Free mileage log template with the columns the IRS and HMRC expect

#Get the template

The honest caveat, stated before you download anything: a template only works if you fill it in on the day. That is not a sales line, it is the rule. IRS Publication 463 says a record kept at or near the time of the trip has more value than a statement prepared later when there is generally a lack of accurate recall. A blank template in a drawer and no template at all produce exactly the same deduction. If you know you will not keep it up, skip to the part about letting the phone do it.

#What the columns are, and why each one is there

Column	Why
Date	Required everywhere. It also decides which rate applies: in 2026 the IRS rate changed on 1 July, and the HMRC rate on 6 April.
From and To	The IRS asks for the destination; recording both ends makes the distance checkable.
Business purpose	The field no device can fill in. "Client meeting, Acme" is enough. "Work" is not.
Odometer start and end	Makes the miles evidence rather than assertion. Optional per trip, essential at year start and end.
Business miles	What the deduction is calculated from.
Personal miles	Optional, but it lets the log show total use, which is what business use percentage needs.
Rate	Prefilled with the 2026 IRS rates so each trip is valued at the rate in force on its date.
Parking and tolls	Deductible on top of the mileage rate, with the receipt.

#Which file to take, and how to open it

Excel, Numbers or LibreOffice: take the xlsx. It is a real workbook, so the deduction column and the totals row already calculate. Open it, type into the first empty row, and the numbers at the bottom move on their own.

Google Sheets: take the xlsx too, then File, Import, Upload, and choose Replace spreadsheet. Sheets converts the formulas intact. The CSV also imports, but a CSV cannot carry formulas, so you would be retyping the sums yourself. If you want the log on your phone as well as your laptop, this is the version to use, because Sheets syncs and a downloaded workbook does not.

Paper: take the PDF. It is one landscape page, so it prints correctly from a phone, a library printer or anything else, and the example row is printed faintly enough not to be confused with your own entries. Keep it in the vehicle rather than on a desk, because the whole point is writing the trip down before you have driven somewhere else.

Something else entirely: take the CSV. Every accounting package, every spreadsheet and every import wizard in the world reads it. It carries the same columns in the same order as the workbook, so the two are interchangeable.

None of them ask for an email address, and none of them expire.

#What a filled in week looks like

This is the part most templates leave out, so here is a real week from a small trades business, written the way it should be written.

Date	From and to	Business purpose	Odo start	Odo end	Miles
2 Mar	Home office to 14 Bridge St	Boiler service, Mrs Okafor	41,230	41,241	11.4
2 Mar	14 Bridge St to Plumbase, Fenton	Collect parts for the Bridge St job	41,241	41,247	6.2
3 Mar	Home office to Acme Ltd, Reading	Site survey before quoting	41,251	41,289	38.1
5 Mar	Home office to 2 Larch Close and back	Leak callout, emergency	41,302	41,325	22.8
6 Mar	Home office to bank, then post office	Pay in cheques; ship warranty claim	41,330	41,338	7.9

Look at what makes it credible. Every purpose names a person, a place or a job. Not one distance is a round number. The odometer runs continuously, so the second trip on 2 March starts where the first one ended. And the gap between 41,247 on the 2nd and 41,251 on the 3rd is four miles of personal driving, left visible rather than quietly absorbed into the business total. A log that shows its own personal miles reads as a record. A log where every mile is business reads as a claim.

One trip is deliberately absent. The van also went to the supermarket on the 4th, and that is not in the log because it is not deductible. Neither is a trip from home to a single regular workplace, which is commuting whatever is in the back.

#How to keep it so it stands up

1. Write the odometer down on the first day of the year. A photo of the dashboard with the date is fine. Do the same on the last day. Without a total, the business share is unsupported.
2. Log trips the same day, or at least the same week. Publication 463 says a weekly log that accounts for the week's use is timely. Longer than that and you are reconstructing, which the IRS reserves for records lost to fire, flood or casualty, not for forgetting.
3. Write the purpose in words a stranger would understand. An examiner reads that column first. Name the client, the site, the errand. What gets a log rejected goes through this in detail.
4. Do not round. 14.3 miles, not 15. A column of identical round numbers is the surest sign of an estimate, and estimates are not deductible.
5. Leave commuting out. Home to your regular workplace is personal, however far.
6. Total monthly. The CSV has the formula; on paper, add it up at the bottom of each sheet. Split at 30 June if you are in the US this year.

#Working out the deduction

US: business miles in each half of 2026 × the rate for that half, so 72.5¢ to 30 June and 76¢ from 1 July. The 2026 rate page has a calculator. UK: 55p for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year from 6 April 2026, then 25p, with a calculator here. Canada, if you work for yourself: a different model altogether. Actual vehicle costs multiplied by business kilometres ÷ total kilometres, which is why the odometer columns matter more there than anywhere.

#Common mistakes the template is designed to prevent

• A log with distances but no purposes. It is half a record.
• A log started in March and backfilled to January. The dates say one thing; the handwriting says another.
• A single annual rate applied to a year that had two.
• No odometer reading for the first day of the year and the last, so total miles, and therefore the business percentage, cannot be shown.
• The only copy inside an app you have stopped paying for. Export it, and keep the export with your tax paperwork.