2026 IRS Mileage Rate: 72.5¢ (Jan–June) and 76¢ (July–Dec) Explained

Short answer: The 2026 IRS mileage rate for business driving is 72.5 cents per mile for miles driven from January 1 to June 30, 2026, and 76 cents per mile from July 1 to December 31, 2026, after the IRS raised it mid-year. Medical and military moving miles are 20.5 cents, then 23.5 cents; charity miles stay at 14 cents all year. Multiply the business miles from each half of the year by that half’s rate, so 3,000 miles before July and 2,000 after is a $3,695 deduction. The rate already covers gas, maintenance, insurance and depreciation.

The IRS standard mileage rate is the simplest way to deduct the cost of driving for work. Instead of tracking every gas fill-up, oil change and insurance payment, you count your business miles and multiply by one number. In 2026 it is two numbers, because the IRS raised the rate on July 1. This article sets out every 2026 rate, who can use them, what they cover, and how to turn a split year of miles into a deduction or a reimbursement.

What is the IRS mileage rate for 2026?

The IRS mileage rate for 2026 is 72.5 cents per business mile through June 30 and 76 cents per business mile from July 1 through December 31.

The 72.5-cent rate was announced at the end of 2025, up 2.5 cents from the 2025 rate of 70 cents. In July 2026 the IRS raised the business rate to 76 cents for the second half of the year. The rate is a nationwide figure, so it applies whether you drive in a high-cost city or a rural county. Both figures are published on the standard mileage rates page at IRS.gov; check it before you file.

What are all the 2026 standard mileage rates?

The IRS publishes separate 2026 standard mileage rates for business, medical, military moving and charity driving, and three of the four changed on July 1.

Type of driving	Jan 1 – Jun 30, 2026	Jul 1 – Dec 31, 2026	Who uses it
Business	72.5 cents	76 cents	Self-employed workers, businesses, employer reimbursements
Medical	20.5 cents	23.5 cents	Taxpayers itemizing qualified medical travel
Moving	20.5 cents	23.5 cents	Active-duty military moving under orders, and certain intelligence-community employees
Charitable	14 cents	14 cents	Volunteers driving for qualified charities

The charitable rate of 14 cents per mile is fixed by federal statute, which is why it did not move with the others. The business, medical and moving rates are set by the IRS, so confirm them on IRS.gov before you calculate any deduction. Most self-employed workers only ever use the business row.

What is the 2026 business mileage rate?

The 2026 business mileage rate is 72.5 cents per mile for January through June and 76 cents per mile for July through December, and it is the rate self-employed workers use on Schedule C.

The business rate applies to cars, vans, pickups and panel trucks driven for business: trips between job sites, to clients, to suppliers and to the bank. It does not apply to commuting between home and a regular workplace. A mile is valued at the rate in force on the day you drove it, not the day you file, so a trip on June 30 is a 72.5-cent mile and a trip on July 1 is a 76-cent mile.

Why did the IRS change the mileage rate in the middle of 2026?

The IRS raised the 2026 business mileage rate from July 1 because the cost of running a vehicle, fuel above all, rose faster than the January figure assumed.

The IRS normally sets the rate once a year, in December, from an annual study of what it costs to own and operate a car: fuel, insurance, repairs, tires and depreciation. It reserves a mid-year change for unusual swings in fuel prices; the last one was in July 2022. The practical consequence is the same as any rate change: the date of each trip decides its rate. A mile driven in 2026 is deducted at a 2026 rate even if you file in 2027, and recording the date keeps a late-June drive from drifting into the higher half of the year.

What does the standard mileage rate cover?

The standard mileage rate bundles the ordinary costs of operating a vehicle into a single per-mile figure. When you use it, you do not separately deduct most of these individual expenses.

The rate is designed to account for:

• Gasoline and oil.
• Routine maintenance and repairs.
• Tires.
• Insurance.
• Vehicle registration fees.
• Depreciation or lease payments.

A few costs are still deductible on top of the standard mileage rate when they relate to business driving. These include business-related parking fees and tolls. Interest on a car loan and personal property taxes may also be partly deductible for self-employed drivers based on business use. Everyday parking at your regular office is treated as a personal commuting cost and is not deductible — the same rule that decides whether your commute itself is deductible.

How do you calculate your 2026 mileage deduction?

To calculate your 2026 mileage deduction, add up your business miles for January–June and multiply by 72.5 cents, add up your business miles for July–December and multiply by 76 cents, then add the two results.

Here is what each rate is worth at different mileage levels:

Business miles	At 72.5¢ (Jan–June)	At 76¢ (July–Dec)
1,000 miles	$725	$760
5,000 miles	$3,625	$3,800
10,000 miles	$7,250	$7,600
15,000 miles	$10,875	$11,400
20,000 miles	$14,500	$15,200

A worked example: a contractor drives 12,000 business miles in 2026, 5,500 before July and 6,500 after. The deduction is 5,500 × $0.725 = $3,987.50, plus 6,500 × $0.76 = $4,940, for $8,927.50. Running the whole year at 72.5 cents would understate it by $227.50; running it all at 76 cents would overstate it by $192.50.

To reach these numbers you need your business miles by date, which means keeping a mileage log throughout the year. Self-employed workers report the deduction on Schedule C, where it reduces both income tax and self-employment tax. Our complete guide to the self-employed mileage deduction walks through which trips qualify and how the deduction lands on the return.

What is the 2026 mileage reimbursement rate?

Most employers reimburse 2026 mileage at the IRS business rate — 72.5 cents a mile for trips through June 30 and 76 cents from July 1 — because that is the most they can pay per mile tax-free.

The IRS rate is a ceiling for tax-free treatment, not a legal minimum. Under an accountable plan, where the employee logs the trips and hands back any excess, a reimbursement at or below the IRS rate is not wages and does not show up as income. Anything paid above the rate is taxable. No federal law requires a private employer to reimburse mileage at all, as long as the unreimbursed cost does not push pay below minimum wage, though some states, California among them, require employers to cover necessary work expenses. Federal employees are reimbursed under GSA’s privately owned vehicle mileage rates, which GSA sets separately and which track the IRS business rate for a car.

If your employer kept paying 72.5 cents after July 1, nothing is wrong for tax purposes: the lower amount is still tax-free, it just covers less of your cost. If you are self-employed, there is no reimbursement; the same rate becomes your deduction.

Who can use the standard mileage rate?

Self-employed individuals, independent contractors and businesses can use the standard mileage rate for cars, vans, pickups and panel trucks used for business. There are a few eligibility rules to keep in mind.

• To use the standard mileage rate on a car you own, you generally must choose it in the first year you use the vehicle for business.
• If you lease a vehicle and choose the standard mileage rate, you must use it for the entire lease period, including renewals.
• You cannot use the standard mileage rate if you operate five or more vehicles at the same time (a fleet).
• W-2 employees cannot deduct unreimbursed business mileage on their federal return: the suspension of that deduction, introduced in 2018, was made permanent in 2025.

If you are unsure whether the standard mileage rate or the actual expense method is better for you, our comparison of standard mileage versus actual expenses breaks down both approaches.

What records do you need to prove your miles?

A mileage deduction is only as good as the log behind it. The IRS expects a contemporaneous record, meaning one you write at or near the time of the trip rather than reconstruct from memory the following April.

Each trip entry should capture:

• The date of the trip, which in 2026 also decides the rate.
• The destination or the business purpose.
• The miles driven.

You also need your total miles for the year, business and personal combined, because Schedule C asks you to split annual mileage between business, commuting and other driving.

Card statements do not fill this gap. A gas receipt proves you bought fuel; it does not prove where you drove or why. The most common failure is a year of driving summarized as a single round number at tax time, which is exactly what an examiner will not accept, and in 2026 a single round number cannot even be split between the two rates. If you keep only one record during the year, keep the trip log, because the arithmetic at the end is trivial once the miles exist. Our guide to what an IRS-compliant mileage log has to contain covers the format in detail.

What are the mileage rates outside the US?

The 72.5-cent and 76-cent figures apply only to United States federal taxes. Other countries set their own per-mile or per-kilometre allowances.

• United Kingdom: HMRC allows 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p per mile beyond that under the Approved Mileage Allowance Payments scheme. GOV.UK publishes the flat vehicle rates under simplified expenses, and our UK mileage allowance guide explains how sole traders apply them.
• Canada: The CRA sets a per-kilometre reasonable allowance rate that is updated each year. Check the CRA guidance on motor vehicle expenses for the current figure and the Canadian vehicle expense rules for how they work in practice.
• European Union: Per-kilometre rates vary by country. Consult your national tax authority.

Track your 2026 miles the private way with Keel

Keel: Invoice Maker & Receipts is an on-device bookkeeping app made for self-employed and 1099 workers. Every trip you log is stored with its date, distance and business purpose, so a drive taken in 2026 stays tied to 2026 even when you file the following year, and the date on each trip shows which half of the year, and which rate, it belongs to.

Keel keeps things private by design: there is no bank connection, no cloud and no account. Your data lives encrypted on your iPhone, which is why the App Store shows “Data Not Collected.” You can log trips manually or with Siri, keep an append-only verifiable ledger, and export the whole year as one file for your accountant. The honest tradeoff is a bit of manual entry in exchange for privacy and full ownership of your records.

Keel is free with unlimited invoices, receipts and mileage; Keel Lifetime is a one-time $249.99 purchase, not a subscription.

Start logging your 2026 business miles with Keel — get it on the App Store.

Frequently asked questions

What is the IRS mileage rate for 2026? The 2026 IRS mileage rate for business use is 72.5 cents per mile for January 1 through June 30 and 76 cents per mile for July 1 through December 31. It applies to cars, vans, pickups and panel trucks driven for business, and it is a single nationwide figure — your city or state does not change it. Confirm both figures on IRS.gov before you file.

How do I calculate my mileage deduction for 2026? Multiply your business miles from January–June by 72.5 cents and your business miles from July–December by 76 cents, then add the two. For example, 4,000 miles in the first half and 4,000 in the second produce $2,900 plus $3,040, a deduction of $5,940. Count business miles only: commuting between home and a regular workplace does not qualify, though trips between job sites, to clients and to suppliers do. Self-employed filers enter the result in the car and truck expenses line of Schedule C.

Can I deduct both mileage and gas? No. The standard mileage rate already bundles gas, oil, routine maintenance, tires, insurance, registration and depreciation into one per-mile figure, so a fuel receipt and the mileage rate for the same trip deduct the same cost twice. If your actual gas and car costs are higher than the rate, the alternative is the actual expense method, where you deduct the business share of real costs instead of using the rate. Business parking and tolls are the exception and stay deductible on top of the rate.

Can I deduct tolls and parking on top of the mileage rate? Yes. Business-related tolls and parking fees are deductible in addition to the standard mileage rate, because the rate covers operating the vehicle rather than the cost of stopping it. Parking at your regular workplace is a commuting cost and is not deductible. Keep a record of each charge, since these are separate expense lines rather than part of the per-mile figure.

What is the $75 rule in the IRS? The $75 rule says you do not need a receipt for a business travel, meal, gift or transportation expense under $75, except for lodging, as long as your records show the amount, date, place and business purpose. It is why a $12 parking fee can be supported by a log entry rather than a slip of paper. It does not remove the need for a mileage log: miles are proven by the trip record, not by receipts.

Is there an IRS form for 2026 mileage reimbursement? No. The IRS does not issue a mileage reimbursement form; an employer uses its own expense report, which should capture the date, miles and business purpose of each trip so the payment qualifies under an accountable plan. Self-employed workers do not get reimbursed at all: they report the deduction on Schedule C, line 9, and answer the vehicle questions in Part IV of Schedule C (or on Form 4562 if they are filing that form anyway).

Do W-2 employees get the standard mileage deduction? Most do not. The deduction for unreimbursed employee business expenses was suspended in 2018 and the suspension was made permanent in 2025, so an employee’s business mileage generally produces no federal deduction. Armed Forces reservists, qualified performing artists and fee-basis government officials are narrow exceptions. An employer reimbursement under an accountable plan remains the practical route for everyone else.

What will the IRS mileage rate be for 2027? The IRS has not announced the 2027 rate yet. It usually publishes the next year’s business, medical, moving and charity rates in December, on the same standard mileage rates page at IRS.gov. Until then, 2026 miles use the two 2026 rates above, and any 2027 driving should be logged with its date so the new rate can be applied once it is out.

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