IRS mileage rate 2026

For 2025, the IRS standard mileage rate was 70 cents a mile for business driving. Driving for medical care, and moves by active-duty members of the Armed Forces, used 21 cents a mile. Driving for a charity used 14 cents. The rates were set in IR-2024-312 and Notice 2025-5 and applied to the whole year: unlike 2026, there was no change in July.

Use the 2025 rate for miles driven in 2025, even when the expense report or the payment lands in 2026. A self-employed driver with 9,000 business miles in 2025 works out the deduction as 9,000 × $0.70, or $6,300, with business parking and tolls added on top.

The medical rate covers driving to get medical care for yourself or a dependent: 21 cents a mile in 2025, 20.5 cents from January 1 to June 30, 2026, and 23.5 cents from July 1, 2026. The same rate applies to the few moves that are still deductible, mainly active-duty members of the Armed Forces moving under military orders. Medical mileage counts toward the medical expense deduction, which only applies if you itemize.

The charity rate is 14 cents a mile for driving while you volunteer for a qualified charity. It is fixed in the tax code, at section 170(i), rather than set by the IRS each year. That is why it stayed at 14 cents in 2024, 2025 and 2026 while the other rates rose.

Federal employees who drive their own car on official travel are reimbursed at GSA's privately owned vehicle (POV) rate. For a car it matches the IRS business rate: 70 cents a mile in 2025, 72.5 cents from January 1, 2026 and 76 cents from July 1, 2026.

The rate drops when a government car was available and the traveler chose their own instead: 21 cents in 2025, 20.5 cents in the first half of 2026 and 23.5 cents from July 1. GSA also sets the rates for motorcycles and private aircraft, in the table below. Private employers don't have to follow GSA, but its car rate is the IRS rate, which is the figure most of them use.

Not when it is paid under an accountable plan at or below the IRS rate. Rev. Proc. 2019-46 sets the conditions: the driving is for the business, the employee records each trip's date, destination, business purpose and miles within a reasonable time, and the employee gives back any allowance paid for miles they didn't record. Paid that way, the reimbursement stays off the W-2 and nothing is withheld.

Two things make it taxable. The part of a per-mile rate above the IRS rate is wages: at 85 cents a mile against the 76-cent rate, 9 cents of every mile goes on the W-2 with withholding. And an allowance paid whether or not the employee drives for work, such as a flat monthly car allowance with no log, falls under a nonaccountable plan, and all of it is wages.

Most employees can't deduct unreimbursed mileage on a federal return. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made that rule permanent, as Notice 2026-10 explains. Armed Forces reservists, fee-basis state and local officials and some performing artists are the exceptions. Self-employed people deduct business mileage on their own return instead.

A fixed and variable rate (FAVR) allowance is the other IRS-approved way to pay employees for using their car, set out in section 6 of Rev. Proc. 2019-46. Instead of one rate per mile, it pays two parts at least every quarter: a fixed amount for insurance, registration, property taxes and depreciation or lease payments, and a per-mile amount for fuel, oil, tires and maintenance. Both are based on costs where the employee lives and drives. An employee in an expensive region can be paid more than one in a cheap one.

The conditions are strict. The plan has to cover at least five employees at all times, and a majority of them can't be managers. Each employee has to record at least 5,000 business miles a year, or 80% of the plan's annual business mileage if that is higher. The car's cost when new has to be at least 90% of the plan's standard automobile cost, and the IRS caps that standard cost: $61,700 for 2026 under Notice 2026-10, up from $61,200 in 2025.

Paid within those rules, a FAVR allowance is tax-free in the same way as a standard-rate reimbursement. Optional high-mileage payments on top of it are wages. FAVR suits a company with a field team that drives every day. For occasional driving, the standard rate is simpler.