Sole Trader Mileage in Ireland: Motor Expenses and Rates (2026)

Short answer: Ireland has no flat per-kilometre deduction for sole traders. The civil service motor travel rates — 41.80c to 90.63c per kilometre, unchanged since 1 September 2022 — let an employer reimburse employees and office holders tax free. A sole trader instead deducts the business proportion of actual motor costs, set by business kilometres over total kilometres, plus capital allowances at 12.5% a year for eight years on a car cost capped at €24,000 and cut further by CO2 emissions.

This is the most misunderstood expense in Irish self-assessment, and the confusion is worth naming up front: a search for mileage rates returns British results, where a sole trader genuinely can claim 45p a mile. That mechanism does not exist here. Everything below comes from Revenue and applies to a sole trader rather than a company. For the wider picture, see expenses and receipts for the self-employed in Ireland; for the return the figures land on, Form 11 explained.

Can I claim the civil service mileage rates as a sole trader in Ireland?

Almost certainly not, and it is worth understanding why rather than taking it on faith.

The rates sit on revenue.ie under Employing people → Employee expenses. The manual governing them, Tax and Duty Manual Part 05-01-06, is titled Tax treatment of the reimbursement of expenses of travel and subsistence to office holders and employees, and the words “self-employed” and “sole trader” do not appear in it. The rates are a mechanism by which an employer pays someone else tax free without a receipt for every litre of fuel. A sole trader has no employer to reimburse them.

Revenue has not published a sentence reading “sole traders may not use the civil service rates”. What it has published is a different route, stated positively: where expenditure covers both business and private use, work out the business portion and claim only that. So your motor deduction is built from receipts and an odometer, not from a rate card — more work, and in a year of heavy business travel in an older car often worth more.

What are the civil service motor travel rates for 2026?

They matter if you employ anyone, or if you trade through a company. Revenue republished the page in June 2026 and the rates remain those effective 1 September 2022 — no uprating in four years.

Kilometres in the year	Up to 1200cc	1201–1500cc	1501cc and over
Band 1: 0 – 1,500 km	41.80c	43.40c	51.82c
Band 2: 1,501 – 5,500 km	72.64c	79.18c	90.63c
Band 3: 5,501 – 25,000 km	31.78c	31.79c	39.22c
Band 4: 25,001 km and over	20.56c	23.85c	25.87c

The bands are cumulative across the year, not a choice. Reduced rates of 21.23c, 23.80c and 25.96c apply to journeys associated with the job but not made in the performance of its duties. Fully electric vehicles use the middle band, 1,201cc to 1,500cc, which Revenue states directly. Motorcycles run from 9.37c to 28.59c on rates effective 5 March 2009; bicycles are 8 cent per kilometre. All of these are on Revenue’s civil service rates page — note that Revenue’s own web page and its Tax and Duty Manual give different effective dates for the bicycle rate, so check the source before relying on that one.

How do I actually claim motor expenses as a sole trader?

You total the year’s running costs, then claim the business fraction. Revenue restricts the deduction to the proportion of business use, and for a car business kilometres over total kilometres is the standard way to evidence that proportion — it is the figure your log has to produce.

Running costs means the real outgoings: fuel, motor tax, insurance, servicing, repairs, tyres, NCT, breakdown cover. Tolls and parking paid on a business journey are a cost of that trip and come in at full value rather than through the fraction. Fines and penalties are not deductible at all.

A worked shape: 22,000 km driven, 13,200 of them business, gives a business proportion of 60%. Running costs of €6,400 produce a deduction of €3,840, before anything for the vehicle itself.

The Form 11 makes this explicit. Line 138 of the Extract from Accounts panel is Motor, Travel and Subsistence; line 160 of the adjusted profit computation is Motor Expenses — add back private element. If you never worked the private share out, there is nothing to enter on line 160, and that is the gap a compliance intervention finds.

How much can I claim for the car itself?

Separately, through capital allowances. The rate is 12.5% a year on a straight line, writing the allowable cost off evenly over eight years, then reduced to the business proportion.

The allowable cost is not what you paid. It is capped at a specified amount of €24,000 and cut further by the car’s CO2 emissions at manufacture. For cars purchased on or after 1 January 2025:

Group	Category	CO2 (g/km)	Allowable expenditure
1	A, B	0 – 140	€24,000
2	C	141 – 155	50% of €24,000, or 50% of retail price when new if lower
3	D, E, F	156 and over	Nil

Two things to get right. A car emitting over 155g/km gets no wear and tear allowance at all under the table above. Those emission bands have been tightened over the years, and an older car bought under an earlier version of the table may have qualified for more — if you bought before 2025, check the table that applied on your purchase date in Revenue’s Guide to Completing 2025 Pay & File Self-Assessment Returns rather than assuming the current one.

The second is that €24,000 is a ceiling, not a floor. Revenue gives the allowance on the lower of the actual cost or the specified limit, so a cheap car is written off over what it actually cost. Revenue’s own worked example runs the other way: a car at 140g/km costing €26,000 is restricted to €24,000, giving wear and tear of €3,000 a year, which is then cut to the business share — two-thirds in Revenue’s example, so €2,000.

Vans, trucks and tractors sit outside this entirely, qualifying for unrestricted capital allowances as vehicles not normally used as private vehicles — which is why a trades person’s van is treated far more generously than a car. If you lease rather than buy, you claim lease payments restricted by the same CO2 regime and business proportion, and no wear and tear.

What counts as business travel, and can I claim the drive to work?

Revenue’s detailed guidance on commuting is written for employees, so treat this as the settled principle rather than a quotable rule. That principle is that travel is deductible where undertaken for the purposes of the trade, and choosing where to live is not a purpose of the trade.

Journey	Ordinarily
Home to a fixed premises you rent or own	Private
Home to a client site, where home is genuinely your base	Business
Between two client sites in the same day	Business
To the wholesaler, the bank, an accountant, a supplier	Business
A detour for shopping mid-way through a business trip	The detour is private

The deciding question in most cases is whether you have a fixed business base other than home. An electrician working from a home base to a different site each day is on business travel from the door. The same electrician who rents a unit and drives there each morning is commuting on that leg, and on business from the unit onward. If your circumstances sit near the line, ask an accountant rather than guess on the return.

What does Revenue expect my mileage log to contain?

There is no prescribed sole trader logbook. The obligation is that your records substantiate the figure you claimed, and a business-over-total fraction cannot be substantiated by memory. Revenue does set out what a record must contain for reimbursed travel, and while that list is written for employers it is a sound template:

• The date of the journey
• The reason for the journey
• The kilometres travelled
• The starting point, destination and finishing point

Add the thing sole traders forget: the total kilometres for the year, from odometer readings on 1 January and 31 December. Business kilometres alone give you a numerator with no denominator, and the whole claim rests on the ratio.

Keep it for six years, with the fuel, insurance and servicing receipts alongside — Revenue’s guide states that supporting documentation must be retained for six years in case it is requested for an assurance check or audit. That period can run longer in some circumstances, so ask Revenue or your accountant before you throw anything out. Records should be kept as you go rather than assembled after the fact. Do not send any of it with the return — you complete the Extract from Accounts panels and retain the documents in case Revenue asks. The 2025 Form 11 is due by 31 October 2026, or 18 November 2026 if you both file and pay through ROS; self-employed taxes in Ireland covers the rest of that deadline.

What changes if I trade through a limited company?

This is where the civil service rates become available, and the reason the question causes such confusion.

A proprietary director is an office holder — Revenue’s manual covers reimbursement of travel expenses to office holders “including directors”. The company can reimburse them at civil service rates for business journeys in their own car, tax free, without vouching every litre of fuel. It is one or the other, though: the rates are set to cover running costs and wear and tear together, so you cannot take the tax-free rate and also push the same running costs and capital allowances through the company. Revenue’s manual is explicit that expense payments going beyond what was actually incurred are taxable and subject to PAYE, so check Part 05-01-06 before running both. The answer turns on your legal structure, not your work — same van, same journeys, two different mechanisms.

How do I keep the log without reconstructing the year in October?

A motor claim is the most reconstructed number on an Irish return: someone sits down in October 2026 with a year that ended ten months earlier and guesses a business percentage. The guess is usually round, usually generous, and reads as a guess to anyone reviewing it.

Keel: Invoice Maker & Receipts (by Ilura Technology) is a private record-keeper for exactly this: log a trip when you finish it, photograph the fuel and servicing receipts as they arrive, and send your invoices from the same app. It runs entirely on your iPhone — no account, no sign-in, no bank connection — and its App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected”. Receipts are read on device by Apple Intelligence to pull out the merchant, total, tax and date, and the Accountant Pack exports the year as a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF.

The honest trade-off: nothing imports itself. There is no bank feed, so a trip exists because you logged it and a receipt exists because you photographed it. That is the cost of records that never leave your phone. If you invoice clients too, how to invoice as a sole trader in Ireland covers what those documents must show.

Keel’s free tier includes unlimited invoices, receipts and mileage logging; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription. Keel: Invoice Maker & Receipts on the App Store.

Frequently asked questions

Can I claim mileage as a sole trader in Ireland? Not at a flat rate per kilometre. Ireland has no equivalent of the British simplified mileage deduction. You claim the business proportion of your actual motor running costs, worked out as business kilometres divided by total kilometres, plus capital allowances on the vehicle. The mileage log matters enormously, but it sets the percentage rather than generating the deduction directly.

What is the civil service mileage rate in Ireland for 2026? The rates are unchanged since 1 September 2022. For a car over 1500cc they run from 51.82c per kilometre for the first 1,500 km, to 90.63c between 1,501 and 5,500 km, then 39.22c to 25,000 km and 25.87c beyond. Smaller engines get lower rates. These apply to employers reimbursing employees and office holders, not to sole traders.

Can I claim the drive from home to work as a sole trader in Ireland? Generally no, where you have a fixed business premises. Travel between home and that premises is treated as private, on the reasoning that where you live is your own choice. If your home genuinely is your base of operations and you travel from it to varying client sites, those journeys are business travel. Travel between two work sites in one day qualifies either way.

What is the €24,000 car limit for capital allowances? It is the specified amount that caps allowable expenditure on a car, in force since 1 January 2007. Anything you paid above €24,000 is ignored; if the car cost less, the allowance is given on the lower actual cost. Wear and tear then runs at 12.5% a year for eight years on that figure, restricted to your business percentage. For cars bought on or after 1 January 2025, emissions of 141 to 155g/km halve the limit and 156g/km or more reduce it to nil.

How long do I have to keep my mileage records in Ireland? Six years. Revenue’s guide to completing the return states that supporting documentation must be retained for six years in case it is requested for an assurance check or an audit. The period can run longer in some circumstances, so confirm with Revenue or your accountant before disposing of older records. Keep the log, the odometer readings and the fuel and servicing receipts together for the same period.

Do the civil service mileage rates apply to electric cars? Yes, where the rates apply at all. Revenue states that mileage claims for journeys in fully electric vehicles use the rates for the middle engine category, 1,201cc to 1,500cc — so 43.40c per kilometre for the first 1,500 km, then 79.18c, 31.79c and 23.85c across the higher bands. For a sole trader, the electricity cost simply forms part of the running costs you apportion.

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This article is general information, not tax advice. Consult a qualified Irish tax professional.