Personal use of an LLC-owned vehicle

The 50 percent line that decides everything

A vehicle used more than 50 percent for business is listed property that qualifies for the first-year expensing elections. Used 50 percent or less, it does not, and its recovery slows to the straight-line method under an alternative schedule.

That single percentage gates Section 179 and the special depreciation allowance on the vehicle. It does not gate the mileage rate, which claims the business miles either way, at 70 cents a mile in 2025 and 72.5 cents for the first half of 2026.

The percentage is measured over the vehicle's total use for the year, not its daily pattern. A work van driven to jobs five days and to the lake once is comfortably over the line. An SUV that takes kids to school weekdays and hauls equipment Saturdays may not be.

more than 50%Under IRS Publication 946, listed property must be used more than 50% for a qualified business use, and property used 50% or less does not qualify for the first-year expensing elections. — IRS Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property, retrieved 2026-09-29

Commuting is personal, every mile of it

The trip from home to the shop is personal use. The IRS's own examples exclude depreciation on a car used only for commuting, personal shopping trips, family vacations, and driving children to school.

That line draws hard in a trades business. Home to the first job site is the commute. Job site to job site is business. The shop to home is the commute back.

A one-truck owner-operator living out of the van blurs it in practice, and the log is what keeps the blur from becoming a number the exam disbelieves. Where the day starts is a fact; write it down the same way every day.

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

The log that survives an exam

The evidence for the business-use percentage is a contemporaneous record: date, miles, destination and business purpose, with odometer readings at each year's start and end. A log written at the time it happens.

The reconstruction nobody trusts is the spreadsheet built from memory, or from bank feeds and calendars, in the spring after the question arrives. For the mileage rate the log is the claim itself; for actual expenses it fixes the percentage that multiplies every cost.

A crew vehicle is the easy case: it lives at the yard, its keys are signed out, and its personal miles are the rare exception worth noting anyway. The owner's dual-purpose vehicle is the case the log exists for.

mileage logUnder IRS Publication 946, business-use percentage must be established from records, and listed property's qualified business use is measured against its total use for the tax year. — IRS Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property, retrieved 2026-09-29

What happens when use drops in a later year

The percentage is not locked in. Business use falling to 50 percent or less in a later year changes the vehicle's method from that year on. The law then requires the straight-line method for the remaining recovery.

The election made in year one also had a condition: the vehicle needed more than 50 percent business use in the year it entered the business. When later use falls below that line, the excess expensing taken in year one comes back as recapture income.

That is the scenario worth a CPA, not a paragraph: an SUV expensed in year one, then used less as the business grows into dedicated trucks. The recapture is computed on a schedule, and the log for every intervening year is the input.

recaptureUnder IRS Publication 946, when a listed vehicle's business use falls to 50% or less in a later year, the method changes to straight line under the alternative depreciation system. — IRS Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property, retrieved 2026-09-29

The trades where this bites hardest

A house cleaner's car is the classic mixed-use vehicle: business miles between homes, personal miles everywhere else, and a purchase price low enough that the mileage rate usually wins anyway.

A landscaper's owner-truck is the classic false comfort. It looks like a work vehicle, but the school runs and the weekend miles are real. A heavy SUV hitting the $32,000 first-year expensing cap while running under 50 percent business use is a contradiction that unravels in an exam.

A mover's box truck has no personal miles worth counting, which is why heavy trades rarely face this page's problem at all. The electrician's van sits between, and the log settles it. The mileage page covers the methods, and the depreciation page covers the caps.

$32,000 in 2026The maximum Section 179 deduction for sport utility vehicles placed in service in tax years beginning in 2026 is $32,000. — IRS Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property, retrieved 2026-09-29

Keeping the company's other lines straight

Personal use of a company vehicle is also a fringe benefit question. Personal miles driven in an LLC-owned vehicle are generally taxable compensation to the owner-employee, valued through the same annual IRS valuation rules.

The clean alternative many small operators choose is simpler bookkeeping: the company vehicle stays a company vehicle, and personal trips get logged and settled, or the owner keeps a personal car.

West Virginia's side of the question is blunt: the plate and the policy stay tied as long as the registration is valid, whoever drives it. The insurance page covers that rule, and the trade-by-trade checklist covers where each trade's vehicles actually fall.

West Virginia requires the mandated insurance to stay on a registered vehicle as long as the registration is valid, driven or not. — West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles, retrieved 2026-09-29

Questions