Standard Mileage Rate

The standard mileage rate is the IRS-set per-mile amount a business owner can deduct for business use of a personal vehicle instead of tracking actual costs (70 cents per mile for 2025, adjusted annually). It bundles gas, maintenance, insurance, and depreciation into one number; parking and tolls are deductible on top. The alternative is the actual expense method: deduct the business-use percentage of all vehicle costs plus depreciation, which usually wins for expensive or heavily used vehicles, while the mileage rate wins for efficient cars driven many business miles. The choice locks in partially: using actual expenses with accelerated depreciation in year one bars the mileage rate for that vehicle later. Commuting between home and a regular workplace is never deductible, though trips from a qualifying home office to any work location are. A contemporaneous mileage log with date, destination, purpose, and miles is what survives an audit; reconstructed logs routinely fail.