Tax break for gym memberships—but only if you earn enough to claim it
H.R. 2369 — PHIT Act of 2025 · Filed by Mike Kelly (R-PA) · 28 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 26, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill allows individuals to deduct up to $1,000 per year ($2,000 for joint filers) in qualified fitness and exercise expenses—gym memberships, fitness classes, exercise equipment, and instructional materials—from their taxable income, treating them as medical expenses under the tax code. The bill aims to incentivize healthier lifestyles by reducing the after-tax cost of fitness participation.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a tax deduction—a reduction in taxable income for qualifying fitness expenses. It is framed as a health-promotion measure but functions as a tax expenditure (foregone federal revenue) that subsidizes fitness participation for taxpayers.
What the text implies
- The deduction is only valuable to taxpayers with sufficient income and tax liability to benefit from it; low-income households and those who do not itemize receive no benefit, making this a regressive subsidy of fitness spending.
- Fitness facility operators and equipment manufacturers stand to benefit from increased demand driven by the tax incentive, creating a secondary market-side benefit not explicitly stated in the bill's purpose.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
fitness facility operators and chains; exercise equipment manufacturers; fitness instruction providers