Mileage rate or actual expenses for a work vehicle

The two methods, in one paragraph

The standard mileage rate multiplies business miles by a fixed IRS rate: 70 cents a mile in 2025, 72.5 cents for the first half of 2026, and 76 cents for the second half. Actual expenses claim the real costs of fuel, repairs, insurance, and depreciation, times the business-use percentage.

Neither is simply bigger. The rate rewards a cheap vehicle driven far, and the expense method rewards a costly vehicle driven little, or a heavy vehicle whose depreciation is uncapped.

The one hard rule: a single vehicle cannot use both at once, and the method chosen in its first year is the one that constrains every year after.

70 to 76 centsThe IRS standard mileage rate for business use was 70 cents per mile in 2025, 72.5 cents per mile for January through June 2026, and 76 cents per mile for July through December 2026. — IRS, retrieved 2026-09-29

Why 2026 splits into two rates

The 2026 rate changed mid-year. January through June ran at 72.5 cents a mile, set in the fall of 2025, and July through December runs at 76 cents, set in a July 2026 announcement.

That split is unusual and it changes the record-keeping slightly: a 2026 mileage log needs the month each mile was driven, not just the annual total, because the first half and the second half multiply at different rates.

For a driver crossing the line in July, the same route to the same job pays 3.5 cents more in the fall. A cleaner or a mobile notary racking up 20,000 business miles in 2026 should log by month, and the annual claim becomes two calculations.

72.5 to 76 cents in 2026The 2026 business mileage rate was 72.5 cents per mile for January through June and 76 cents for July through December. — IRS, retrieved 2026-09-29

What each method includes and excludes

The standard rate is designed to cover fuel, maintenance, insurance, and depreciation in the cents themselves. On top of the rate, a business claims what sits outside the vehicle: parking and tolls.

The actual method claims the vehicle's real spending: fuel, oil, repairs, tires, insurance, and depreciation, each multiplied by the business-use percentage. The interest on a finance note is a separate question for the company's own financing.

A food truck is the edge case worth naming: the truck's generator fuel is equipment cost, not vehicle mileage, and the kitchen's propane is not in the rate at all. The equipment page separates those lines, and mixing them is how the whole vehicle's claim gets questioned.

commuting excludedUnder IRS Publication 946, no depreciation deduction is allowed on a car used only for commuting, personal shopping, family vacations, or driving children to school. — IRS Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property, retrieved 2026-09-29

Which trades each method rewards

The trades split cleanly on this one, and the split follows purchase price and miles. A house cleaner driving 25,000 miles a year in a $16,000 hatchback earns roughly $17,000 at the 2025-to-2026 rates, against a fraction of that in actual expenses on a cheap car.

A landscaper with a $60,000 dump truck drives 8,000 miles and earns under $6,000 at the same rates, while the expense side recovers a heavy truck's uncapped depreciation, its diesel, its repairs and its plate fees. The heavy trade almost always wants the expense method.

A mover's box truck is the extreme case: low miles, heavy cost, rated over 6,000 pounds and outside the passenger car caps, so the expense method carries it. An electrician's service van sits close to the line and should be run both ways in the first year before committing.

6,000 lbsUnder IRS Publication 946, vehicles rated above the 6,000-pound gross vehicle weight threshold are not passenger automobiles and escape the depreciation dollar limits. — IRS Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property, retrieved 2026-09-29

The log that keeps either method alive

Whatever the method, the log is the evidence. For the mileage rate it is the claim itself. For actual expenses it is the record that fixes the business-use percentage that multiplies every cost.

The log wants the date, the miles, the business purpose, and the odometer at the start and the end of the year. A contemporaneous notebook in the truck beats a reconstructed spreadsheet from bank feeds every time an exam opens.

Commuting is the line the log draws. Miles from home to the shop are personal; miles between jobs are business. The IRS's own examples exclude personal shopping, family vacations and school runs, and a business car used only for commuting earns nothing on either method. The personal-use page covers the percentages that follow.

commuting excludedUnder IRS Publication 946, no depreciation is allowed on a car used only for commuting, and the business-use percentage must be established from records. — IRS Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property, retrieved 2026-09-29

The first-year decision, and its consequences

The method is chosen in the vehicle's first year in the business, and the choice has consequences for every year the vehicle is kept. Using the standard rate in year one keeps the option to switch to actual expenses later, using the straight-line method on the remaining basis.

The reverse direction is the closed one: a vehicle that uses actual expenses and depreciation in year one cannot go back to the standard rate for that vehicle in later years.

That asymmetry is the argument for running the numbers honestly in the first year rather than defaulting to the easy one. A cheap first vehicle that grows into a fleet of heavy trucks is the trades scenario where the wrong first choice compounds.

Under IRS Publication 463, the standard mileage rate must be chosen in a car's first year of business use, and a later switch to actual expenses uses straight-line depreciation. — IRS Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, retrieved 2026-09-29

Where the state fees sit in all this

West Virginia's plate fees, the $15 title fee and the county personal property tax are real, recurring vehicle costs, and they belong on the actual-expense side of the ledger where they are claimed at the business-use percentage.

On the mileage side they are simply absorbed: the rate is meant to cover ownership costs, and a Class B plate renewal is not added on top of 76 cents a mile.

That makes the plate-heavy trades heavier on the expense method too. A mover registering at Class B rates from $34.50 and a landscaper paying a trailer's $27.00 every third year have real state fees the cents-per-mile figure never sees, which is worth pricing into the method choice alongside the federal math. The cost page totals those state charges per trade.

$34.50 Class BWest Virginia Class B trucks from 10,001 to 11,000 pounds pay a $34.50 full-year registration fee rising with weight, and a Class T small trailer registers for $27.00. — West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles, Motor Vehicle Registration Fees brochure (revised 05/2024), retrieved 2026-09-29

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