Is my commute reimbursable?

No. Travel between home and a regular workplace is personal, however far it is, and neither the IRS standard rate nor a typical employer policy covers it. Travel between job sites during the workday does qualify, as does travel from your workplace to a client and back.

What rate should I use?

The IRS publishes a standard business mileage rate and revises it at least once a year, so confirm the current figure rather than relying on a remembered number. Employers may reimburse above or below it. The calculator takes the rate as an input for exactly this reason.

Is mileage reimbursement taxable income?

Reimbursement at or below the IRS standard rate under an accountable plan is generally not taxable to the employee. Amounts above the standard rate, or payments under a non-accountable plan, are generally treated as wages. Confirm which type of plan your employer runs.

Can employees still deduct unreimbursed mileage?

For most W-2 employees the deduction for unreimbursed employee expenses is not currently available, having been suspended by the 2017 tax law. Self-employed people can still deduct qualifying business mileage. This is an area where the law has changed recently, so check the current position.

Should I use the standard rate or actual expenses?

They are alternatives, not additions. The standard rate covers fuel, maintenance, insurance and depreciation in a single figure. Actual-expense tracking can be worth more for an expensive vehicle but requires records for everything. If you choose actual expenses in the first year of use, your options in later years may be restricted.

Mileage Reimbursement Calculator

Work out business mileage reimbursement at a standard per-mile rate, with commuting correctly excluded — the mistake that costs people the most.

By StatesideCalc EditorialLast verified July 26, 2026

Reporting period

Total miles driven

All driving in the period, before separating out commuting.

Of that, commuting

Home to your regular workplace and back.

Rate per mile

Commuting between home and a regular workplace is personal travel and is not reimbursable, however far it is. That excludes 3,120 miles a year here — worth $2,184 at this rate. Travel between job sites during the day does qualify.

What this calculator does

Business mileage looks like the simplest calculation in expenses — miles times a rate — and most people still get it wrong, because they count the wrong miles. This calculator separates qualifying business travel from commuting, applies your rate, and shows both the per-period and annual figures.

It takes the rate as an input rather than baking one in. The IRS revises its standard mileage rate at least annually, and employers frequently reimburse at a different figure, so a hard-coded rate would be wrong for part of every year. Confirm the current published rate before relying on the result.

The commuting rule

This is the whole game. Travel between home and a regular workplace is personal travel, not business, no matter how far it is. Someone driving 40 miles each way to the same office cannot claim any of it.

What does qualify:

Travel between work locations in the same day — office to client, client to second client, site to site.
Travel to a temporary work location outside your usual metropolitan area.
Travel from a home office that is your principal place of business to a client. This is the exception that matters for self-employed people, because it can convert what feels like a commute into qualifying mileage.

What does not:

Home to your regular office, ever.
A detour for personal errands, for the personal portion.
Travel your employer already reimbursed, if you are also trying to deduct it.

The calculator shows what your excluded commute miles would have been worth, which is usually a sobering number and makes the distinction concrete.

Why the standard rate exists

The standard mileage rate is a simplification. Rather than tracking fuel, insurance, maintenance, tyres and depreciation separately, one figure per mile approximates all of it.

That means two things people forget. First, the rate is not just fuel — it is mostly depreciation and running costs, which is why it is several times the cost of the petrol alone. Second, you cannot claim the standard rate and the actual running costs. They are alternatives.

If you want to see the true cost of driving rather than the reimbursement, the commute cost calculator models fuel, wear and time for a regular journey.

Records are the requirement

Reimbursement and deduction both depend on a contemporaneous log. A reconstruction built at year end from calendar entries is materially weaker if questioned. For each trip, record:

Date
Starting point and destination
Business purpose
Miles driven

Most expense apps track this automatically from phone location, which is worth setting up once. The total annual mileage of the vehicle is also worth noting, since business use is expressed as a share of it.

For the self-employed

Mileage is often one of the largest deductible expenses for a sole trader or contractor, and it interacts with the rest of the picture. The self-employment tax calculator covers the payroll-tax side, and the freelance rate calculator works backwards from a target take-home figure through overheads — vehicle costs included, which is exactly the sort of expense that gets left out of an hourly rate and quietly erodes it.

The distinction between billable and total hours discussed in the 2,080-hour rule applies to driving too: time on the road is rarely billable and always costly.

What this leaves out

Parking and tolls, which are separately reimbursable on top of the mileage rate rather than included in it.
Medical, moving and charitable mileage, which use different rates and have their own eligibility rules.
Depreciation limits and vehicle basis, which matter if you switch methods.
State rules. A few states require employers to reimburse necessary business expenses, which can include mileage, on terms stricter than federal practice.
Your employer’s actual policy, which may reimburse below the standard rate, cap monthly claims, or require pre-approval.

Tax treatment here changes with legislation and with your circumstances. Use this for estimating and record-keeping, and take the filing questions to a tax professional. The IRS’s Publication 463 is the primary source on what qualifies and what documentation is expected.

How this is calculated

reimbursable miles = total miles − commuting miles reimbursement = reimbursable miles × rate per mile Commuting is home to a regular workplace and back. It is personal travel regardless of distance.

Frequently asked questions

Is my commute reimbursable?: No. Travel between home and a regular workplace is personal, however far it is, and neither the IRS standard rate nor a typical employer policy covers it. Travel between job sites during the workday does qualify, as does travel from your workplace to a client and back.
What rate should I use?: The IRS publishes a standard business mileage rate and revises it at least once a year, so confirm the current figure rather than relying on a remembered number. Employers may reimburse above or below it. The calculator takes the rate as an input for exactly this reason.
Is mileage reimbursement taxable income?: Reimbursement at or below the IRS standard rate under an accountable plan is generally not taxable to the employee. Amounts above the standard rate, or payments under a non-accountable plan, are generally treated as wages. Confirm which type of plan your employer runs.
Can employees still deduct unreimbursed mileage?: For most W-2 employees the deduction for unreimbursed employee expenses is not currently available, having been suspended by the 2017 tax law. Self-employed people can still deduct qualifying business mileage. This is an area where the law has changed recently, so check the current position.
Should I use the standard rate or actual expenses?: They are alternatives, not additions. The standard rate covers fuel, maintenance, insurance and depreciation in a single figure. Actual-expense tracking can be worth more for an expensive vehicle but requires records for everything. If you choose actual expenses in the first year of use, your options in later years may be restricted.