Does the one-year holding period for the flipping rule start at closing or when I sign the purchase agreement?

The flipping rule's holding period is measured based on when you actually acquired and disposed of the property, which generally aligns with when ownership transfers - closing, in most conventional purchase and sale situations - rather than the date you signed a purchase agreement to buy in the future. Signing an agreement of purchase and sale is a commitment to buy, but ownership itself, and the clock the flipping rule cares about, generally runs from the point you actually take title.

This distinction matters because purchase agreements are often signed well before closing, sometimes far in advance, and the gap between signing and closing doesn't count toward how long you've "owned" the property for purposes of this rule. The same logic applies on the disposition side: the sale is generally measured by when you dispose of your ownership interest, not by an earlier agreement to sell. Because getting the exact dates right can matter significantly to whether a sale lands just inside or just outside the roughly one-year period this rule targets, it's worth confirming the precise acquisition and disposition dates for your specific transaction rather than estimating from memory.