Is Your Commute Tax Deductible? The Rules for 1099 Workers

Short answer: Is your commute tax deductible? No — the drive between home and a fixed workplace is a personal expense, even for 1099 workers. But three exceptions matter: trips from a qualifying home office to a client, travel between two work locations on the same day, and runs to a temporary work site. Those count as business miles at the 2026 IRS rate of 72.5 cents per mile.

Commuting is one of the most misunderstood areas of the mileage deduction. Many self-employed people assume that because they drive for work, every mile counts. This article explains the IRS commuting rule, the important exceptions that help 1099 workers, and how to tell a nondeductible commute from a deductible business trip.

Is commuting to work tax deductible?

Commuting to work is not tax deductible. The IRS considers the trip between your home and your regular place of business a personal commuting expense, regardless of how far you drive or whether you are self-employed — a position set out in IRS Publication 463, the authority on travel and car expenses.

This rule applies to the first trip out and the last trip home on a typical workday when you drive to a fixed business location. The reasoning is that where you choose to live relative to your work is a personal decision, so the cost of closing that gap is personal rather than a business expense.

What counts as a nondeductible commute?

A nondeductible commute is driving between your home and a regular or main work location. These are the everyday trips that get you to and from your usual place of business.

Examples of nondeductible commuting include:

• Driving from home to an office you regularly work from.
• Driving from home to a store, shop, or studio you operate.
• The trip home at the end of the workday from that same location.
• Stopping for coffee or running a personal errand on the way to work.

The fact that you make a business call from the car or check email at a red light does not convert a commute into a deductible trip. The character of the trip is set by its start and end points and its primary purpose.

What commuting exceptions apply to 1099 workers?

Several important exceptions let self-employed workers deduct trips that might otherwise look like commuting. The most powerful is the home office exception, which can turn your first and last trips of the day into business miles.

Key exceptions include:

• Home office as principal place of business: if your home qualifies as your principal place of business, trips from your home office to other work locations (clients, job sites, meetings) are deductible business miles rather than commuting.
• Travel between work locations: driving from one business location to another on the same day is deductible, even if neither is your home.
• Temporary work locations: trips to a temporary work site outside your regular business area can be deductible. If you have a regular place of business, trips to a temporary site can qualify even within your metropolitan area.
• Hauling tools or equipment: simply carrying tools does not make a commute deductible, but genuinely business-purposed trips do qualify.

These exceptions are why home-based freelancers and contractors often deduct far more of their driving than they expect. The home office qualification is the linchpin, so it is worth understanding the requirements.

How do I tell a commute from a deductible business trip?

The difference between a commute and a deductible business trip comes down to the start point, the end point, and the primary purpose of the drive. The table below shows common scenarios for 1099 workers.

Trip	Deductible?	Why
Home to a regular office	No	Personal commuting
Home office to a client site (home is principal place of business)	Yes	Business travel from your business base
Office to a second job site the same day	Yes	Travel between work locations
Home to a temporary work site (you have a regular workplace)	Often yes	Temporary location exception
Client site back home at end of day (qualifying home office)	Yes	Business travel, not a commute
Home to office, stopping to drop off dry cleaning	No	Primary purpose is personal

When a trip qualifies as business travel, you deduct it at the 2026 IRS standard mileage rate of 72.5 cents per mile, provided you keep a proper log.

Does a home office change the commuting rules?

Yes. A qualifying home office changes the commuting rules significantly. When your home is your principal place of business, you no longer have a nondeductible “commute” to a separate main office, so trips from home to other business destinations become deductible.

To rely on this exception, your home office generally needs to be used regularly and exclusively for business and to serve as your principal place of business. If you meet those conditions, the trips that used to be your commute — home to first client, last client back home — can count as business miles. This single distinction often makes the biggest difference in a 1099 worker’s mileage deduction.

How do commuting rules work for rideshare and delivery drivers?

The same rule applies, but the boundary is easier to miss because there is no office to drive to. The IRS has not issued commuting rules specific to gig work, so app-based drivers fall under the ordinary rule: the drive from home to the area where you switch the app on is generally personal, and the drive home after you log off is generally personal too.

Between those two points, most of your driving is business. Miles spent en route to a pickup, carrying a passenger or an order, and repositioning between one job and the next are all driven for business. That last category matters, because platform summaries often report only on-trip miles. If you keep your own contemporaneous log, you can claim the qualifying miles the app never recorded — but only the miles you can actually substantiate.

If your home qualifies as your principal place of business, the first and last drives of the day stop being a commute here as well, on exactly the same reasoning as any other 1099 worker. That is a harder case to make when the work itself happens in the car rather than at a desk, so do not assume it.

Why does tracking matter for commuting rules?

Tracking matters because you must be able to show that a given trip was business rather than personal. Since commutes and business trips can start from the same driveway, your log’s business purpose field is what separates a deductible mile from a nondeductible one.

For every trip you intend to deduct, record the date, destination, business purpose, and miles. A clear log lets you confidently exclude commuting miles and include qualifying business miles, which keeps your deduction both accurate and defensible. Our guide to IRS mileage log requirements shows exactly what to capture. If you are still deciding how to capture it, how to track mileage for taxes compares the practical options.

How does Keel help you separate business miles from commuting?

Keel: Invoice Maker & Receipts is a private, on-device bookkeeping app for self-employed and 1099 workers, and it makes it easy to record the business purpose of each trip so you can keep commuting miles out of your deduction. Keel stamps every business trip at the IRS rate — 72.5 cents per mile for 2026 — and stores it in an append-only verifiable ledger, giving you a clean, contemporaneous record of only the miles that qualify.

Keel is private by design. There is no bank connection, no cloud, and no account. Your mileage is stored encrypted on your iPhone, which is why the App Store shows “Data Not Collected.” You can log trips by hand or with Siri and export all of your records as a single file for your accountant. The honest tradeoff is a little manual entry, which is what lets Keel keep your data on your device instead of tracking your every movement.

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

Log only your deductible business miles with Keel — download it on the App Store.

What are the commuting rules in the UK, Canada, and the EU?

The “ordinary commuting is not deductible” principle exists in other countries too, with local variations.

• United Kingdom: HMRC does not allow relief for ordinary commuting between home and a permanent workplace, though travel to temporary workplaces can qualify. Business mileage is claimed at 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p thereafter. See the GOV.UK guidance on travel expenses.
• Canada: The CRA generally treats travel between home and a regular place of work as personal, with exceptions similar to the home-base rule. Check the CRA motor vehicle expenses guidance.
• European Union: Rules on commuting deductibility vary widely by member state; some countries offer limited commuting allowances. Consult your national tax authority.

Frequently asked questions

Is my commute tax deductible if I am self-employed? No. A regular drive from home to a fixed workplace is a personal expense even for sole proprietors and 1099 contractors, so those miles never belong on Schedule C. The exception is a qualifying home office: once your home is your principal place of business, the first and last drives of the day become business miles rather than a commute.

Can I deduct driving from home to a client if I work from home? Yes, if your home qualifies as your principal place of business — used regularly and exclusively for business, with no other fixed location where you handle the administrative and management side of the work. Then trips from your home office to clients and job sites are business miles. If you also rent an office you work from most days, the home-to-office drive stays a commute.

Does carrying tools or equipment make my commute deductible? No. Transporting tools, samples, or a laptop does not turn a personal commute into a business trip, and the IRS has consistently rejected that argument. What you can deduct are the additional costs caused only by the equipment — renting a trailer to haul it, for example — even though the drive itself remains nondeductible.

Are trips between two job sites deductible? Yes. Driving from one work location to another during the same workday is deductible business travel, even when neither location is your home and neither is your main office. Log each leg separately with its own destination and business purpose. A single lumped entry like “errands” is the kind of record that collapses under review.

What counts as a temporary work location? A temporary work location is one you realistically expect to work at for a year or less. If you already have a regular place of business, drives from home to a temporary site are deductible even inside your own metropolitan area. Without a regular workplace, only temporary sites outside that metropolitan area qualify.

---

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