I'm a credit analyst at a national equipment finance company. This time of year, we get tons of questions concerning Section 179 including your particular question (equipment for rental) - except the equipment is usually yellow-iron rather than camera equipment. We dedicated a page including a simple calculator on the subject: Section 179 Tax Deduction Calculator | CrestCapital.com The answer already given today is perfect information and exactly correct. The quick answer we usually give to "rental yards" is: If the asset is treated as an asset (as opposed to an expense), the asset is qualified for Section 179 as long as it meets the remaining criteria.