Blog · July 15, 2026

IRS standard mileage rate for 2026: a split year

72.5 cents for January through June, 76 cents from July 1, how that compares with 2025, and what it means for a log that crosses the midpoint.

The IRS sets a standard mileage rate once a year, in December, and most years it holds for twelve months. 2026 is not most years. The rate for business driving is 72.5 cents per mile from January 1 through June 30, and 76 cents per mile from July 1 through December 31. If you drive for work in the United States, your 2026 log now has a seam in the middle of it.

The numbers

Period	Business	Medical or moving	Charitable
2025	70¢	21¢	14¢
Jan 1 to Jun 30, 2026	72.5¢	20.5¢	14¢
Jul 1 to Dec 31, 2026	76¢	23.5¢	14¢

The charitable rate is set by statute and does not move. The medical and moving rate applies to qualified medical travel and, for active-duty military under orders, to moving.

Mid-year adjustments have happened before, most recently in 2022, when fuel prices rose sharply in the first half. The mechanism is the same: a new rate effective July 1, announced a few weeks before.

What it means for your log

A mileage log is a list of dated trips. The rate applies to each trip according to the date it happened. So:

A trip on June 28 earns 72.5 cents a mile.
A trip on July 2 earns 76 cents a mile.
A trip that starts on June 30 and ends July 1 is an edge case you will almost certainly never face, but if you do, the start date is the sensible choice.

The practical consequence is that you cannot price the year as miles times one rate. You need the miles before July 1 and the miles from July 1 on. A log with dates makes that a filter. A log that only records a monthly total also works, since the boundary falls on a month end. A log that records only a year-end total does not, and you would have to apportion by some defensible method, which is weaker.

A worked example

You drive 9,000 business miles in 2026: 4,000 through June 30 and 5,000 from July 1.

4,000 × $0.725 = $2,900.00
5,000 × $0.76 = $3,800.00
Total: $6,700.00

If the whole year had been at the first-half rate, the figure would be $6,525. At the 2025 rate of 70 cents, the same 9,000 miles would have been $6,300.

For an employee reimbursed by an employer that uses the IRS rate under an accountable plan, the cheque for July onward should reflect the new number. Check that it does; payroll systems do not always update on July 1.

Who can deduct at all

W-2 employees cannot deduct mileage. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (section 70110) made the suspension of unreimbursed employee expenses permanent; Notice 2026-10 repeats it. The exceptions are Armed Forces reservists, fee-basis state and local government officials, qualified performing artists and people with impairment-related work expenses. For everyone else on a W-2, the only route is reimbursement by the employer, and the figure in the example above is what that reimbursement would be, not a deduction. The rate is a deduction for the self-employed, who claim it on Schedule C, line 9.

Standard mileage or actual expenses

For the self-employed, the standard mileage rate is one of two ways to figure the deductible cost of using a car for business. The other is the actual-expense method: total the real costs of operating the vehicle for the year (fuel, insurance, repairs, registration, depreciation or lease payments) and deduct the business-use percentage, which comes from the same log. You cannot use both in the same year for the same car. If you want the standard rate on a car you own, you have to pick it in the first year that car is used for business; a leased car that starts on the standard rate keeps it for the whole lease; and the rate is not available if you run five or more cars at once. Gas, maintenance, insurance and depreciation are inside the rate and cannot be added on top. Publication 463 covers the details and the exceptions. Whichever you choose, you still need the log; the standard rate does not excuse you from recording the miles.

What does not change

The substantiation rules are the same in both halves of the year. For each business trip you need the date, the destination, the business purpose and the miles. Records made at or near the time of the trip are what the IRS calls adequate; a log assembled at year end from memory is not.

Commuting between home and a regular workplace is still personal and never deductible, whatever the distance; parking at the regular workplace counts as commuting too. Parking and tolls on business trips are still deductible on top of the mileage rate. Keep the records generally three years from the date you file, and the car’s records for each year of its recovery period.

Logs that cross the line

If you keep a paper log, draw a line under June 30 and start a new page. If you keep a spreadsheet, add a rate column and fill it by date. If you use an app, check that it either knows about the July 1 change or lets you set the rate yourself and tells you which trips it applied it to. An app that shows a single year-to-date dollar figure at one rate is giving you a number that is wrong by a few percent for 2026, and you will not notice unless you look.

The safest habit is to export the year’s trips as a CSV at year end and do the two multiplications yourself, or have your accountant do them. It takes five minutes and removes any doubt about which rate was applied where.

Looking ahead to 2027

The IRS will announce the 2027 rate in December 2026. Whether it continues at 76 cents, moves up, or falls back depends on the cost study the agency runs each year. Until then, 76 cents is the number for the rest of 2026.

Odie’s IRS rate table holds 2024, 2025 and both 2026 periods (source irs.gov, checked August 23, 2026). Each trip is priced at the rate of its date, the Allowance line of the year report shows the miles at 72.5 cents and the miles at 76 cents separately, and the label on a trip after July 1 reads “IRS rate, Jul to Dec 2026”. An override in Work settings replaces the current year’s rate for an employer that reimburses at another figure.

Sources

Written by the Odie team. Not tax advice; your accountant knows your situation.