IRS mileage rate 2026: 72.5¢, then 76¢ from 1 July

#The 2026 rates

Purpose	1 Jan to 30 Jun 2026	1 Jul to 31 Dec 2026	2025, for comparison
Business	72.5¢ per mile	76¢ per mile	70¢
Medical or military moving	20.5¢	23.5¢	21¢
Charitable	14¢	14¢	14¢

The business rate is the one most people mean. It applies to a car, van, pickup or panel truck you own or lease, when you choose the standard mileage method instead of adding up actual costs.

#Every rate since 2019

Tax year	Business	Medical or military moving	Charitable	IRS release
2026, 1 Jul to 31 Dec	76¢	23.5¢	14¢	IR 2026 29
2026, 1 Jan to 30 Jun	72.5¢	20.5¢	14¢	IR 2025 128
2025	70¢	21¢	14¢	IR 2024 312
2024	67¢	21¢	14¢	IR 2023 239
2023	65.5¢	22¢	14¢	IR 2022 234
2022, 1 Jul to 31 Dec	62.5¢	22¢	14¢	IR 2022 124
2022, 1 Jan to 30 Jun	58.5¢	18¢	14¢	IR 2021 251
2021	56¢	16¢	14¢	IR 2020 279
2020	57.5¢	17¢	14¢	IR 2019 215
2019	58¢	20¢	14¢	IR 2018 251

Two things stand out. The charitable rate has not moved once, because it is set by statute rather than by the annual cost study. And the IRS table, which runs back to 2011, contains only three years where the business rate changed inside the year: 2011, 2022 and 2026.

If you are filing a late return or amending one, use the row for that year rather than the current figure. Plenty of apps and spreadsheets still carry an old rate; one popular tracker's App Store listing still tells people to deduct 57.5 cents a mile, which was correct in 2020.

#Why there are two rates this year

The IRS sets the business rate from a study of the fixed and variable costs of running a car. Normally it publishes one figure in December and leaves it alone for twelve months. When costs move sharply inside a year it can issue a midyear adjustment. It did so in 2022, and it has done so again in 2026, raising the business rate by 3.5 cents from 1 July.

The practical consequence is simple and easy to get wrong: the rate that applies is the one in force on the day of the trip. A drive on 28 June is worth 72.5 cents a mile. The same drive on 2 July is worth 76. When you file in 2027, you split the year at 30 June and apply each rate to its own half.

Applying one rate across the whole year is wrong in both directions. You either shortchange yourself on the second half, or overclaim on the first. Either way it is the first number an examiner checks.

#Calculator: your 2026 deduction

Parking and tolls paid on business trips are not in the rate. Add them separately, with the receipt.

#What the rate includes, and what it does not

The standard rate is designed to stand in for the whole cost of operating the vehicle. That means it already covers:

• Fuel and oil
• Maintenance, repairs and tires
• Insurance and registration
• Depreciation (a fixed portion of each mile is treated as depreciation)

So there is no adding fuel receipts on top of the rate. People do, and it is one of the more common errors on a Schedule C. What you can add is parking and tolls paid on business trips, which Publication 463 treats as separate deductible expenses.

#What counts as a business mile

Driving between two places of work, from your office to a client, to the bank or the post office on business, between job sites, and, for a delivery or rideshare driver, the miles between accepting jobs, all count. Commuting does not: the trip from home to your regular place of work is personal, whatever you are carrying and whatever you are thinking about on the way.

If your home is your principal place of business, trips from home to a client or supplier are business miles. That single rule is worth more to most freelancers than any app.

#Standard rate or actual expenses

Method	What you track	Tends to win when
Standard mileage	Business miles × the rate for the period, plus parking and tolls	The car is inexpensive to run, or you want the simplest record that stands up
Actual expenses	Fuel, insurance, repairs, lease or depreciation, multiplied by your business use percentage	The car is expensive, heavily used for business, or newly bought

There is a sequencing rule. If you want the standard rate for a car you own, you must choose it in the first year that car is used in your business; you can move to actual expenses later. Start with actual expenses and you generally cannot go back to the standard rate for that vehicle. Choose deliberately in year one.

Whichever method you use, the mileage log is not optional. Actual expenses needs the business use percentage, and that comes from the same miles.

#If you have already filed using one rate

This will be a common mistake for the 2026 year, because most software, most spreadsheets and most memories carry a single annual figure.

The fix is an amended return, filed on Form 1040X. Whether it is worth filing depends on which way the error went. If you applied 72.5 cents to the whole year you underclaimed on every trip after 30 June, and the amendment puts money back. If you applied 76 cents to the whole year you overclaimed on the first half, and correcting it voluntarily is a great deal cheaper than having it found.

Either way the arithmetic is the same: go back to the log, split the trips at 30 June, and apply each rate to its own half. If the log does not carry dates precise enough to split on, that is the real problem, and it is the one worth solving before next year.

#The record that makes the number real

A rate is worthless without the miles behind it, and the IRS is specific about what the record must show for each trip: the date, the destination, the business purpose, and the miles, kept at or near the time of the trip rather than rebuilt in April. The full rules are in what the IRS requires in a mileage log, and there is a free template with the right columns if you would rather keep it by hand.

If you want to know how that record is judged when someone actually reads it, what an auditor rejects in a mileage log goes through the six things that get one thrown out, with the rule behind each. And if the app you use caps how much it will log, read what a free tier cap does to a tax record first, because a missing fortnight is a bigger problem than a subscription.