Argo Books

Mileage Deduction Calculator

Work out what your business driving is worth at tax time, with the right rate for every mile. Handles the 2026 US mid-year change and the tiered rates in Canada and the UK.

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A deduction lowers your taxable income, not your tax bill directly. Enter your rate to see what the claim is actually worth to you.

Your deduction $0.00 Enter your distance to see the claim
Effective rate
0.00

Rates checked July 2026.

Which rate applies to your miles

Mileage rates are rarely one flat number, and the two ways they vary catch people out in different ways.

Rates that change during the year

The IRS raised the 2026 business rate part way through the year, from 72.5 cents to 76 cents a mile on 1 July. Which rate applies depends on when you drove, not how far you have driven, so a full-year claim needs your log split at the end of June.

Rates that step down with distance

Canada and the UK pay a higher rate on the first slice of your annual distance and a lower one after. The bands are cumulative, and this is where most manual claims go wrong: crossing the threshold does not reprice everything you drove earlier.

A UK driver doing 14,000 business miles claims 10,000 at 55p and 4,000 at 25p, which is £6,500. Applying 25p to the lot would give £3,500 and quietly hand HMRC £3,000 of your deduction.

Current rates

Where you filePeriodRateApplies to
United States Tax year 2026 72.5¢ / mile Miles driven 1 Jan to 30 Jun 2026
United States Tax year 2026 76.0¢ / mile Miles driven 1 Jul to 31 Dec 2026
Canada (provinces) 2026 73¢ / kilometre First 5,000 kilometres
Canada (provinces) 2026 67¢ / kilometre Every kilometre after that
Canada (territories) 2026 77¢ / kilometre First 5,000 kilometres
Canada (territories) 2026 71¢ / kilometre Every kilometre after that
United Kingdom From 6 April 2026 55¢ / mile First 10,000 miles
United Kingdom From 6 April 2026 25¢ / mile Every mile after that
Australia 2025-26 income year 88¢ / kilometre Up to 5,000 kilometres, then the method stops

Rates checked July 2026. Authorities change these, sometimes mid-year, so check yours before filing.

What a deduction is actually worth

A mileage deduction does not come off your tax bill. It comes off the income you are taxed on, so what it saves you depends on your marginal rate.

Claim $7,460 of mileage at a 24% marginal rate and you keep about $1,790 more. That is real money, and it is also why the claim is worth doing properly rather than rounding to a guess.

Enter your marginal rate above and the calculator shows both the deduction and what it puts back in your pocket.

What counts, and what does not

  • Usually claimable: travel to clients and customers, trips between work sites, runs to suppliers or the wholesaler, the bank, the post office with your orders, and to a market or trade show.
  • Usually not: ordinary commuting between home and a regular workplace. This is the single biggest source of rejected claims.
  • Depends: if your home is genuinely your business base, trips out from it are often business travel. Worth confirming for your circumstances rather than assuming either way.
  • Mixed trips: claim the business portion only. A detour to collect stock on a personal journey is the extra distance, not the whole trip.

Keep the log, not just the number

Every one of these authorities wants a record, not a total. A defensible log has the date, where you went, why it was business, and the distance. Odometer readings at the start and end of the year help.

The practical problem is that nobody wants to write this down, so it gets reconstructed in April from calendar entries and guesswork. That reconstruction is exactly what an auditor is trained to spot, and it is also how people end up under-claiming, because forgotten trips are lost trips.

Record it as you go. Whatever you use, the habit matters more than the tool.

Flat rate or actual costs?

The flat rate is meant to cover everything: fuel, servicing, insurance, depreciation, tyres. You claim distance and keep no fuel receipts.

Claiming actual running costs instead can win if you drive an expensive vehicle a short business distance, but it means keeping every receipt and apportioning by business use percentage. It is more work and more audit surface. Several countries also restrict switching methods once you have chosen for a vehicle, so decide deliberately rather than year to year.

For most self-employed people driving an ordinary car a fair distance, the flat rate wins on both money and effort.

Where a calculator stops helping

This works out one claim. It cannot keep your log through the year, hold the receipts for the trips it does not cover, or tell you what your vehicle actually costs the business.

Argo Books keeps your mileage and your expenses together, categorised and ready when the tax return is due, rather than scattered across a notebook and a shoebox. It runs on your own computer and it is free to start.

Frequently asked questions

It changed part way through the year. Business miles driven from 1 January to 30 June 2026 are claimed at 72.5 cents a mile, and miles driven from 1 July to 31 December 2026 at 76 cents. A full-year claim therefore needs both figures, which is why this calculator asks you to split your log at the end of June.

For the provinces it is 73 cents a kilometre for the first 5,000 kilometres in the year and 67 cents for every kilometre after that. The territories are higher, at 77 cents then 71 cents. The lower rate applies only to the distance above the threshold, not retroactively to everything.

For cars and vans it is 55 pence a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year and 25 pence a mile after that. The first-band rate rose from 45 pence on 6 April 2026, its first change since 2011, so travel before that date uses 45 pence.

The cents-per-kilometre method pays 88 cents a kilometre for the 2025-26 income year, capped at 5,000 business kilometres per car. Above that ceiling the method simply stops; you cannot claim the excess at a lower rate, you have to switch to the logbook method for the whole claim. The rate rises to 91 cents for 2026-27.

No, and this is the most common mistake. The bands are cumulative. If you drive 12,000 kilometres in Canada, the first 5,000 are claimed at the higher rate and only the remaining 7,000 at the lower one. Applying the lower rate to everything would cost you roughly $300 on that example.

Travel between work locations, to clients, to suppliers, to the bank, and to pick up materials. What does not count almost anywhere is ordinary commuting between your home and a regular place of work. If you work from home and your home is your business base, trips out to clients generally do count, which is worth checking for your situation.

Yes. Every one of these authorities expects a record showing the date, the destination, the business purpose, and the distance. A calculator gives you the number; it is the log that survives an audit. Record trips as they happen, because reconstructing a year from memory is both painful and unconvincing.

The flat rate is simpler and needs no receipts for fuel, servicing, or insurance, and it usually wins for cheaper, efficient, high-mileage cars. Claiming actual running costs can beat it for expensive vehicles or low business mileage, but it means keeping every receipt and apportioning by business use. Some countries also restrict switching between methods, so choose deliberately.

General information, not tax advice. Rates and rules change and depend on your circumstances. Confirm with your tax authority or an accountant before filing.