, road, and hookup infrastructure that carries most of a typical park's reclassifiable basis.

New Development, a Recent Purchase, or a Park You've Run for Years

The mechanics apply whether a park was built new, purchased as an existing operation, or has been running under the same ownership for years. New development has its site work priced directly from construction. A purchased park needs its basis allocated between land, land improvements, and any structures before classification starts, and on a site this land-improvement-heavy, that allocation carries real weight. A park operated for years and never studied qualifies for a look-back through Form 3115, with a section 481(a) catch-up deduction bringing missed depreciation into the current tax year at once.

Every commercial study carries the same floor: at least 20 times the fee in first-year deductions, or the study is free. Turnaround typically runs 4 to 6 weeks during tax season and 2 to 3 weeks in January and February, and every study is custom priced to the park's site size and hookup count rather than sold off a flat rate. A benchmark study on a standard office and warehouse property, a building with $1,911,675 of depreciable basis, produced $330,674 in first-year deductions, 33.4 times its $9,900 fee. That number describes a building-dominant property with comparatively little site work; a park where pads, roads, and utility distribution outweigh the structures on site runs a different mix entirely, more of the basis sitting in the 15-year bucket rather than the 39-year shell. See how the same 15-year land improvement category applies across property types on cost segregation site improvements, compare the full range of property types on cost segregation by property type, and get a free Preliminary Benefit Estimate at /qualify before committing to anything.

Frequently asked questions

Are RV site pads and hookups depreciated the same as a building?

No. Paved or graveled pads and the utility pedestals delivering water, sewer, and electric to each site are land improvements on a 15-year schedule, separate from any structure on the property, which generally sits on the 39-year commercial schedule instead.

How is an RV park different from a mobile home park for cost segregation?

Both are land-improvement-dominant and share a similar site infrastructure profile: pads, roads, utility distribution. An RV park generally serves more transient and seasonal stays, while a mobile home park involves more permanent site placement, though the underlying land improvement mechanics are similar either way.

Do a park's pool and playground count as land improvements?

Yes. Pools, patios, and similar recreational site features fall inside the same 15-year land improvement category as paving, fencing, and landscaping.

Does a campground office or camp store building qualify for cost segregation the same way as any small commercial building?

Yes. The structure itself is reviewed for its own components, fixtures, lighting, specialty flooring, refrigeration if it sells food, the same way any small commercial building's interior is reviewed, while the site around it is treated as land improvement.

Are the water, sewer, and electric lines running to each RV site depreciated as part of the land?

No. Underground utility distribution and the pedestal at each site are site utility infrastructure, part of the 15-year land improvement category, separate from the non-depreciable land itself and from any building on the property.

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