How to Track Your Miles for Taxes: Logs, Rules, and Deductions

To track your miles for taxes, log every business trip as it happens with four pieces of information: the date, where you drove, why, and your odometer readings at the start and end. At tax time you multiply your business miles by the IRS standard rate — 72.5 cents per mile for 2026 — or apply that same business-use percentage to your actual vehicle costs.¹ The tracking part is simple. The rules about who gets to use it, and what counts as a business mile in the first place, are where people lose the deduction.

First, Confirm You Can Actually Deduct Mileage

If you’re self-employed, a freelancer, or a gig worker driving for a rideshare or delivery platform, you can deduct business mileage on Schedule C. Track away.

If you’re a regular W-2 employee, you almost certainly cannot. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated unreimbursed employee business expenses starting in 2018, and Congress made that suspension permanent in mid-2025.² A short list of employees still qualifies — Armed Forces reservists, qualified performing artists, fee-basis state or local government officials, and employees with impairment-related work expenses — and they file Form 2106.³ Everyone else needs self-employment income to attach the deduction to.

What the IRS Requires in Your Log

Every deductible trip needs a record showing four things: the date, the destination, the business purpose, and the distance driven, supported by odometer readings at the start and end of the trip.⁴ Federal law treats vehicles as “listed property,” which triggers stricter documentation than most other business expenses.⁵

Timing matters as much as content. The IRS favors records created at or near the time of each trip. A log reconstructed from memory in March carries far less weight than entries made the day you drove. If an auditor sees a log that looks assembled after the fact, expect pushback, and the resulting underpayment can carry an accuracy-related penalty of 20% on top of the additional tax owed.⁶

What Counts as a Business Mile

The line is purpose. Your daily drive from home to your regular workplace is personal, even if you take work calls the whole way. Deductible business miles include driving from one work location to another, traveling to meet a client, heading to the airport for a business trip, or picking up supplies from a vendor.⁴

Mixed trips get split. If you drive from your office to a client and then swing by the grocery store on the way home, only the office-to-client leg counts. The rest is personal.

Temporary Work Locations

Driving to a work site you realistically expect to use for one year or less can be deductible even when the trip would otherwise look like a commute, as long as you have a regular office elsewhere.⁴ The moment you expect the assignment to run longer than a year, the deduction ends going forward.

The Home Office Advantage

If your home qualifies as your principal place of business — a space used regularly and exclusively for business where you handle most of your administrative work — every drive from home to another work location in the same business is deductible, regular or temporary, near or far.⁷ Your first drive of the day stops being a commute and starts being a business trip.

One Common Myth

Wrapping your car with your business logo does not convert personal miles into business miles. The IRS has said so directly: display material on your vehicle doesn’t change the character of the trip.⁴

How to Actually Keep the Log

The simplest method is a paper logbook kept in your car. When you start a business trip, write the date, your starting odometer, where you’re headed, and why. Record the ending odometer when you arrive. It takes about 15 seconds per trip, and that small habit is what separates a defensible deduction from a rejected one.

GPS-based smartphone apps automate most of the process. They detect motion, record the route, and prompt you to classify each trip as business or personal. Good ones export a year-end summary formatted for tax filing. If you drive frequently for work, automated tracking is worth the subscription, because the trips you forget to log are the deductions you lose.

If you keep records digitally, IRS rules require that your system maintain the integrity of the data and let you produce hard copies during an examination.⁸ In practice: back up your data, and don’t rely on a single app that could shut down or wipe your account.

Turning the Log Into a Deduction

Once you have your miles, you pick a method.

Standard Mileage Rate

Multiply your business miles by the IRS rate for the year. For 2026, that’s 72.5 cents per mile.⁹ A freelance photographer with 8,000 business miles claims $5,800. The rate covers gas, insurance, depreciation, maintenance, and repairs in one number, so you don’t need fuel receipts or oil change records.

You cannot use the standard rate if you operate five or more vehicles at the same time, and you have to choose this method in the first year the car is used for business. If you claimed accelerated depreciation, a Section 179 deduction, or the special depreciation allowance on the vehicle in that first year, you’re locked into the actual expense method for that car permanently.⁴

Actual Expense Method

Track every cost of operating the vehicle: fuel, oil changes, tires, repairs, insurance, registration, and either depreciation (if you own) or lease payments.¹⁰ At year-end, multiply the total by your business-use percentage. Drove 15,000 miles with 9,000 for business? 60% of your vehicle costs are deductible.

Actual expenses tend to beat the standard rate for newer or more expensive vehicles where depreciation is high, or for cars with heavy repair costs. Either way, you still need the mileage log, because the business-use percentage comes from it.

Parking and Tolls

Whichever method you use, business-related parking and tolls are deductible on top of your mileage or expense calculation.¹⁰ Log them alongside your trips.

Where the Deduction Goes on Your Return

Self-employed taxpayers report vehicle expenses on Schedule C, where the deduction reduces both income tax and self-employment tax. Multiple businesses each get their own Schedule C with their own mileage calculation. The narrow group of employees who still qualify — reservists, performing artists, fee-basis government officials, and those with impairment-related expenses — use Form 2106 and carry the result to Schedule 1.³

If you also drive for medical care or for volunteer work with a qualified charity, separate rates apply (20.5 cents and 14 cents per mile for 2026, respectively), and those miles need their own log entries to keep them out of your business total.¹

How Long to Keep Your Records

Keep your mileage logs and supporting documents for at least three years after you file the return that claims the deduction. That’s the IRS’s general statute of limitations for audits. It extends to six years if you fail to report more than 25% of your gross income.¹¹ Seven years covers virtually any federal or state scenario. Export your tracking app’s annual report as a PDF, back it up to cloud storage, and you’re done until someone asks.

1
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Sets 2026 Business Standard Mileage Rate at 72.5 Cents Per Mile
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 67 – 2-Percent Floor on Miscellaneous Itemized Deductions
3
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 2106 (2025)
4
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 274 – Disallowance of Certain Entertainment, Etc., Expenses
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6662 – Imposition of Accuracy-Related Penalty on Underpayments
7
Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Ruling 99-7 – Daily Transportation Expenses
8
Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Procedure 97-22 – Electronic Recordkeeping Requirements
9
Internal Revenue Service. 2026 Standard Mileage Rates – Notice 2026-10
10
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 510, Business Use of Car
11
Internal Revenue Service. How Long Should I Keep Records?