IRS Standard Mileage Rate 2026
The business rate rises to 70 cents per mile in 2026, up 2.5 cents from 2025. Here are the official rates, how to apply them, and what the IRS expects you to keep.
The standard mileage rate is the amount the IRS lets you deduct, or an employer reimburse tax-free, for each mile driven for business. It covers the whole cost of running the vehicle: gas, insurance, maintenance, repairs and depreciation. You cannot deduct those separately on top of it.
2026 rates by purpose
| Purpose | 2026 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Business | 70 cents / mile | 70 cents |
| Medical | 20.5 cents / mile | 21 cents |
| Moving (active-duty military) | 20.5 cents / mile | 21 cents |
| Charitable | 14 cents / mile | 14 cents |
These rates come from IRS Notice 2026-10, published December 29, 2025. The business rate applies to gasoline, diesel, hybrid and fully electric vehicles alike — the IRS makes no distinction.
The charitable rate is set by statute, not by the IRS, which is why it never moves.
How to apply it
Multiply your business miles by the rate. Drive 9,200 business miles in 2026 and your deduction is 9,200 × $0.700 = $6,440.00.
Tolls and parking fees are deductible on top of the standard rate. Nothing else is.
Standard rate or actual expenses?
You may instead deduct the actual cost of operating the vehicle. Two rules decide whether you still have the choice.
If you want to use the standard rate for a car you own, you must use it in the first year the car is available for business. Switch to actual expenses later and you can go back to the standard rate — but you cannot do the reverse.
For a leased car, once you choose the standard mileage rate you must keep it for the entire lease, renewals included.
Commuting is not business mileage
Driving between home and your regular workplace is a personal commute, never deductible, however far it is. The drive from one client to the next is business mileage. So is the drive from a home office — your principal place of business — to a client.
What the IRS wants to see
A deduction you cannot document is a deduction you will lose. The IRS expects a contemporaneous mileage log recording, for each trip: the date, the mileage driven, the destination and the business purpose.
« Contemporaneous » is the word that matters. A log reconstructed from memory in April, the week before filing, carries little weight in an audit.
Work it out
The mileage reimbursement calculator applies these rates, no sign-up needed. If you need the log itself, start from our free mileage log template.
Kilevo is a mileage tracking app that rebuilds your trips from your Google or Outlook calendar, computes the distances, and exports an IRS-ready annual report.
