How Much Per Mile for Taxes: 2026 Rates, Rules, and Records

For the 2026 tax year, the IRS mileage rate per mile for taxes is 72.5 cents for business driving, 20.5 cents for medical trips and qualifying military moves, and 14 cents for charitable driving. You multiply your qualifying miles by the rate that fits the purpose of the trip, and that product is your deduction. The business rate is up from 70 cents in 2025 and 67 cents in 2024, so the year the miles were driven controls which rate you use.¹

The 2026 Rates in Full

IRS Notice 2026-10 sets four separate per-mile figures, each tied to why you were driving:

Business driving by self-employed individuals and other qualifying workers: 72.5 cents per mile.
Medical travel to and from doctors, hospitals, or other care: 20.5 cents per mile.
Moves under military orders for active-duty Armed Forces members, and, starting in 2026, certain intelligence community employees relocating for a change in assignment: 20.5 cents per mile.
Volunteer driving for a qualified nonprofit: 14 cents per mile.

The business rate is higher because it bakes in both the fixed costs of owning a vehicle (insurance, registration, depreciation) and the variable costs of driving it (fuel, maintenance, tires). The medical and moving rates cover only variable costs. The charitable rate is fixed at 14 cents by federal statute and does not move with inflation.²³

The same rates apply whether you drive a gas, diesel, hybrid, or fully electric vehicle. There is no separate EV rate.²

Who Can Actually Claim Mileage

Self-employed people and independent contractors are the main group who benefit. If you file Schedule C as a sole proprietor and drive to client sites, make deliveries, or travel between job locations, you deduct business miles directly against your business income. That reduces both your income tax and your self-employment tax.⁴

W-2 employees generally cannot. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act suspended the deduction for unreimbursed employee business expenses in 2018, and later legislation made that change permanent.⁵ Only four narrow categories of employee can still deduct job-related mileage on Form 2106:

Armed Forces reservists traveling more than 100 miles from home for reserve duties.
Fee-basis state or local government officials paid entirely through fees rather than a salary.
Qualified performing artists who worked for at least two employers, earned at least $200 from each, had business expenses exceeding 10 percent of their performing-arts income, and had an adjusted gross income of $16,000 or less before the deduction.
Employees with impairment-related work expenses.

If you’re a W-2 worker outside those categories, mileage reimbursement from your employer is your only route. A few states, including California, Illinois, and Massachusetts, require employers to reimburse necessary business expenses. Most do not.

Which Miles Count

The most common error is deducting a commute. Driving from home to your regular workplace and back is personal, no matter the distance, and it never qualifies.⁶ The rule holds even if you take work calls on the drive.

Miles do count when you travel between work locations during the day, visit a client or customer away from your regular office, or drive to a temporary job site. A location counts as temporary if it is realistically expected to last a year or less.⁶

The Home Office Exception

If your home qualifies as your principal place of business, the commuting rule flips. Every trip from your home office to a client, customer, or other work location in the same business is deductible regardless of distance or whether the destination is temporary.⁶

Mixed Personal and Business Use

When one car covers both grocery runs and client visits, only the business miles are deductible. The IRS will not accept a claim based on your total odometer reading alone; you need records that separate the two.⁷

Standard Rate or Actual Expenses

The IRS gives you two ways to deduct vehicle costs. You can figure it both ways and pick the larger deduction, which is worth doing at least once.⁷

The standard mileage rate is what this article is about: 72.5 cents times your business miles for 2026. That single rate replaces fuel, oil, repairs, tires, insurance, registration, and depreciation. Parking fees and tolls for business trips are still deductible on top of the rate.⁶

The actual expense method adds up every cost of operating the vehicle for the year and multiplies the total by the percentage of your driving that was for business. If 60 percent of your miles were business, you deduct 60 percent of your actual costs.⁷ This method usually wins when the car is expensive to operate or your business-use percentage is high.

Rules That Can Lock You Out of the Standard Rate

A few situations disqualify you from using the standard rate for a given vehicle:

If you own the vehicle, you must choose the standard rate in the first year the car is available for business. Start with actual expenses in year one and you’re stuck with actual expenses for that car. Start with the standard rate and you can switch back and forth in later years.⁷
If you lease, once you pick the standard rate you must use it for the entire lease, including renewals.⁷
If you claimed a Section 179 deduction, bonus depreciation, MACRS, or any depreciation method other than straight-line on the vehicle, you can never use the standard rate on that car.⁶
If you run five or more vehicles at the same time, such as a fleet, you must use actual expenses.⁷

Records the IRS Expects

The IRS wants written records made at or near the time of the trip, not reconstructed at tax time. A same-day entry carries far more weight in an audit than a spreadsheet you build in April.⁶ For each deductible trip, log:

The date.
The destination (client name or address, job site, facility).
The business purpose (meeting, delivery, conference).
The miles driven, backed by starting and ending odometer readings.

Paper logs work. So do GPS-based mileage apps, which capture timestamps and routes automatically. The IRS accepts computer-generated records as long as all four elements are there.⁶

Doing the Math and Reporting It

Multiply qualifying miles by the rate for the category. A self-employed contractor who drove 12,000 business miles in 2026 has a deduction of 12,000 × $0.725 = $8,700. Add business parking and tolls on top.⁴

Where the number goes depends on the type of driving:

Self-employed business mileage: Schedule C (Form 1040), Line 9. It reduces net profit, which feeds both income tax and self-employment tax on Schedule SE.⁸
Qualifying W-2 employees: Form 2106, with the total flowing to Schedule 1 (Form 1040), Line 12.⁵
Medical mileage: part of total medical expenses on Schedule A, deductible only to the extent those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income.
Charitable mileage: with your other charitable contributions on Schedule A.
Moving mileage for active-duty military and qualifying intelligence community employees: Form 3903.⁹

Check the arithmetic before filing. A mileage error can trigger an IRS notice or delay a refund, and fixing it means an amended return.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Standard Mileage Rates
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 USC 170 – Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts
4
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Schedule C (Form 1040)
5
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 2106 (2025)
6
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses
7
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 510, Business Use of Car
8
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule C (Form 1040) (2025)
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 217 – Moving Expenses