Mileage deduction calculator

How this is calculated

Why the deduction is worth more than your tax bracket

Nearly every mileage calculator online multiplies your deduction by one tax rate you had to guess at. That answer is wrong in both directions, and here's why.

Your mileage deduction comes off your self-employment income on Schedule C. That means it does not just cut your income tax — it cuts your self-employment tax as well, which is 15.3% on 92.35% of your net profit, an effective 14.13%. A W-2 employee never sees that. You do, on every mile.

But it also means the saving is not a straight percentage. Cutting your net profit cuts your self-employment tax, and half of self-employment tax is itself deductible, so cutting one cuts the other. Your deduction can carry you down out of the 12% bracket into the 10% bracket partway through. It can push you below the standard deduction, at which point extra miles stop saving income tax entirely and only save self-employment tax. And the qualified business income deduction moves with it too.

So this page doesn't multiply. It computes your total tax with no mileage deduction at all, then your total tax with it, and shows you the difference. Every bracket crossing, floor and cap falls out of that automatically, which is the only way to get the number right.

The 2026 split-rate rule

2026 is a split year. The IRS set the business standard mileage rate at 72.5¢ for 2026 in Notice 2026-10, then raised it to 76¢ for miles driven on or after July 1 in Announcement 2026-11, issued July 13, 2026.

You cannot multiply your whole year's miles by one rate. Miles driven January 1 through June 30 deduct at 72.5¢; miles driven July 1 through December 31 deduct at 76¢. By default this page assumes your miles were spread evenly across the year and splits them in half. If you know your real split — and your log should tell you — tick I know my split and enter the two figures.

For 2025 there is no split: the rate was 70¢ for the whole year.

What the engine actually does, step by step

annual miles = your figure × 365 / 52 / 12 / 1, per your “per” setting
deduction   = (Jan–Jun miles × $0.725) + (Jul–Dec miles × $0.76)
net profit  = gig income − deduction, floored at $0
SE tax     = 12.4% of 92.35% of net profit, up to the $184,500 wage base
           + 2.9% of 92.35% of net profit, uncapped
QBI        = 20% of (net profit − half SE tax), capped at 20% of taxable income
taxable    = net profit − half SE tax − standard deduction − QBI
fed tax    = that, run through the 2026 brackets
savings    = (SE + fed + state with no deduction)
           − (SE + fed + state with the deduction)

Brackets and standard deductions come from Rev. Proc. 2025-32 for 2026 ($16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly, $24,150 head of household) and Rev. Proc. 2024-40 for 2025 ($15,750 / $31,500 / $23,625).

The qualified business income deduction

Self-employed drivers generally get a further deduction of 20% of their qualified business income under Section 199A, capped at 20% of taxable income. This page applies it by default, because gig-driver incomes sit far below the thresholds where it phases out. It makes the mileage deduction look slightly less valuable, not more — knocking down your business income also knocks down the 20% of it you get to deduct — and leaving it out would overstate your saving.

The state figure is an estimate

Nine states — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — don't tax earned income at all, so the state line is zero and that's exact. The fifteen flat-rate states (Michigan at 4.25%, Colorado at 4.4%, Pennsylvania at 3.07% and so on) land within a few dollars.

For states with graduated brackets we apply the one marginal rate a gig driver at this kind of income actually faces, and the state's own standard deduction and personal exemption. That is a solid ballpark, not a return. It also leaves out local income taxes, which are real money in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New York City and a handful of Michigan cities. Every rate and its source is in the open in states.js, with a comment per state saying exactly what was assumed.

What counts as a business mile

• The drive to a pickup, the drive to the drop-off, and the drive between one order and the next while you're online and available.
• The drive back toward your delivery zone after a run takes you out of it.
• Trips for the business itself: a run to the car wash for a rideshare inspection, a supply run for hot bags.

What doesn't count: personal errands, and your ordinary commute between home and a fixed workplace. Most gig drivers have no fixed workplace, so if your home is your principal place of business the drive from home to your first pickup is generally deductible — this is the single point most worth confirming with a preparer for your own situation.

Keep the log

The deduction is only as good as the record behind it. The IRS wants a contemporaneous log — written down as you drive, not reconstructed in April — showing the date, the miles, the destination and the business purpose of each trip. A platform's year-end summary is not a mileage log: it only knows the miles it paid you for, which is routinely 30–40% short of what you actually drove.

This is also why the split-year rule bites. Without dates on your trips you have no defensible way to say which miles deduct at 72.5¢ and which at 76¢.

What this page leaves out

Tax credits of every kind, including the earned income credit and the child tax credit — which can be worth more than everything on this page and which move with your income, so a driver who qualifies may find a large deduction cuts their credit as well. Also: other Schedule C expenses (phone, hot bags, tolls, parking), W-2 income from another job, a spouse's income, self-employed health insurance, retirement contributions, and any state credit. Those all change the answer. This is an estimate of what the mileage deduction alone is worth, not a tax return.