How Much Can You Deduct for Mileage on Taxes?

For the 2026 tax year, you can deduct 72.5 cents for every business mile, 20.5 cents per mile for medical trips or a military permanent-change-of-station move, and 14 cents per mile for volunteer driving on behalf of a qualified nonprofit.¹ How much you actually deduct on taxes depends on which of those categories your driving falls into, whether you’re self-employed or a W-2 employee, and whether you choose the standard mileage rate or track your actual vehicle expenses instead. Most employees can no longer deduct unreimbursed work mileage at all, so the first question is whether the deduction is available to you before you calculate what it’s worth.

The 2026 Mileage Rates

IRS Notice 2026-10 sets four rates for the year:

The business rate wraps in gasoline, oil, tires, insurance, registration, and depreciation. The medical and moving rates cover only out-of-pocket operating costs, which is why they run lower. The charitable rate is fixed by statute and stays at 14 cents until Congress changes it. All four rates apply the same way to gasoline, diesel, hybrid, and fully electric vehicles.²

Who Can Actually Claim It

If you file Schedule C as a self-employed person, freelancer, or independent contractor, you can deduct qualifying business miles against your business income.⁴

If you’re a W-2 employee, you generally cannot. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 suspended unreimbursed employee business expenses as a miscellaneous itemized deduction through 2025, and many taxpayers expected the write-off to return in 2026. It won’t. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, made that suspension permanent for all future tax years.⁵

Three narrow employee categories keep the deduction as an above-the-line adjustment:

Armed Forces reservists traveling more than 100 miles from home for reserve duties.⁶
Qualified performing artists who meet the statute’s income and expense thresholds.⁶
Fee-basis state or local government officials compensated wholly or partly on a fee basis rather than salary.⁶

Anyone can potentially deduct medical or charitable mileage, regardless of employment status, subject to the rules below.

Which Miles Count

Business miles include driving from your office to a client’s site, driving between two work locations, and driving to a temporary assignment expected to last a year or less.⁷

Commuting from home to your regular place of business is not deductible, no matter how far the drive. There’s one important exception: if your home office qualifies as your principal place of business, trips from home to another work location in the same trade or business count as deductible business miles.⁸ To qualify, the home office must be used exclusively and regularly for business.⁹

Medical mileage covers trips that are primarily for professional healthcare, such as driving to a doctor, lab, or hospital. Charitable mileage applies only when you drive in direct service to a qualified nonprofit, such as delivering meals for a food bank. Personal errands tacked onto either kind of trip don’t count.

Standard Rate or Actual Expenses

The IRS gives you two ways to calculate a business vehicle deduction, and you can only use one method per vehicle in a given year.

Standard Mileage Rate

Multiply your business miles by 72.5 cents. Add business-related parking fees and tolls separately. You cannot also deduct gas, insurance, repairs, depreciation, lease payments, or registration, because the per-mile figure already accounts for them.⁸

For a vehicle you own, you have to elect the standard rate in the first year the car is placed in service for business. After that, you can switch between the standard rate and actual expenses year to year. For a leased vehicle, the choice is locked: if you start with the standard rate, you must stay with it for the entire lease, including renewals.¹⁰

Actual Expense Method

Under the actual expense method, you deduct the business-use percentage of every real cost of operating the vehicle: gasoline, oil, tires, repairs, insurance, registration, lease payments, and depreciation (or a lease inclusion amount for leased vehicles). You track each expense and apply the ratio of business miles to total miles driven.

This method can produce a larger deduction for expensive vehicles, high-cost vehicles, or vehicles driven relatively few total miles where business is a large share. It also demands considerably more record-keeping.¹⁰

Parking and Tolls Add On

Business parking fees and tolls are deductible in addition to the standard mileage rate; they aren’t already baked in.¹⁰ Parking at your regular place of business, though, is a nondeductible commuting cost.

Calculating and Reporting Your Deduction

The math is simple. Multiply deductible miles by the applicable rate, then add parking and tolls. A freelancer who drove 10,000 business miles in 2026 would calculate 10,000 × $0.725 = $7,250 before adding parking and tolls.¹

Where you report the deduction depends on the type of driving:

Self-employed filers report business mileage as car and truck expenses on Schedule C (Form 1040). The form asks for total miles driven, the date the vehicle was placed in service, and whether you have written records.⁴
Reservists, qualified performing artists, and fee-basis officials use Form 2106 and carry the deduction to Schedule 1 (Form 1040).⁴
Medical mileage goes on Schedule A, deductible only to the extent your total medical expenses exceed 7.5% of adjusted gross income.
Charitable mileage goes on Schedule A as a charitable contribution.

The Log You Need to Protect the Deduction

The IRS expects a timely written record of your business driving. A log kept at or near the time of each trip carries far more weight than a reconstruction pulled together at tax time.⁸ A weekly summary counts as timely. Smartphone apps and paper notebooks are both fine.

Each entry should record the date, the destination, the business purpose, and the miles driven (either odometer readings or total distance). At year end, you also need your total miles for all purposes combined, so the IRS can check that your business-use percentage is reasonable.⁸

Keep the log and supporting records for at least three years after you file. That’s the standard window in which the IRS can audit most returns, and timely documentation is the strongest defense of the deduction if they do.

1
IRS.gov. 2026 Standard Mileage Rates Notice 2026-10
2
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Sets 2026 Business Standard Mileage Rate at 72.5 Cents Per Mile, Up 2.5 Cents
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 170 – Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts
4
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Schedule C (Form 1040)
5
Internal Revenue Service. Internal Revenue Bulletin: 2026-04
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 62 – Adjusted Gross Income Defined
7
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 511, Business Travel Expenses
8
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 463 (2024), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses
9
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 587 (2024), Business Use of Your Home
10
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 510, Business Use of Car