Can I Write Off My Truck as a Farm Expense?

Yes, you can write off a truck as a farm expense when it is used in your farming operation, and the deduction scales with how much of your driving is farm business. For a heavy pickup over 6,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating placed in service in 2026, the combination of Section 179 and restored 100% bonus depreciation can wipe out the entire purchase price in the first year. For a lighter half-ton, annual depreciation caps stretch the write-off across several years.

What Counts as Farm Use

Federal tax law allows deductions for expenses that are ordinary and necessary for a trade or business, and farming qualifies.¹ Driving to the feed store, hauling cattle to auction, moving equipment between fields, and running for parts to fix a broken combine are business use. Grocery runs and the school route are not, and those miles produce no deduction.

The number that drives everything is your business-use percentage. Drive 20,000 miles in a year with 15,000 of them farm-related and your business use is 75%, so you deduct 75% of your vehicle costs.² For the biggest first-year deductions — Section 179 and bonus depreciation — business use has to exceed 50%. Drop below that in any year during the recovery period and you owe back part of what you already deducted.³

Commuting is where farmers most often trip themselves up. Driving from your house to a separate farm property is generally commuting, and commuting is not deductible. If your home is your principal place of business, though — which is common when bookkeeping, ordering, and planning happen from a home office used exclusively and regularly for the farm — trips from home to the fields count as business miles.⁴

Farmers also get a recordkeeping shortcut. Under Treasury regulation §1.274-6T, you can claim 75% of vehicle expenses as business use without detailed mileage logs, provided the truck is used during most of the normal business day directly in connection with farming. If your real business use is higher than 75%, actual records will produce a larger deduction.

Weight Decides How Much You Can Deduct in Year One

The single biggest factor in how aggressively you can write off a farm truck is its gross vehicle weight rating, printed on the sticker inside the driver’s door jamb. The IRS draws a bright line at 6,000 pounds GVWR.

Trucks at 6,000 Pounds or Less

Trucks rated at 6,000 pounds or less are classified as “passenger automobiles” for depreciation, regardless of how you actually use them.² That triggers annual Section 280F depreciation caps. For trucks placed in service during 2026, those caps are:⁵

First year with bonus depreciation: $20,300
First year without bonus depreciation: $12,300
Second year: $19,800
Third year: $11,900
Each year after that: $7,160

A $45,000 half-ton pickup under 6,000 pounds GVWR takes at least three years to depreciate fully under these caps, even with bonus depreciation. Most mid-size and smaller trucks fall into this category.

Trucks Over 6,000 Pounds

Heavy trucks escape the passenger automobile caps, but the IRS separates heavy pickups from heavy SUVs. Vehicles over 6,000 pounds that are primarily designed to carry passengers, such as a Suburban, Tahoe, or Expedition, face a separate Section 179 cap of roughly $32,000 for 2026. The rest of the cost can still be recovered through bonus depreciation and MACRS, but the first-year Section 179 chunk is limited.

Heavy-duty pickups with a full-size bed — the 3/4-ton and 1-ton class like an F-250, Ram 2500, or Silverado 2500 — generally are not treated as SUVs because they are not primarily designed to carry passengers.² A farmer buying one of these can potentially deduct the full purchase price in year one, with no SUV cap and no passenger automobile cap.

There is one more path around the passenger caps: trucks specially modified so they are unlikely to be used for personal purposes — permanent shelving, exterior branding, seating only for the driver — may qualify as “nonpersonal use vehicles” regardless of weight.²

Section 179 and Bonus Depreciation for 2026

Two provisions let you write off most or all of a farm truck’s cost the year you buy it rather than spreading it across five years of regular depreciation.

Section 179 lets you immediately expense up to $2,560,000 of qualifying equipment placed in service during 2026, phasing out dollar-for-dollar once total equipment purchases exceed $4,090,000. Those ceilings are inflation-adjusted and sit far above any single truck. To qualify, the truck must be purchased (not inherited or gifted) and used more than 50% for business.⁶ With 85% business use, you apply Section 179 to 85% of the purchase price.

Bonus depreciation is the second first-year lever. The One, Big, Beautiful Bill, enacted in mid-2025, permanently restored 100% bonus depreciation for qualified property acquired after January 19, 2025.⁷ A new or used truck bought in 2026 qualifies as long as it is the first time you use it for business, which reverses the phase-down that had been shrinking bonus depreciation each year since 2023.

For a heavy pickup over 6,000 pounds that is not subject to the SUV cap, stacking these provisions can zero out a $70,000 truck in year one. For lighter trucks under 6,000 pounds, the Section 280F caps still apply — first-year write-off is capped at $20,300 with bonus depreciation or $12,300 without, no matter the sticker price.⁵

Skip both provisions and you recover the cost over five years through standard MACRS. Trucks, light or heavy duty, are 5-year MACRS property.⁶

Ongoing Costs: Standard Mileage vs. Actual Expenses

Separate from the purchase, you deduct the cost of running the truck each year. The IRS gives you two methods.⁸

The standard mileage rate is simpler: multiply farm-related miles by 72.5 cents for 2026.⁹ A truck driven 10,000 farm miles produces a $7,250 deduction, plus parking and tolls. Gas, repairs, insurance, and a built-in depreciation component are baked in, so you cannot deduct them separately.

The actual expenses method totals every dollar spent on the truck — fuel, oil, tires, repairs, insurance, registration — and multiplies by your business-use percentage.² Spend $14,000 running the truck at 80% farm use and that is $11,200 in deductible operating costs. Depreciation is calculated separately and added on top. Only the actual expenses method lets you claim Section 179 or bonus depreciation.

For most farmers running expensive-to-maintain work trucks, actual expenses produce a significantly larger deduction, especially in year one. The mileage rate mostly wins on lighter trucks with low operating costs and moderate mileage.

Switching matters. Start with the standard mileage rate in the first year and you can move to actual expenses later, but you will be limited to straight-line depreciation for the truck’s remaining useful life.² Claim Section 179, bonus depreciation, or any accelerated method in year one and you are permanently locked out of the standard mileage rate for that truck. That lock-in is a common reason to start with actual expenses on a farm truck.

Two costs sit outside both methods. If you financed the truck, the business portion of loan interest is deducted separately on Schedule F (line 21a or 21b). Personal property taxes charged annually by local governments go on line 29.¹⁰ Both apply regardless of which method you use.

Records the IRS Expects

The IRS requires records kept at or near the time of each trip, not reconstructed in February from memory.² A mileage log is the most important piece of documentation. Each entry needs the date, destination, farm purpose, and miles driven. A notebook in the glovebox works. So does a smartphone app, as long as the original data is preserved — exporting selected entries to a spreadsheet does not meet the IRS standard, because the agency wants to test the integrity of the original file.¹¹

Your log needs to split total annual miles into three buckets: farm business, commuting, and personal. That breakdown is how the IRS verifies your business-use percentage, and a missing or sloppy log is the fastest way to lose a vehicle deduction in an audit. If you use actual expenses, keep every receipt for fuel, repairs, insurance, and registration, along with the bill of sale showing purchase price and date placed in service.

Where It Goes on Your Return

Farm truck expenses land on Schedule F (Form 1040), which reports all farm income and expenses.¹⁰

Standard mileage rate: multiply 72.5 cents by farm miles, add tolls and parking, and enter the total on line 10.⁹ Do not separately deduct depreciation, lease payments, or operating costs — the rate covers them.

Actual expenses: report the business portion of operating costs (fuel, oil, repairs, insurance, license plates) on line 10, depreciation on line 14, and lease payments on line 24a.¹⁰

Either way, complete Part V of Form 4562 to report total miles, business miles, commuting miles, and whether you have written evidence supporting the figures.³ Section 179 and bonus depreciation are captured in the earlier parts of the same form.

Recapture When You Sell or Trade

Every dollar of depreciation you claim creates a potential tax bill when you sell or trade the truck. This is depreciation recapture, and farm trucks are Section 1245 property. Gain on sale is taxed as ordinary income at your regular tax rate, not at capital gains rates, up to the amount of depreciation you previously claimed.¹² Only gain beyond total claimed depreciation gets the more favorable Section 1231 treatment.

Say you buy a truck for $50,000 and deduct the full amount through Section 179 in year one, driving your basis to zero. Three years later you sell it for $18,000. The entire $18,000 is ordinary income, because it is less than the $50,000 you previously deducted. Report the gain on Form 4797, Part III.¹²

Recapture does not mean the original write-off was a mistake. The time value of a large upfront deduction almost always outweighs the tax on a smaller sale years later. But if you rotate trucks frequently, factor the eventual hit into your planning.

Leasing Instead of Buying

Leasing produces a different structure. Rather than depreciating an asset, you deduct the business portion of each lease payment as an operating expense.² An $800 monthly payment at 80% farm use deducts $640 on Schedule F, line 24a. Advance payments have to be spread over the full lease term, not deducted upfront.

On more expensive leased vehicles, the IRS requires you to reduce the annual deduction by an “inclusion amount” that roughly mirrors the depreciation caps on owned passenger automobiles, using tables the IRS publishes each year. Choose the standard mileage rate on a leased truck and you have to stick with it for the entire lease.²

Leasing tends to fit farmers who want lower monthly payments and plan to swap trucks every few years. Buying is the stronger tax play when you want the full weight of Section 179 or bonus depreciation in year one and plan to keep the truck working on the farm for the long haul.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 162 – Trade or Business Expenses
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses
3
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 4562
4
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home
5
Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Procedure 2026-15
6
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 225, Farmer’s Tax Guide
7
Internal Revenue Service. Treasury, IRS Issue Guidance on Additional First Year Depreciation Deduction Amended as Part of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill
8
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 510, Business Use of Car
9
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Sets 2026 Business Standard Mileage Rate at 72.5 Cents Per Mile
10
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule F (Form 1040)
11
Internal Revenue Service. Use of Electronic Accounting Software Records – Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
12
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 544, Sales and Other Dispositions of Assets