Published May 20, 2026.
The 2026 IRS standard mileage rate for business use of a personal vehicle is 70 cents per mile, up from 67 cents in 2025. It sounds small until you do the math: a real-estate agent or field-service contractor putting 18,000 business miles on their car this year is now claiming $12,600 in deductible expense — and at a combined federal-and-state tax rate around 30%, that is real money kept out of the IRS's hands. The catch, every year, is the same: most owners do not track contemporaneously, and at audit the IRS throws out the whole deduction.
This guide explains what the rate covers, what counts as a business mile, the IRS's contemporaneous-record requirement, the apps that actually do it for you, and how to reconstruct the year if you have already fallen behind. Published May 20, 2026.
The 2026 rate and what it covers
The IRS publishes the standard mileage rates each year on its Standard Mileage Rates page. The 2026 figures:
| Purpose | 2026 rate | 2025 rate |
|---|---|---|
| Business use of personal vehicle | 70 cents/mile | 67 cents/mile |
| Medical / certain moving (Armed Forces) | 21 cents/mile | 21 cents/mile |
| Charitable service | 14 cents/mile (set by statute) | 14 cents/mile |
The business rate is designed to cover everything: gas, oil, maintenance, repairs, tires, insurance, registration, depreciation, and lease payments. You cannot deduct any of those separately if you take the standard mileage rate — the 70 cents is meant to fold them all in.
You can still deduct parking, tolls, and the business-use portion of interest on a car loan or state and local personal property taxes on the vehicle, on top of the per-mile rate.
What counts as a business mile (and what doesn't)
This is where most deductions get killed in audit. The rules from IRS Publication 463 (Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses) are narrower than owners think.
| Counts as a business mile | Does NOT count |
|---|---|
| Driving from your office to a client site | Driving from home to your regular office (commuting) |
| Between two business locations in the same day | Stopping for coffee or lunch on the way to work |
| Travel to a temporary work location outside your metro area | Personal errands on a route that includes a business stop |
| From a qualifying home office to a client or business stop | The car sitting in your driveway between business trips |
| Business errands — bank, supplier, post office | Picking the kids up at school on the way home from a client |
The commuting rule is the most expensive misunderstanding. Driving from home to your regular place of business is not deductible — ever, regardless of how far it is. The exception is if you have a qualifying home office as your principal place of business. In that case, the first trip out of the home office to a client site is a deductible business mile, because you are leaving your principal place of business — not commuting from home.
Industries where mileage adds up fast: real-estate agents driving listings, field-service contractors, plumbers and HVAC technicians, delivery drivers, traveling salespeople, mobile health workers, and the self-employed in trades. If you run a trucking business, mileage rules are different — long-haul truckers usually take actual expenses and per-diem meal allowances; see our guide for bookkeeping for trucking companies.
The contemporaneous-record requirement
This is the rule the IRS uses to disallow mileage deductions in audit, and it is the rule most owners fail. From Pub 463: you must keep an "adequate" record that includes, for each trip:
- The date of the trip
- The business purpose (e.g. "site visit, ABC Corp" — not "client")
- The destination (address or recognizable location)
- The miles driven for that trip
And — the part that catches people — the record must be made at or near the time of the expense. That is what "contemporaneous" means. A spreadsheet typed up in March, the night before your tax prep meeting, listing 18,000 miles for the previous year, is not contemporaneous. The IRS will throw it out, and a tax court has backed them on this dozens of times.
Year-end odometer readings alone are not enough either. You need beginning-of-year odometer, end-of-year odometer, and a trip-by-trip log of business miles. The total of business miles plus personal miles should reconcile (within reason) to the odometer difference.
Mileage-tracking apps that actually work
The contemporaneous-record problem is solved by GPS-based apps that auto-detect drives and let you classify them with a swipe. They run in the background and produce IRS-compliant logs.
| App | What it does well | Approximate 2026 cost |
|---|---|---|
| MileIQ | Auto-detects drives, swipe-left/right to classify business/personal, monthly PDF reports | $5.99–$8.99/month or $59.99/year |
| QuickBooks Self-Employed (mileage feature) | Bundled with QBSE, drives flow into Schedule C estimated tax calculation | Included with QBSE subscription |
| Everlance | Auto-tracking, expense capture, generous free tier (30 drives/month) | Free tier; Premium ~$60/year |
| Stride | Free for gig workers, simple swipe classification | Free |
| TripLog | Fleet features, Bluetooth auto-start, multiple vehicles | ~$59.99/year for self-employed |
The point is not which app — it is having one. The deduction on 18,000 business miles at 70 cents is $12,600. A $60-a-year app that protects that deduction has a return on investment most CFOs would kill for.
Two operational rules that make any app work: install it the day you start the year, and classify your drives within a week. The apps lose their power if you let three months of "unclassified" trips pile up and try to remember them later — that defeats the contemporaneous-record point.
How to reconstruct miles if you fell behind
If it is May 2026 and you have nothing for January through April, you are not entirely out of luck — but you have to do honest reconstruction, not invention. The IRS does accept reconstructed logs in some circumstances; it just requires that the reconstruction is supported by other contemporaneous evidence.
The reconstruction approach that holds up:
- Pull your calendar. Every appointment with an address is a trip. Export it.
- Pull your phone's location history. Google Timeline (if you had it on) or Apple Significant Locations can both show where you were on what day. Screenshot the relevant months.
- Pull credit-card and bank statements. Gas station purchases, parking, restaurant lunches near client sites — all anchor specific trips on specific dates.
- Reconstruct trip-by-trip using Google Maps, putting in start and destination addresses. Document the source for each entry.
- Start tracking properly today, so the rest of the year is contemporaneous and the reconstruction only covers the gap.
What you should not do: total your annual mileage and "estimate" 70% as business with no underlying detail. That is the move that gets the entire deduction disallowed in audit. If reconstruction is producing a number wildly different from your actual driving pattern, it is wrong — and that is exactly the kind of pattern that triggers a Schedule C audit.
Standard mileage vs actual expenses
There are two methods. You choose at first use of the car for business.
- Standard mileage (the 70-cent method): one number, one rate, simple. Best for fuel-efficient cars, drivers under 25,000 business miles, and anyone who hates receipts.
- Actual expenses: track every receipt — gas, repairs, insurance, lease, depreciation — and deduct the business-use percentage. Better for expensive vehicles, low-MPG trucks, and high-mileage drivers whose actual costs exceed 70 cents per mile.
The lock-in rule: if the first year you use the vehicle for business you choose actual expenses and claim accelerated depreciation (Section 179 or bonus depreciation), you cannot switch to standard mileage later. If you start with standard mileage, you can switch to actual in later years for that same vehicle. Most self-employed owners start with standard mileage for that flexibility alone.
If you are unsure which method fits — or your bookkeeping is too far behind to even tell what your actual costs are — that is exactly the kind of cleanup a proper monthly bookkeeping service solves. A clean Schedule C with a real mileage log is one of the highest-ROI changes a self-employed owner can make.
FAQs
Q: Can I deduct miles for a car I lease?
Yes. The standard mileage rate is available for leased vehicles, but if you choose the standard rate in the first year of the lease, you must use it for the entire lease period — you cannot switch back and forth. Actual-expense method is also available, in which case you deduct the business-use percentage of the lease payments plus the business-use share of other car costs.
Q: Does the 70-cent rate apply if my LLC reimburses me for mileage?
Yes. An S-corp or multi-member LLC can reimburse a shareholder-employee for business use of a personal vehicle at the IRS standard rate under an accountable plan. The reimbursement is tax-free to the employee and deductible to the business. The shareholder still keeps a contemporaneous log; the company keeps the mileage report and the reimbursement record.
Q: What if I use the same car for two businesses?
Track miles separately for each business. The standard rate applies to each business's miles independently. Personal miles are personal regardless of which business is in question. This is the case where a tracking app earns its keep — the manual reconstruction across two businesses is a nightmare.
Q: Can I claim miles to my office if I work from home?
Only if your home qualifies as your principal place of business under the home-office rules in Publication 463. If your home office is genuinely where you do administrative work and run the business, miles from there to a client site are deductible. If your home office is just a desk where you check email after hours, the IRS treats the drive to your "real" office as a commute and disallows it.
Build a system that captures every mile and every deduction
The 70-cent rate only pays out if you have the records to back it. We build bookkeeping systems for self-employed owners and small businesses where mileage, expenses, and Schedule C deductions flow in automatically — so April never produces a surprise.
Tell us about your business — we will show you what a clean Schedule C looks like.