Mileage Reimbursement Calculator

This mileage reimbursement calculator does the thing that got complicated in 2026: it splits your business miles across two different IRS rates. The agency raised the standard business rate mid-year, so January 1 through June 30 is 72.5 cents a mile and July 1 through December 31 is 76 cents. Each half gets its own field, the right rate is applied to each, and the two are added into one figure for your expense report.

There is also a custom rate option for companies that reimburse at their own number, and the tool shows the gap between what you were paid and what the IRS rate would have produced. It all runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded, and your mileage log stays on your machine. To see what driving actually costs you rather than what you get paid for it, the fuel cost calculator works the problem from the other side.

How to use

1. Enter the miles you drove for business between January 1 and June 30 in the first-half field.
2. Enter the miles you drove between July 1 and December 31 in the second-half field.
3. Leave the rate dropdown on the IRS standard figures, or pick the custom option and type your own.
4. If your employer reimburses at a different rate, enter that rate in the company field.
5. Read the reimbursement for each half of the year and the combined total.
6. Check the difference line, which shows how far your company rate sits above or below the IRS figure.
7. Confirm the rates against the current IRS page before anything goes on a tax return.

Why use our mileage reimbursement calculator?

I built this in July 2026, the week the second rate took effect, because I had already added my own miles up wrong once. The number I got wrong first was the whole year: I applied 76 cents to every mile driven since January, which inflated my figure by a few hundred dollars before I noticed the dates on the IRS notice. A mid-year change is easy to miss precisely because it has never been the normal pattern.

Splitting the year into two fields is deliberately blunt, and blunt is correct here. The rate depends on when the trip was driven, not when you filed the claim or when you were paid. Drive 4,200 business miles in the first half and 3,800 in the second and that is $3,045 plus $2,888, or $5,933. Run all 8,000 at a single rate and you get a number that is confidently wrong.

The company rate comparison exists because plenty of employers pay below the standard rate and almost nobody quantifies the gap. If your company pays 60 cents a mile and the IRS second-half figure is 76 cents, that 16 cent difference across 3,800 miles is $608. Sometimes seeing it is the whole point. Sometimes it is the start of a conversation with whoever writes the policy.

What I refuse to do is pretend the rate is permanent. Rates change, and 2026 proved they can change in the middle of a year, so the dropdown is a starting point rather than gospel. Confirm against the IRS standard mileage rates page before you file. The custom option keeps the tool useful the moment a new figure is announced and I have not updated the list yet.

On the tax side, the shape is simple and the details are not. Reimbursement at or below the standard rate under an accountable plan is generally not taxable income, while anything above it usually is. Business, medical, moving and charitable miles all sit at different rates. That is a CPA conversation, and if you are trying to see the annual cost of all that driving, the budget calculator is a better home for the number.

Who is this tool for?

The most common case is the monthly expense report. You drove to four client sites, the odometer readings are in your notes app, and you need a dollar figure by Friday. Put the miles in the correct half of the year, take the total, and drop it into the invoice generator if you are billing a client rather than claiming from an employer.

Self-employed people use it at tax time to choose between the standard mileage method and actual expenses. The standard rate is one number times your miles, which is exactly what this produces. Actual expenses means gas, insurance, repairs, depreciation and a business-use percentage, which is a much bigger job. Getting the standard figure first tells you whether the bigger job is worth doing.

Contractors run it while quoting. If a job is 90 miles each way and you expect eight site visits, that is 1,440 miles, or $1,094.40 of vehicle cost sitting inside the price before you have earned a dollar of labor. Travel time is a separate cost that no per-mile rate covers, and pricing both in is what stops a distant job from quietly underperforming a nearby one.

Frequently asked questions