PS Form 1164 USPS Mileage Reimbursement: Commute Deduction and Taxes

PS Form 1164, Claim for Reimbursement for Expenditures on Official Business, is the paper form USPS employees use to get paid back for local travel costs — mileage in a personal vehicle, tolls, parking, transit fares, taxi rides, and small miscellaneous expenses tied to postal work. You use it when the eTravel electronic system or a web-alias option isn’t available for the expense you’re claiming.1United States Postal Service. Policies, Procedures, and Forms Updates The form itself lives on the internal USPS web (IWEB) and is not posted on the public USPS site.2United States Postal Service. 3 Postal Service Forms

If you have eTravel access and the expense fits there, USPS policy is to submit through eTravel.3United States Postal Service. Employee and Labor Relations Manual – 716 Expenses The 1164 is the fallback for nonrecurring local trips and situations the electronic workflow doesn’t cover.

What You Can and Cannot Claim

Handbook F-15 sets the rules. Reimbursable categories include:

A few costs are not reimbursable and catch people out. Fuel for your personal car isn’t — the mileage rate already covers gas, oil, and wear, so a separate gas receipt will be denied. Meals on local travel are excluded; if a meal appears on an expense report you must mark it personal, and if you charged it to a government travel card you owe the card provider directly.11USPS Employee News. Rules for the Road Laundry, dry cleaning, and hotel tips are per diem items on overnight travel and can’t be claimed on a local-travel form.

Everything you claim must tie to authorized official business in the general vicinity of your duty station. Overnight assignments and relocation follow different F-15 chapters and go through eTravel.

Filling In the Header

Start at the top of the form:9FormsPal. PS Form 1164 E

  • Traveler’s Name: first name, middle initial, last name.
  • Employee ID: your Social Security number. USPS uses an eight-digit Employee Identification Number elsewhere, but this field asks for the SSN.
  • Employee’s Office: the name of your duty station.
  • Reason for Trip: a short description, such as “OIC assignment” or “MPOO meeting.”
  • Charge to Finance No.: the finance number your office uses for this expense type. Your supervisor can supply it if you don’t know it.

Below the header, check one box for the nature of the expense: General Meetings, Speaking Engagement, Detail, Project Team, Other Expense, or Training Course.

The Personal Car Block and the Commute Deduction

This is the part most people get wrong. For each trip, enter the departure date, the starting point (home or office), the destination city, and the business purpose. Then three mileage figures:9FormsPal. PS Form 1164 E

  • Total Trip Miles: the full round-trip distance you drove.
  • Local Commute Miles: if the trip started and ended at home, enter the round-trip distance from your home to your permanent duty station. If the trip started and ended at your office, enter zero.
  • Trip Miles Charged: Total Trip Miles minus Local Commute Miles. This is the number you get paid on.

The reason for the subtraction is that your normal commute is a personal cost, not official travel, and USPS never reimburses it.12United States Postal Service. 438 Pay During Travel or Training Handbook F-15 spells the formula out plainly: miles from home to the temporary duty station, minus miles from home to your permanent duty station, equals reimbursable miles.13NALC. Handbook F-15 Travel and Relocation – Section 7-1.1.1.3 Multiply the result by 72.5 cents to get the dollar amount for 2026.

You can determine distance from your odometer or a standard mileage guide. Odometer readings are not required on the form, but if the approving official questions your figure you need to be able to back it up, and any substantial deviation from the expected mileage or travel time for the route needs an explanation.14NALC. Handbook F-15 Travel and Relocation – Section 5-5.2.1.1.1

Taxi, Limo, and Other Expenses

For each taxi or limo ride, list the date, city, pickup and drop-off locations, the fare (tip up to 15 percent included), and whether you paid with a government travel card. If you shared the ride with another USPS employee, note that in the comments.9FormsPal. PS Form 1164 E

The Other Reimbursable Expenses block is the catch-all for tolls, parking, cash-advance fees, and similar items. Each line needs a date, city, description, dollar amount, and travel-card indicator. Be specific in the description. “Bridge toll, Bay Bridge” reads cleanly; “toll” alone invites a question back.

Receipts and Documentation

Attach a receipt for any miscellaneous expense over $50 that didn’t come in through prepopulated travel-card data.10NALC. Handbook F-15 Travel and Relocation Keeping your own copies of everything, even the small stuff, is worthwhile. A USPS Office of Inspector General audit of local travel reimbursements found that 65 of 75 reviewed forms were missing required information such as names, dates, trip purposes, or receipts.15United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General. Audit Report – Local Travel Reimbursements – Concord, CA, Main Post Office Incomplete forms come back to you, which delays payment.

Order your receipts to match the line items on the form. If line three is a parking charge from March 12, make that receipt the third attachment. Write a clear purpose in the comments so your approving official doesn’t have to guess.

Signatures and Submission

Two signatures are required. You sign and date the form to certify the expenses are accurate. Your supervisor or another approving official then signs to verify business necessity and authorize payment. The approving official is responsible for reviewing each line before signing. The same OIG audit flagged four reimbursements totaling $495 that had been processed with no approval signature at all.15United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General. Audit Report – Local Travel Reimbursements – Concord, CA, Main Post Office

Once both signatures are on the form, submit it through your local supervisor. Depending on your facility’s process, it stays local for accounting or is forwarded to the USPS Scanning and Imaging Center. Keep a personal copy of the signed form and receipts in case of a payroll discrepancy or later audit. Approved amounts pay out through the normal payroll cycle.

How the Reimbursement Is Taxed

Reimbursements paid through PS Form 1164 generally qualify as an accountable plan under IRS rules, so the money is not treated as taxable income and does not show up in Box 1 of your W-2. That treatment depends on three conditions: the expense has a business connection, you substantiate it (which the form and receipts do), and you return any advance exceeding your actual costs within a reasonable time, generally 120 days.16Internal Revenue Service. Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses If your reimbursement matches your documented expenses, you have nothing extra to report at tax time.