Jury duty mileage is generally not taxable. When a court pays you a separate mileage allowance based on the round-trip distance between your home and the courthouse, that payment is treated as reimbursement for a cost you incurred, not as income. The daily attendance fee you receive for showing up is a different matter: that one is taxable and has to go on your federal return.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 525 – Taxable and Nontaxable Income
Why Mileage and the Attendance Fee Are Treated Differently
Courts pay jurors in two separate buckets. One is compensation for your time — a flat daily attendance fee. The other is reimbursement for what it cost you to get there, which typically includes mileage and may also cover parking, tolls, meals, or a subsistence allowance if you had to stay overnight.
The federal jury payment statute reinforces this split, placing attendance fees in one subsection and travel allowances in another.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1871 – Fees Federal mileage is calculated at a per-mile rate set by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and tied to your actual round-trip distance. Because the payment tracks a real expense, it functions as a reimbursement rather than additional pay, and courts generally don’t include it in the taxable amount they report to you at year-end.
The attendance fee works the other way. The IRS treats it as “other income” that you have to include on your return no matter how small the amount is and even if you never receive a tax form for it.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 525 – Taxable and Nontaxable Income There’s no low-dollar exemption and no short-service exemption. This applies equally to fees from federal and state courts.
When Mileage Could End Up Taxable Anyway
Not every court handles the split cleanly. Some smaller state courts pay a single lump sum without breaking out the fee from the mileage. If your court does that and reports the whole payment as income on a tax form, you’ll generally have to report whatever amount the form shows.
Check the payment breakdown on any documentation the court gives you. If mileage was itemized separately and doesn’t appear on your 1099, you don’t need to add it to your taxable income. If it was folded into one taxable number, that’s what you report.
How to Report the Taxable Portion
Jury duty pay goes on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), Line 8h, labeled “Jury duty pay.”3Internal Revenue Service. Schedule 1 (Form 1040) 2025 – Additional Income and Adjustments to Income Enter the amount the court paid you as compensation for your service. Don’t include separately paid mileage or other expense reimbursements.
If your total jury payments reach $600 or more in a calendar year, the court is required to send you a Form 1099-MISC reporting the amount.4Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Information Below that threshold you likely won’t get a form, but you still owe tax on the fee and still have to report it.
You Can’t Deduct Unreimbursed Jury Costs
If you drove to the courthouse or paid for parking and the court didn’t cover it, there’s no federal deduction available for 2026. Unreimbursed expenses of this kind were once deductible as miscellaneous itemized deductions subject to a 2% floor, but the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act suspended that category starting in 2018, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 made the elimination permanent. For most jurors the practical loss is small; for anyone serving a long trial without full expense coverage, it’s a real gap.