Mileage Allowance Calculator (HMRC)

Approved Mileage Allowance Payments cover four vehicle categories, each with a fixed per-mile rate set by HMRC. Cars and vans receive 55p per mile up to 10,000 miles (raised from 45p on 6 April 2026) and 25p thereafter. Motorcycles are paid at a flat 24p per mile regardless of distance. Bicycles attract 20p per mile with no tiered threshold. These rates apply for the entire 2026/27 tax year. The increase, announced on 21 May 2026, was the first change to the car and van rate since 2011; the 25p rate and the motorcycle and bicycle rates were left as they were.

Passenger payments add a further 5p per mile for each fellow employee carried on a qualifying business journey. This passenger supplement applies to car and van journeys only and is received tax-free by the driver. The passenger does not need to claim separately provided they travel in the same vehicle on the same qualifying trip. A colleague carried for 3,200 business miles, for example, adds £160 to the driver's tax-free allowance for the year.

Only business mileage qualifies. Travel between offices counts, but the journey from home to your normal office is commuting and never counts. Trips to client sites, training and meetings away from your regular workplace qualify, and if you make a detour from your commute for business, only the extra mileage above the normal commute counts. There is a temporary workplace exception: an assignment of under 24 months at a single site counts as business travel as long as that site is not your normal base.

How you claim depends on what your employer pays. If your employer pays exactly the AMAP rate, the reimbursement is already tax-free and there is nothing more to do. If your employer pays more than AMAP, the excess is taxable as a benefit in kind through the P11D. If your employer pays less than AMAP, or nothing at all, you can claim tax relief on the shortfall through a P87 form or your Self Assessment return. Employers are free to pay below the HMRC rate, but the employee always keeps the right to relief on the difference.

Self-employed individuals cannot use AMAP rates for tax deductions. Instead, they must choose between claiming actual vehicle running costs (fuel, insurance, repairs, depreciation) with an appropriate business-use proportion, or using HMRC's simplified flat-rate mileage expenses. Once a method is chosen for a particular vehicle, it must be used for the vehicle's lifetime in the business, so the decision deserves some thought when a vehicle first enters the business.

Electric vehicles use the same AMAP rates as petrol and diesel cars, so a privately owned EV earns 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles. A separate Advisory Electricity Rate (AER) covers electricity reimbursement for company cars: from 1 June 2026 HMRC sets it at 7p a mile for home charging and 15p a mile for public charging, reviewed quarterly. Employees with an EV through salary sacrifice usually claim the AER or HMRC's scale rates for personal recharging. Because the actual running cost of an EV is roughly 2p a mile, 55p a mile on a private EV leaves a large tax-free surplus.