Business Mileage Log Calculator

HMRC's approved mileage allowance payment rates let you claim 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a tax year and 25p a mile after that, using your own car or van. The first-10,000 rate rose from 45p on 6 April 2026. Motorcycles are claimed at 24p a mile and bicycles at 20p, neither with a threshold, and carrying a colleague on the same business journey adds a passenger supplement of 5p a mile. Electric cars use the same 55p and 25p rates as petrol ones, despite the cheaper running costs. Every journey needs its date, start and end locations, purpose and miles recorded to satisfy HMRC.

Only journeys with a genuine business purpose qualify, so visiting clients, travelling between work sites, collecting supplies, attending meetings away from your usual workplace, training courses and conferences all count. Ordinary commuting between home and a permanent workplace does not, and neither do private detours or trips out at lunchtime. Where home is your main base, the drive to a client site qualifies. Site-based workers with no fixed office can treat all travel from home as business mileage, and so can anyone travelling to a temporary workplace, meaning one they expect to attend for under 24 months.

Employers are not obliged to pay the approved rates. Where yours pays less, Mileage Allowance Relief covers the shortfall, claimed through your Self Assessment return or on form P87. An employee paid 25p a mile from the first mile who drives 5,000 business miles claims relief on those 5,000 miles at the difference between 55p and 25p, which comes to £1,500 of relief and £600 of tax saved for a higher-rate taxpayer. Payments above the approved rates work the other way, with the excess treated as taxable income through PAYE.

Sole traders choose between the approved rates as a simplified expense and claiming the actual running costs of the vehicle. Once that choice is made for a particular car it has to be kept for as long as the vehicle stays in the business, so switching part way through is not on offer. Mileage claimed at the full rates comes off profit before tax rather than arriving as a reimbursement.

Records are where claims are won or lost. Keep them for 5 years after the end of the tax year, noting for each trip the date, the start address and destination, the business reason and the miles travelled. A paper logbook, a spreadsheet or a smartphone app are all acceptable, and apps such as MileIQ, TripLog and Hurdlr track journeys automatically by GPS for roughly £40 to £80 a year. Reconciling the log against MOT and service records, which carry odometer readings, is a sensible cross-check. Without records HMRC can disallow a claim outright, and it looks harder at anything above 15,000 miles a year.

Company car drivers cannot use the approved mileage rates at all. They fall under Advisory Fuel Rates, which reimburse fuel rather than the full running cost of the vehicle. For 2026 the petrol rates are 14p a mile up to 1400cc, 17p from 1401cc to 2000cc and 25p above 2000cc, while diesel runs at 13p, 14p and 17p across the same bands. Electric company cars moved to a split rate from 1 June 2026, at 7p a mile for charging at home and 15p for public charging, and HMRC reviews these figures quarterly.