For 2026 the IRS business mileage rate is 72.5 cents per mile for miles driven January 1 through June 30 — and 76 cents per mile from July 1 through December 31. The rate changed on July 1, 2026, so a single annual rate is wrong for 2026 no matter which one a calculator shows you. Enter each half-year's miles separately, the way your return will.
The 2026 rates, all of them
| Purpose | Jan 1 – Jun 30, 2026 | Jul 1 – Dec 31, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Business (self-employed) | 72.5¢/mile | 76¢/mile |
| Medical / qualifying military moving | 20.5¢/mile | 23.5¢/mile |
| Charitable | 14¢/mile | 14¢/mile |
The business and medical rates come from the IRS's annual study of what it costs to own and operate a car; the original 2026 figures were announced in Notice 2026-10 (December 29, 2025), and the mid-year increase — business to 76¢, medical to 23.5¢ — in IR-2026-29. The charitable rate doesn't move with either announcement: it's written into the tax code itself at 14 cents and has been unchanged for decades. One more figure worth knowing: 35 cents of the first-half business rate is the depreciation component (the IRS publishes it for basis calculations if you later sell the car or switch methods). This page is re-checked every December when the IRS announces the new year's rates.
What counts as a business mile — and what doesn't
The line the IRS draws is between commuting and business travel, and it's brighter than most people expect. Driving from home to a regular workplace is commuting — personal, never deductible, even if you spend the drive on client calls. Driving from your workplace to a client, a job site, a supplier, or a second work location is business travel, and every mile counts.
Where freelancers win or lose is the home-office rule. If your home is your principal place of business, it is your workplace — so the trip from your front door to a client site is business travel, not a commute. If you have no regular workplace at all, trips to temporary job sites are generally deductible too. What never counts: detours for personal errands, and the drive to a location that has quietly become a regular workplace. The standard rate already bundles fuel, insurance, maintenance, tires, and depreciation — you don't add those on top. Parking fees and tolls for business trips are the exception: they're deductible in addition to the per-mile rate, which is why this calculator asks for them separately.
The log the IRS expects
A mileage deduction is only as good as its records. IRS Publication 463 requires a log kept at or near the time of the trip showing four things for every trip: the date, the destination, the business purpose, and the miles driven — odometer readings are the strongest form of the last one. Contemporaneous is the operative word. A spreadsheet reconstructed in April from a calendar and optimism is the classic audit failure, and mileage is one of the most-audited deductions on Schedule C precisely because so many people reconstruct it.
The good news: the log doesn't have to be fancy. A mileage-tracking app that records trips as you drive, a notebook in the console, or a dated photo of your odometer every Monday all satisfy the requirement. Pick the method you'll actually still be using in October.
Standard rate or actual expenses?
You have two ways to deduct a car, and the choice matters. The standard mileage rate is one IRS number per mile — no receipts beyond the log, no tracking of every oil change — and for newer, fuel-efficient cars driven heavily for business it's genuinely hard to beat. Actual expenses means tracking everything (fuel, insurance, repairs, tires, lease payments or depreciation) and deducting the business-use percentage. It can win for an expensive, thirsty vehicle driven fewer business miles — but the record-keeping is heavier, and the methods aren't freely interchangeable: a car depreciated under actual expenses may be barred from the standard rate in later years. You also can't claim both for the same use. Run both once with your real numbers before committing — and remember that whichever you choose, parking and tolls for business trips stay deductible.
One more boundary: if you're a W-2 employee, stop here. Unreimbursed employee business mileage is not federally deductible under current law — this tool is for the self-employed deducting on Schedule C (a few states still allow an employee deduction on the state return; check yours). And if you're wondering where a deduction this size lands in your quarterly payments, run it through our Quarterly Estimated Tax Calculator — or see what the SE-tax saving is made of in the Self-Employment Tax Estimator, which uses the same Schedule SE mechanics this page does.
Worked example
A self-employed contractor drives 6,200 business miles in the first half of 2026 and 5,800 in the second half, and pays $145 in business parking and tolls. They're in the 22% federal bracket, pay 5% state tax, and are self-employed:
- Jan–Jun deduction: 6,200 × $0.725 = $4,495.00
- Jul–Dec deduction: 5,800 × $0.76 = $4,408.00
- Mileage deduction: $8,903.00; with parking & tolls, $9,048.00 total
- Average rate across the year (mileage only): $8,903 ÷ 12,000 mi = 74.2¢/mile
- Federal savings: $9,048.00 × 22% = $1,990.56
- SE-tax savings: $9,048.00 × 92.35% × 15.3% = $1,278.44
- State savings: $9,048.00 × 5% = $452.40
- Total estimated savings: $3,721.40
That last line is the one to remember: a deduction isn't a refund, but at these rates it isn't small change either. Twelve thousand logged business miles are worth roughly thirty-seven hundred dollars of tax not paid — if the log exists to back them up.