Office and retail rent
Rent for commercial space used in your trade or business is deductible. Schedule C line 20a ("Rent or lease — Vehicles, machinery, and equipment") and line 20b ("Other business property") separate equipment leases from real property rent.
Equipment leases
True equipment leases (operating leases) are deductible as rent. Capital leases / financing arrangements are treated as purchases — the lessee depreciates the asset and deducts the interest portion of payments. Lease classification follows ASC 842 for accounting and Rev. Rul. 55-540 (and successors) for tax.
Coworking space
Coworking memberships (WeWork, Industrious, Regus, local coworking) are deductible as rent or office expense. The mixed-use of common spaces and shared services makes the deduction straightforward — the membership fee is the deductible amount.
Home office vs office rent
You cannot deduct rent or imputed rent for the business use of your own home as a separate "rent" expense — use the home-office deduction (Form 8829 or simplified method) instead. Rent paid to your own LLC for property you also own can re-create economic substance issues; structure it carefully.
Prepaid rent
Cash-method taxpayers can generally deduct prepaid rent in the year paid if the coverage period does not extend more than 12 months beyond the payment date. Multi-year leases prepaid in full are not eligible for accelerated deduction.
Where this fits in the larger Schedule C picture
Schedule C has more than two dozen named expense lines plus an "Other expenses" catch-all. For most small businesses, four or five lines drive the bulk of the deduction total — vehicle, home office, depreciation, contract labor or wages, and supplies — and the remaining lines individually contribute small amounts that nevertheless add up. Treating each named line as a recurring decision rather than an afterthought, and revisiting the categories each January, often surfaces $2,000–$5,000 in additional legitimate deductions that a less disciplined process would have missed entirely.
Documentation that survives an exam
An IRS examination of this deduction will request three things: proof of payment (bank or card statement), proof of the underlying transaction (invoice or receipt), and proof of business purpose (a contemporaneous note or calendar entry). The first two are usually trivial to produce; the third is where most filers fall short. Capturing business purpose at the moment of the expense — a one-line note in your bookkeeping software or a category and memo on the receipt-capture app — converts a generic charge into a documented deduction that will withstand scrutiny three to six years later when memory has faded.