How to Keep a Mileage Log You Can Rely On
How to keep a mileage log: what to write for each trip, when to log it, a weekly check, the mistakes that sink logs, and how long to keep the records.
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A mileage log is a running record with one line per trip: the date, the miles, where you went and why. Add an odometer reading at the start and end of the year, and you have the car’s total miles too.
Write each line when the trip ends, before you get out of the car. The IRS still treats a log kept weekly as timely, so never let it slide longer than a week. Monthly catch-ups and year-end estimates are where logs fall apart.
Road44, the app mentioned near the end, is our app. IRS wording was checked against Publication 463 (2025) and Treas. Reg. §1.274-5T in October 2026. This guide covers US federal rules for business mileage. It’s general information, not tax advice.
What goes in every entry (and in the log as a whole)
| Level | What to record |
|---|---|
| Every business trip | Date; miles (start and end odometer readings, or the trip’s distance); destination; business purpose |
| Optional, per trip | Vehicle, if you drive more than one; tolls and parking |
| Each vehicle, each year | Odometer reading at the start and end of the year (or when the car starts or stops being used for business); total miles for the year; the date you started using the car for business |
That follows Table 5-1 in IRS Publication 463, which asks for the mileage of each business use, the year’s total miles, the date, the destination and the purpose. Odometer readings aren’t on that list; the year-start and year-end readings are just the easiest way to get the total. Our odometer post quotes what the IRS actually asks a log to show, word for word.
Write a purpose someone else could check
Pub. 463 says “You must generally provide a written statement of the business purpose of an expense.” It adds that you can skip the written explanation if the purpose “is clear from the surrounding circumstances,” but don’t lean on that.
“Business” or “meeting” tells nobody anything a year later. “Smith Co., deliver samples” or “Oak St. job site, drop off tile” does.
Personal trips don’t each need a line, but you do need the year’s total, because the business share of the car’s use comes from it. Our post on business vs personal vs commute miles covers how to tag each kind.
Set it up once, before the first trip
- One log per vehicle. Write the car at the top (make, model or plate), since the year’s totals are per car.
- Read and photograph the odometer on day one. That’s January 1, or the day you start driving for work. The year’s total miles start from the reading in that photo.
- Pick one distance method and keep it all year. Per-trip odometer readings or a GPS app both work, but mixing them makes the log harder to check. Our odometer vs GPS comparison covers the trade-offs.
- Pick a format you’ll actually open. IRS Topic 305 says “there’s not a required method of bookkeeping you must use.” A notebook, a spreadsheet or an app is fine if it gets filled in.
- Put a prompt where you’ll see it. A notebook in the door pocket with a pen clipped to it, or a phone reminder set for the end of your usual shift.
About “IRS-approved” templates
Pub. 463’s sample daily mileage log (Table 5-2) has columns for date, destination, business purpose, odometer start and stop, miles and expenses. It’s marked “THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL INTERNAL REVENUE FORM.” The IRS doesn’t approve templates or apps, so borrow those columns and ignore any “approved” label.
Not logging for taxes?
The same setup works for a lease allowance or your own budget. The annual mileage calculator turns two dated odometer readings into a yearly pace with a lease check, and the cost per mile calculator shows what those miles cost you.
Log each trip when it ends
The 30-second routine. Before you get out of the car, write down the end odometer reading (or the trip’s distance), the destination and the purpose. The start reading went in when you set off, and the date is today.
Why then? The regulation behind Pub. 463, Treas. Reg. §1.274-5T, says a record counts as made “at or near the time” when you have “full present knowledge of each element” of the use. It also says written evidence is worth more “the closer in time it relates to the expenditure or use.”
Some mileage app vendors say the IRS requires a contemporaneous log. It doesn’t. The regulation says “A contemporaneous log is not required,” but that a record made at or near the time “has a high degree of credibility not present with respect to a statement prepared subsequent thereto.” A log written as you go is optional, then, but it’s far easier to believe than one written afterward.
Treat weekly as the fallback. Pub. 463’s timely kept records section says: “If you maintain a log on a weekly basis that accounts for use during the week, the log is considered a timely kept record.” A Friday catch-up from memory still loses what makes an odometer log trustworthy: each trip’s start reading matching the last trip’s end.
Split a trip where the purpose changes. Drop off an order, then visit a friend? Read the odometer at the stop and write two lines. Our business vs personal post walks through common mixed trips.
Several stops in one run. Pub. 463 lets you account for “a round trip or uninterrupted business use” with “a single record.” A morning of client visits can be one line listing the stops, and a lunch stop between two of them doesn’t break the run.
The odometer trip mileage calculator turns start and end readings into trip miles and a running total.
A weekly check and a year-end close
Weekly: ten minutes
- Check the chain. Each trip’s start reading should match the previous trip’s end. A gap is miles the car drove that aren’t in the log. The odometer post shows how to spot and fill one.
- Fill in any missing purpose or destination while you still remember it.
- Add any trip you forgot from what you have (platform trip history, invoices, receipts, a calendar entry), and note that it went in late and what it’s based on.
Monthly: one subtotal
Total the business miles for each car. It’s optional, but it makes the year-end sum quick, and a thin month flags a missing week.
Year-end: close the log
- Read and photograph the odometer on December 31, or the day the car stops being used for business.
- Work out the car’s total miles by subtracting the opening reading. Split it into business, commuting and other. Schedule C and Form 4562 both ask for that split, and the odometer post has the line numbers.
- Keep every line’s date. The business standard mileage rate changed on July 1, 2026, so the date of each trip decides which rate applies (IRS standard mileage rates).
- Back up the whole year. Photograph or scan paper pages, or export the spreadsheet or app data somewhere that isn’t your phone.
Mistakes that sink a mileage log
- Estimating or rounding. Pub. 463 is blunt: “You can’t deduct amounts that you approximate or estimate.” Treas. Reg. §1.274-5T(a) says the rule “supersedes the doctrine found in Cohan v. Commissioner” (the 1930 case that let courts allow a reasonable estimate), so no deduction is allowed “on the basis of such approximations or unsupported testimony of the taxpayer.”
- Rebuilding the whole log at tax time. Under the regulation, a statement written long after the fact needs backing evidence with “a high degree of probative value.” Pub. 463 allows reconstruction when records are lost for “reasons beyond your control,” such as “fire, flood, and other casualties.” Forgetting to keep them doesn’t count.
- Odometer readings with no trip lines. In Garza v. Commissioner (T.C. Memo. 2014-121), the taxpayer wrote down the odometer reading at the beginning and end of each month but didn’t document each business trip, according to a 415 Group summary. The Tax Court denied the deduction because he didn’t record “the amount, time or business purpose of each business use of the vehicle,” as Iowa State’s Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation puts it. Readings show how far the car went, not which miles were business.
- Vague purposes. A column of “business” and “meeting” proves nothing about any single trip. Name the client, the site or the job.
- Thinking the standard mileage rate means no log. Treas. Reg. §1.274-5(j)(2) says a taxpayer using mileage rates “will not be relieved of the requirement to substantiate the amount of each business use (i.e., the business mileage), or the time and business purpose of each use.” When Uber’s tax page says there’s “no need to keep a record of all your vehicle-related expenses” under the standard method, it means expenses, not miles.
- Treating a platform’s year-end summary as the log. Uber says its tax summary is “not an official tax document.” Its online miles cover driving while you wait for a request, on the way to a pickup and during the trip, so miles you drive while not online aren’t in that figure. Use platform records to back up your log, not to replace it.
- Logging a few months and stopping. Sampling is a real rule (below), but only with evidence that the logged weeks match the rest of the year. Three months and then nothing isn’t a sample.
- No backup. A lone notebook or a never-exported phone is one lost bag away from an empty log.
Shortcuts the rules allow, and how long to keep the log
Sampling part of the year
Pub. 463’s sampling rule: “You can keep an adequate record for parts of a tax year and use that record to prove the amount of business or investment use for the entire year.” It comes with a condition: “You must demonstrate by other evidence that the periods for which an adequate record is kept are representative of the use throughout the tax year.”
In the IRS example, a taxpayer logs the first week of each month, and invoices and bills show the other weeks followed the same pattern. The rule has two limits:
- It isn’t allowed for an employer’s vehicle “made available for use by more than one employee” (§1.274-5T(c)(3)(ii)(B)).
- It suits a steady routine. Gig shifts that change week to week are hard to show as representative.
A fixed route
A sales representative on “an established sales route” can meet the rules “by recording the length of the delivery route once, the date of each trip at or near the time of the trips, and the total miles you drove the car during the tax year.” That fits a route that repeats, not app-based gig work where the route changes with every order.
Confidential details and reimbursed employees
A confidential client name or purpose can stay out of the log, but Pub. 463 says you still “have to record the information elsewhere at or near the time of the expense.”
Employees reimbursed under an accountable plan need the same habit. Pub. 463 says you account to your employer with a record “in which you entered each expense at or near the time you had it.” Most employees can no longer deduct unreimbursed car costs (see the business vs personal post), so for them the log is about getting paid back.
How long to keep it
- Generally 3 years “from the date you file the income tax return on which the deduction is claimed.” A return filed early counts as filed on the due date.
- Longer if you depreciate the car. Pub. 463 ties this to depreciation under the actual-expense method: “You must keep records of the business use of your car for each year of the recovery period.”
- Longer in a few other cases. The IRS page on how long to keep records says 6 years if you don’t report income that’s “more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return,” and indefinitely if you don’t file or file a fraudulent return.
Keep each year’s log in the same place as that year’s return and the car’s records. Outside the US the rules differ; Canada’s CRA, for example, asks for kilometres per trip plus odometer readings at the start and end of the fiscal period.
Keeping a mileage log in Road44
Road44, our driving log app, can hold the per-trip part of this routine using odometer readings or a typed distance, not GPS. Choose Distance as your goal metric so totals and charts count miles (or kilometers), and keep your January 1 odometer photo yourself.
Start a drive and enter the start odometer, vehicle and purpose on the start sheet. When you hold to stop, the entry form opens on the finished drive, so the end reading goes in before you leave the car. “Add past drive” covers a trip you log later. A typed distance overrides the odometer difference if you fill in both.
Purpose chips cover Business, Personal, Commute and Medical. There’s no destination field, so type the destination and the specific purpose into notes. The daily reminder, History and the calendar are free, so the nudge and the weekly check cost nothing.
Exports in Text, CSV, PDF and PNG are free, with no watermark. Turn on Notes and Vehicle first, since both start off. The export has no purpose column, so the purpose only shows up if it’s in your notes.
Know the limits. There’s no automatic trip detection, so a forgotten drive stays forgotten, and drives live on your phone with no cloud copy, so exports are your backup. History and exports cover All or the last 7, 30 or 90 days, with no tax-year range, so export All each quarter and again at year end.
Breakdowns by purpose and vehicle (on the Insights screen) and recurring weekly and monthly goals are part of the optional Pro subscription. Road44 is a personal record, not an official or certified log, and not tax advice. If that setup fits how you drive, download Road44.
Whatever you log with, the routine is the same: one line when the trip ends, a check every week, and an odometer photo on January 1 and December 31.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What should a mileage log include?
For each business trip: the date, the miles (start and end odometer readings or the trip distance), the destination and the business purpose. For each vehicle and year: the total miles driven, which an odometer reading at the start and end of the year gives you. Those elements follow Table 5-1 in IRS Publication 463.
How often should I update my mileage log?
After each trip is best, while the details are fresh and each start reading still matches the last end reading. IRS Publication 463 treats a log kept on a weekly basis that accounts for use during the week as a timely kept record, so a week is the longest gap the IRS spells out as timely. Monthly catch-ups and logs rebuilt from memory at tax time carry far less weight.
Do I still need a mileage log if I use the standard mileage rate?
Yes. The rate replaces tracking your actual car costs, not tracking your miles. Treasury Regulation §1.274-5(j)(2) says a taxpayer using mileage rates is not relieved of the requirement to substantiate the business mileage of each use, or the time and business purpose of each use.
Can I estimate my business miles?
No. Publication 463 says you can't deduct amounts that you approximate or estimate. The regulation behind it says the substantiation rule for cars supersedes the old Cohan doctrine, under which courts sometimes allowed a reasonable estimate. Record actual readings or trip distances and add them up.
Is there an IRS-approved mileage log template?
No. The IRS doesn't approve mileage log templates or apps. Its own sample log, Table 5-2 in Publication 463, is labelled as not an official Internal Revenue form, and IRS Topic 305 says there's no required method of bookkeeping you must use. A template sold as IRS-approved is using a label the IRS doesn't issue.
Can I keep a mileage log for only part of the year?
Only under Publication 463's sampling rule, and only if you can show with other evidence that the periods you logged are representative of the whole year. The IRS example logs the first week of each month and uses invoices and bills to show the rest of the month matched. Sampling isn't allowed for an employer's vehicle that is made available to more than one employee.
Can Uber's tax summary replace my mileage log?
Treat it as supporting evidence, not as the log. Uber says the summary is not an official tax document. Its online miles cover driving while you wait for a request, on the way to a pickup and during the trip, so miles you drive while not online aren't part of that figure. Keep your own log and use Uber's records to back it up.
How long should I keep my mileage log?
Generally 3 years from the date you file the return that claims the deduction, according to Publication 463. If you depreciate the car under the actual-expense method, keep the business-use records for each year of the recovery period. The IRS lists longer periods in some cases: 6 years if you leave out income of more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return, and indefinitely if you don't file or file a fraudulent return.