Most mileage records are written in April, from memory, a year after the driving happened. Log each trip here as you go, with the date, where you went, why, and the miles. It totals itself, keeps your entries in this browser, and downloads as a spreadsheet or prints as a clean page. There is a blank printable version for the glovebox too. Free, and no signup needed.
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If two or more sound familiar, the record is the weak point. The log below takes about twenty seconds per trip.
The trips below are an example, not a real log. Clear them and add your own, or edit them in place.
With both readings the log shows total miles driven and the business share of them.
Trips
Enter both odometer readings and the miles are worked out for you, or leave them blank and type the miles directly.
IRS business rate from July 1, 2026 (72.5 cents from January 1 to June 30, 2026). Change it for another year or your company rate.
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Your log is kept in this browser on this device, so a refresh does not lose it, but clearing your browser data does. Download the CSV regularly as your copy. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you choose to email the totals to yourself. The log records trips; it does not decide which of them are deductible.
IRS Publication 463 sets out the records for business use of a car. For each business use it asks for the date, your business destination, the business purpose, and the mileage, plus the total miles you drove the car in the year. The period odometer readings above give you that last figure without extra work.
It also says when the record should be made: you should record the elements of a business use at or near the time of the use. You do not have to write each trip down on the day, since a log kept up weekly that accounts for the week's use counts as timely kept. And it is blunt about the alternative: you cannot deduct amounts that you approximate or estimate. A written record is needed, and a record kept on a computer counts as an adequate one.
Source: IRS Publication 463 (2025), Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, chapter 5, Recordkeeping (sections on timely kept records and adequate records, and the table of elements to prove). IRS Topic no. 510, Business use of car says you must substantiate expenses by adequate records or sufficient evidence to support your own statement. Both checked on irs.gov on September 21, 2026. This page is general information, not tax advice.
Almost nobody decides not to keep a log. It slips because each trip feels too small to bother with at the time, and the cost only arrives months later, when the year is over and the details are gone.
The long drives are easy to remember, so they get written down. The ten-minute run to the bank, the second trip to the supplier because a part was wrong, the drive to look at a job you did not win: those are the ones that vanish. Then the gaps get filled with round numbers, because nobody remembers whether it was 17 or 23 miles, and a column of 20s and 50s is the clearest sign that a log was written after the fact.
Take three short business trips a week of about 5 miles each, the kind that never get written down. Over 48 working weeks that is 720 miles. At the 76 cent business rate that is 547.20 dollars of mileage with no record behind it. The figures are an illustration, and the pattern is common: the trips people forget are small one at a time and add up across a year.
The other cost is the one people feel in April: a weekend spent reconstructing trips from a calendar, bank statements and map history, and the unease of a record you know was not made at the time.
Start logging properly today, then work backwards. Your calendar, your invoices, your fuel receipts and your phone's location history can usually show where you went and on which days. Enter those trips here with the real distances, and note in the purpose that the entry was rebuilt from those sources, so the record is honest about what it is.
Publication 463 also describes sampling: an adequate record kept for part of the year can be used to prove business use for the whole year, if you can show by other evidence that those periods are representative. Whether that fits your situation, and which of your trips are deductible at all, is a question for an accountant, not for this log.
The estimated value multiplies your business miles by the rate in the box. It is filled in with the current IRS business standard mileage rate:
| Period | Business rate per mile |
|---|---|
| From July 1, 2026 | 76 cents |
| January 1 to June 30, 2026 | 72.5 cents |
Rates from the IRS Standard Mileage Rates page. The business rate rose to 76 cents per mile effective July 1, 2026. Always confirm the current figure at irs.gov before you file, since the IRS can revise it. Miles driven before July 1, 2026 use the lower rate, so a log that spans both halves of the year needs splitting. The figure here is an estimate and general information, not tax advice.
The habit matters more than the tool. Pick one moment in the week, Friday afternoon or the evening you send invoices, and bring the log up to date then. If the miles are reimbursable by a client, add them to the job as an expense at the same time, so they reach the invoice instead of staying in a notebook.
From our invoice data: Only about 1 in 5 invoicing businesses (25 of 112) records any expenses alongside its invoices.
Source: Billbooks invoice data, 8,483 invoices from 112 small businesses, September 2024 to September 2026 (aggregate only, figures shown only where 25+ businesses contribute). See the invoice payment study
Take the business miles from your log to the mileage deduction calculator, pick the rate for the year, and see the figure, including the rates for earlier years.
Open the mileage calculatorPaying or claiming mileage rather than deducting it? The mileage reimbursement calculator turns the same trips into an expense claim. Working from home as well? The home office deduction calculator compares the two IRS methods.
Working for yourself? These guides go further:
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