Whether mileage or actual expenses wins depends on your vehicle's costs and business miles, so neither is better for every detailer. For your 2026 return, figure the deduction both ways and keep the larger number. Use the mileage rate in the vehicle's first business year to keep the option to switch later. Either way, you need a mileage log.

When does actual expenses beat the standard mileage rate?

Actual expenses comes out ahead only when the business share of your 2026 vehicle costs is larger than your 2026 business miles times the standard mileage rate. For example, 4,000 business miles from January through June at 72.5 cents is $2,900, and 4,000 from July through December at 76 cents is $3,040. Actual expenses would have to pass $5,940 of business-share costs to win for those 8,000 miles. Publication 463 says to figure the deduction both ways and use the larger one.

What does the standard mileage rate cover for 2026?

For 2026 the business standard mileage rate is 72.5 cents a mile for business miles driven January 1 through June 30 and 76 cents a mile for business miles driven July 1 through December 31. The IRS set the 2026 rate in Notice 2026-10 and raised it mid-year in Announcement 2026-11 because of fuel prices, so a 2026 mileage log needs the date of every trip.

The rate replaces gas, oil, maintenance and repairs, tires, insurance, license and registration fees, and depreciation or lease payments (Rev. Proc. 2019-46). In Eldred v. Commissioner, T.C. Summary Opinion 2018-49, which can't be cited as precedent, a couple who took the mileage rate on a truck could not also deduct depreciation and Section 179 on it, because depreciation is already inside the rate.

On top of the rate you still deduct business parking fees and tolls. If you are self-employed, you also deduct the business share of car-loan interest and the business share of state and local personal property tax on the vehicle on Schedule C. Under the example in Publication 463, if you use the car 60% for business, 60% of the loan interest is deductible.

What can I deduct under actual expenses instead?

Under the actual-expense method you deduct the business-use share of what the vehicle cost in 2026, meaning gas, oil, tires, repairs, insurance, registration and license fees, lease payments or depreciation, and parking and tolls. The business share is measured by miles. In the Publication 463 example, 12,000 business miles out of 20,000 total miles means 60% of each cost is deductible. Sales tax on the purchase is not deducted directly; it is added to the vehicle's basis (what the vehicle cost you for tax purposes) and deducted over the years through depreciation.

A pickup or van rated at 6,000 pounds gross vehicle weight or less is a passenger automobile with yearly depreciation caps, the § 280F caps; for a vehicle used only for business and placed in service in 2026, the first-year cap is $20,300 with the special depreciation allowance (Rev. Proc. 2026-15). Heavier vehicles fall outside those caps.

The vehicle deduction goes on Schedule C line 9, car and truck expenses; the vehicle questions are in Schedule C Part IV, and depreciation is figured on Form 4562.

Can I switch between mileage and actual expenses later?

For a vehicle you own, you can switch only if you used the standard mileage rate in the first year the vehicle was available for use in your business; after that first year you can choose either method each year. When you move from the mileage rate to actual expenses before the vehicle is fully depreciated, you use straight-line depreciation (the same deduction each year) over its remaining estimated useful life, subject to the § 280F caps.

If you start with actual expenses and claim Section 179 (an election to deduct the cost in the first year instead of over several years), the special depreciation allowance, or any depreciation method other than straight line in the first year, that vehicle can never use the standard mileage rate in any future year.

A leased vehicle on the mileage rate must stay on it for the entire lease period. If you use five or more vehicles at the same time, the standard mileage rate is not available for any of them.

In a vehicle's first business year I would take the standard mileage rate unless the actual-expense number is larger, because that keeps both options open later.

Do drives from home to a customer's car count as business miles?

Driving from one customer to the next always counts as business mileage. The drive from home to the first customer of the day counts as business mileage when your home office qualifies as your principal place of business; without a qualifying home office, the first leg from home and the last leg back are nondeductible commuting.

Revenue Ruling 99-7 sets this rule, and Example 2 in Publication 463 applies it to a home office and a customer's location.

A home office qualifies only if the space is used exclusively and regularly for the business. Hauling the pressure washer or detailing supplies does not turn a commute into business driving, and neither does a wrap or logo on the vehicle.

What does my mileage log need to show?

A mileage log needs the date, the place you drove to, the business purpose and the miles for each business trip, recorded at or near the time of the trip.

Vehicles are listed property (property the tax code requires extra records for), so under IRC §274(d) no deduction is allowed without adequate records of the amount, the time and place, and the business purpose of the travel. Publication 463 counts a record kept on a computer as an adequate written record, and it says you cannot deduct amounts you approximate or estimate. Also write down the odometer reading on January 1 and December 31 so total miles for the year, and the business share, can be computed.

The log is required under both methods, because actual expenses are split between business and personal use by miles too.

"If I didnt keep a record of my business miles this year am i unable to claim any business vehicle expense or just mileage?"

— a self-employed poster on the TurboTax Community

In Ocampo v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2015-150, a landscaper with at least three trucks claimed car and truck expenses for 2008 and 2009. The IRS agent allowed part under actual expenses; he then produced handwritten mileage logs to support a larger standard-mileage claim, and the court found the logs not credible and not made contemporaneously. Logs written after the fact did not support the mileage rate, so the only vehicle deduction left was depreciation on the trucks used only for business, $3,764 for 2008 and $4,268 for 2009.

Write each trip into the log on the day you drive it; the rest of the records a mobile service business needs for a 2026 return are in the mobile business tax checklist.

N&T Tax & Advisory Group is based in Santa Clarita and prepares tax returns for mobile detailers and other mobile service businesses remotely anywhere in the US.

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