Does DoorDash Provide a Mileage Report for Taxes?

Yes — DoorDash does provide a mileage report for taxes, but with a serious limit. Eligible Dashers get an emailed annual mileage estimate by January 31, and it only counts miles driven while an order was active in the app. Miles between deliveries, repositioning trips, and other business driving are not in that number, so the DoorDash estimate is a starting point, not a finished record.¹

What DoorDash Sends You and When

DoorDash emails the mileage estimate to the address on your Dasher account by January 31 each year. It goes to U.S. and Canadian Dashers who were active during the year and dashed by car. If you did not complete any car deliveries or closed your account before year-end processing, you may not receive one.¹

The number covers “on-delivery” miles only: the distance from when you accept an order, through pickup, ending at the customer’s drop-off.² Check your inbox in late January or early February, including spam and promotions folders.

Why the DoorDash Number Alone Is Not Enough

Two problems. First, it undercounts. Second, it doesn’t meet the IRS’s recordkeeping rules by itself.

The estimate excludes any mile driven while the app is open without an active order. Driving to a busier zone, waiting between pings, or heading home after your last drop-off are all left out. Every one of those miles can be deductible if you have your own record of it. At the 2026 IRS standard rate of 72.5 cents per mile, the gap adds up fast.³

The IRS also requires contemporaneous records — created at or near the time of each trip — showing the date, destination, business purpose, and miles for every business trip.⁴ A single annual total delivered months after the fact does not satisfy that standard on its own. If you’re audited and have nothing but the DoorDash email, the deduction can be disallowed entirely.

Miles You Can Deduct That DoorDash Doesn’t Count

As a self-employed driver, your deductible business mileage goes well beyond the active-delivery leg:

Driving from one drop-off to a new pickup, or repositioning to a busier zone while waiting for the next order. The IRS treats travel between two work locations in the same business as deductible.⁵
Trips to buy delivery-related supplies like insulated bags or phone mounts.

The drive from home to your first pickup and from your last drop-off back home is normally a nondeductible personal commute. There is one exception: if you have a qualifying home office that is your principal place of business, transportation from home to any work location in the same business becomes deductible, including those first and last legs of the day.⁶

Personal errands, food runs for yourself, and any trip without a business purpose are not deductible. When you use the same car for personal and business driving, you have to separate the two.⁵

Keeping Your Own Mileage Log

The IRS accepts a paper logbook, a spreadsheet, or an app. The format doesn’t matter as long as the log is contemporaneous and captures the required details for each business trip.⁴ For every trip, record the date, the destination, a brief business purpose (for example, “DoorDash delivery” or “driving to pickup zone”), and the miles driven.

Also note your odometer reading at the start and end of the tax year. Individual-trip odometer readings are not required, but the annual figures anchor your total driving and let you calculate business-use percentage.

DoorDash partners with Everlance, a GPS-based tracking app that logs trips automatically so you can classify each one as business or personal. Dashers can use the free plan or get a discount on the premium version with the promo code EVERDASH.² Whatever tool you use, the point is the same: without your own log, all you’ll have at tax time is DoorDash’s on-delivery estimate.

How the Deduction Works on Your Return

You have two methods for deducting vehicle costs, and you can only use one per vehicle per year.

Standard Mileage Rate

Multiply your total business miles by 72.5 cents (the 2026 rate) and deduct the result.³ The rate is meant to cover gas, oil, insurance, and other vehicle costs, so you don’t track those separately. Parking and tolls are deductible on top of the rate.⁵ You must choose the standard rate in the first year you use the vehicle for business; after that, you can switch methods year to year. On a leased vehicle, choosing the standard rate at the start locks you in for the entire lease.⁷

Actual Expenses

You can instead deduct the business-use share of your real costs: gas, oil, repairs, tires, insurance, registration, lease payments, depreciation, and garage rent.⁵ That means keeping receipts for everything and applying your business-use percentage from the mileage log. Traffic tickets and parking fines don’t count under either method.

Where It Goes on Schedule C

Vehicle expenses go on line 9 of Schedule C (Form 1040), whichever method you use.⁸ If you’re using the standard rate and don’t have to file Form 4562 for another reason, you also fill in Part IV of Schedule C: the date you first used the vehicle for business, total miles for business, commuting, and other purposes, whether the vehicle was available for personal use off-duty, and whether you have written evidence supporting the deduction.⁹

What Happens If You Can’t Back Up the Miles

If you’re audited and can’t produce adequate records, the usual result is full disallowance of the mileage deduction. You then owe back taxes on the income the deduction offset, plus interest running from the original filing date.⁴ The IRS can add a 20% accuracy-related penalty if the underpayment came from negligence or a substantial understatement of income tax.¹⁰

Keep your mileage log and supporting records for at least three years after filing the return that claims the deduction.¹¹ Save DoorDash’s annual estimate too. It corroborates the on-delivery portion of your own log, and having both is stronger than having either alone.

1
DoorDash Support. Dasher Guide to Taxes
2
DoorDash Support. Track Mileage With Everlance
3
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Sets 2026 Business Standard Mileage Rate at 72.5 Cents per Mile, Up 2.5 Cents
4
eCFR. 26 CFR 1.274-5 Substantiation Requirements
5
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 463 (2024), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses
6
Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Ruling 99-7
7
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 510, Business Use of Car
8
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule C (Form 1040)
9
Internal Revenue Service. Schedule C (Form 1040)
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6662 – Imposition of Accuracy-Related Penalty on Underpayments
11
Internal Revenue Service. How Long Should I Keep Records?