Mileage Deduction 2026: How Freelancers Can Claim It

If you drive for your business — client meetings, deliveries, supply runs — those miles are one of the most valuable and most overlooked deductions for the self-employed.

The standard mileage method

The simplest approach multiplies your business miles by the IRS standard rate. For 2026 the rate is split: $0.725/mile for January–June and $0.76/mile for July–December. Drive 5,000 business miles in the second half of the year and that's roughly a $3,800 deduction — with no need to track gas and repairs.

What records the IRS wants

• The date of each trip
• Miles driven
• The business purpose
• Ideally, where you drove from and to

A contemporaneous log (kept as you go, not reconstructed in April) is what holds up under audit.

The easy way to log miles

With MoneyFeed you just text "drove 22 miles from home to a client pitch" and it records a compliant, IRS-ready mileage log entry — with the deduction calculated for you.