Mileage Reimbursement Calculator

How mileage reimbursement is calculated

Mileage reimbursement pays a flat amount for every mile you drive for work, instead of adding up what the car really costs. Self-employed people can deduct business miles at the IRS standard mileage rate, and an employer allowance up to that rate is tax-free under an accountable plan. The math is simple. What makes it tricky in 2026 is that the IRS changed the rate in the middle of the year, so the date of each trip decides which rate applies.

The calculator adds up each trip, groups the miles by rate period and purpose, and rounds only the final amounts to the cent. That matches how you report the miles: one total per rate, not a rounded figure per trip.

IRS standard mileage rates, 2024 to 2026

These are the rates the calculator uses, in cents per mile, from the IRS table of standard mileage rates.

The first 2026 rates come from Notice 2026-10. In Announcement 2026-11 the IRS raised the business rate from 72.5¢ to 76¢ and the medical and moving rate from 20.5¢ to 23.5¢ for expenses paid or incurred on or after July 1, 2026, and for mileage allowances paid to employees from that date. The charity rate did not move: the announcement notes it is fixed at 14 cents by section 170(i) of the Internal Revenue Code. For the full background on each rate, who can use it and how it compares with real car costs, read the IRS mileage rate 2026 guide.

Worked example: a log across July 1

This is the log the calculator opens with. Four trips, two of them round trips, on both sides of the rate change:

The June client meeting is a 42-mile drive each way, so it counts 84 miles at 72.5¢. The July supplier visit already gets 76¢. Had the same June trip happened two weeks later, on July 6, it would have been worth US$63.84 instead of US$60.90. In this log the trips group into 4 rate lines:

• Jan 1 to Jun 30, 2026, business: 84 miles × 72.5¢ = US$60.90
• Jul 1 to Dec 31, 2026, business: 18.5 miles × 76¢ = US$14.06
• Jul 1 to Dec 31, 2026, medical: 24 miles × 23.5¢ = US$5.64
• Jul 1 to Dec 31, 2026, charity: 25 miles × 14¢ = US$3.50

When your employer pays a different rate

Employers can reimburse at their own rate. IRS Publication 463 explains what happens on each side of it when you are paid an allowance under an accountable plan, which means you account to your employer for the time, place and business purpose of your trips:

• At or below the federal rate: the allowance is not included in box 1 of your Form W-2, and you do not report it on your return.
• Above the federal rate: your employer reports the amount up to the federal rate under code L in box 12 of your Form W-2, which is not taxable. The excess goes into box 1 and is taxed as wages.

Example: 1,000 business miles in August 2026 are worth US$760.00 at the 76¢ rate. At an employer rate of 70 cents you get US$700.00, US$60.00 less. At 80 cents you get US$800.00, and the US$40.00 above the IRS rate is taxable pay. Switch the calculator to Employer rate to see both numbers for your own log. If you get less than the IRS rate, you generally cannot deduct the difference: Publication 463 limits deductions for unreimbursed employee travel to Armed Forces reservists, qualified performing artists, fee-basis state or local government officials and employees with impairment-related work expenses.

Business, medical and charity miles

• Business: driving for your work or your business, such as visiting clients, going to a temporary work site or running business errands. Commuting between your home and your regular workplace is never business, however far it is. You can add business parking fees and tolls on top of the rate.
• Medical: driving to get medical care, such as trips to a doctor or a hospital. It only helps if you itemize, and only the part of your medical costs above 7.5% of your adjusted gross income is deductible, according to IRS Topic 502. The same rate applies to military moving.
• Charity: driving you do as an unpaid volunteer for a charity, at 14 cents a mile.

Self-employed? Your mileage deduction lowers your net profit, which also lowers your self-employment tax. The self-employment tax calculator shows what that tax comes to.

Keeping a mileage log the IRS accepts

Publication 463 asks you to record each business use at or near the time you drive, and says a record made at the time has more value than one put together later. For a car it lists the mileage for each business use, the total miles for the year and the date you started using the car for business, along with the date, destination and business purpose of each trip. The calculator keeps one row per trip with exactly those fields: date, distance, purpose and a note for where you went and why. Download the log as a CSV file for a spreadsheet, or copy a link that reopens it with every row.

Want to know what your car really costs per mile, compared with the IRS rate? Try the cost per mile calculator. For the fuel alone on a single trip, use the trip fuel cost calculator.

How to use the mileage reimbursement calculator

1. 1Choose Trip log to enter trips one by one, or Totals if you only have the miles per period. Pick miles or kilometers.
2. 2For each trip, enter the date, the distance and the purpose, and tick round trip if you drove back the same way. Add a note for the destination and reason.
3. 3Leave the IRS rate on, or switch to Employer rate and enter what your employer pays per mile or per km. Read the total, the split by rate period and the difference to the IRS rate.
4. 4Copy the log as text, download it as a CSV file, or copy a link that keeps all your trips.

Sources

• IRS, Standard mileage rates (table of rates by year)
• IRS, Notice 2026-10, 2026 standard mileage rates, in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-04
• IRS, Announcement 2026-11, revised standard mileage rates from July 1, 2026, in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-29
• IRS, Publication 463, Travel, gift, and car expenses
• IRS, Topic no. 502, Medical and dental expenses
• NIST, Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: 1 mile = 1.609344 km exactly

Guides on this topic

• Home Office Deduction: Who Qualifies and the Two Methods
• IRS Mileage Rate 2026: Business, Medical and Charity Miles

Built by Tobias. Updated October 20, 2026.

Frequently asked questions