Mileage Tracking for the Self-Employed: What to Record and Claim

The HMRC Approved Mileage Rates

If you use your own car for business travel (not commuting), you can claim a fixed rate per mile from HMRC rather than calculating actual vehicle costs. For the 2026/27 tax year, the approved rates are:

• Cars and vans: 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles in a tax year, then 25p per mile above that
• Motorcycles: 24p per mile
• Bicycles: 20p per mile

These rates are designed to cover fuel, wear and tear, insurance, and other running costs. If you use the approved mileage rate, you cannot also claim actual vehicle costs separately.

What Counts as Business Mileage

Business mileage is any travel for a business purpose: visiting clients at their premises, travelling to a temporary workplace, attending a professional event related to your work. It does not include:

• Travel from home to a regular, permanent workplace (that's commuting, not business travel)
• Personal trips
• Travel between your home and any place you go primarily for personal reasons

If you work from home and travel to client sites, your home is your base and all travel to clients counts as business mileage. This is one of the practical advantages of being a home-based freelancer.

What You Need to Record

HMRC expects a mileage log with the following details for each journey:

• Date of travel
• Origin and destination
• Purpose of the journey (which client, what for)
• Number of miles travelled

You need to keep this for at least five years after the Self Assessment deadline for the relevant tax year. A spreadsheet, a notes app, or a dedicated mileage tracking app all work.

The Easiest Way to Track Mileage

Log each journey on the day you make it. If you wait until the end of the week or month, distances become estimates and records become guesses, neither of which HMRC appreciates.

Several apps (MileIQ, Driversnote, TripLog) track mileage automatically via GPS and let you classify each journey as business or personal with a swipe. The annual cost of these apps is itself a deductible business expense.

Alternatively, check your car's odometer at the start and end of each business journey and log the figures. Old-fashioned but perfectly acceptable.

How to Claim It

On your Self Assessment return, you enter total business miles in the relevant expenses section. HMRC's system calculates the allowable deduction automatically at the approved rates. You don't need to attach your mileage log when filing, but you must be able to produce it if HMRC asks.

Is It Worth Tracking?

For many freelancers who visit clients regularly, the answer is yes. At 45p per mile, a 20-mile round trip to a client meeting generates a £9 deduction. Do that 50 times in a year and that's £450 of allowable expenses reducing your tax bill. At the basic rate, that's around £130 in tax saved. Worth five minutes of record-keeping.