An IRS-ready log.
Mileage tracker for taxes.

The best way is a contemporaneous log, recorded at or near the time of each trip. IRS Publication 463 wants the date, business purpose, destination, and miles for each business trip, plus total and business miles for the year, and odometer readings if you have them. Tracking miles for taxes is easiest with an app that tracks mileage for taxes automatically, so the log builds itself as you drive. That is what TaxMiles does. Publication 463 and Topic 510 explain the rules; they do not guarantee a deduction.

The IRS changed the business rate mid-year in 2026. Miles driven January 1 – June 30 are deducted at 72.5¢/mile; miles driven July 1 – December 31 are deducted at 76¢/mile. Sources: IR-2025-128 and IR-2026-29. The medical and moving rate rose from 20.5¢ to 23.5¢, and the charitable rate stayed at 14¢, the rate a volunteer youth-sports coach uses. TaxMiles applies the correct rate to each trip automatically based on its date, so one year's log spanning both halves still calculates correctly. Full breakdown of the mid-year change →

Yes. TaxMiles Pro includes a CarPlay app, so you can start and stop trips from your car's built-in screen without touching your phone. While a trip runs, CarPlay shows live miles and the dollar deduction you're earning in real time. CarPlay is a Pro feature — free users see an unlock notice on the car screen.

Yes. Home and Lock Screen widgets show your miles, deductions and tax set-aside at a glance, and a Live Activity keeps your current trip on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island while you drive. There's also a quarterly deadline countdown before an estimated-tax payment is due, showing the days remaining and what to set aside.

It depends on your car and your mileage. Standard mileage — business miles × the IRS rate — usually wins for higher-mileage or inexpensive-to-run vehicles. Actual expenses — gas, insurance, registration, repairs, lease payments and depreciation prorated by business use — often wins for newer or pricier cars driven fewer miles. TaxMiles calculates both from your own data and shows which is larger. One rule matters most: you must choose standard mileage in the first year you use a car for business if you want that option available later. Full comparison guide →

Often yes. The IRS generally gives you three years from the filing deadline to amend a return using Form 1040-X. TaxMiles looks back across your tracked and imported history, totals the business miles never claimed in each prior year, and estimates the refund those deductions represent — so you can judge whether amending is worth the effort.

Not on a federal return — the 2017 tax law suspended the deduction for unreimbursed employee business expenses. But several states never adopted that suspension, including California, New York, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Iowa and Minnesota, so the same miles can still be deductible on your state return. TaxMiles tells you where your state stands. If you're self-employed this doesn't limit you at all — your mileage is a Schedule C business expense in every state.

The standard mileage rate has depreciation built into it — 35¢ of every business mile in 2026 — and that depreciation reduces your vehicle's tax basis. When you sell, your gain is measured against the reduced basis, so a sale that feels like a loss can still be taxable, and part of any gain is depreciation recapture taxed as ordinary income. TaxMiles tracks how much basis you've used and estimates the gain and recapture before you sell, rather than after. The basis math is in selling a car after the mileage deduction.

Yes. Start and stop a drive from your wrist, watch the trip run with live distance, and check your totals without reaching for your phone. Complications put your mileage and deduction on the watch face in circular, rectangular, corner and inline styles. There's also a Control Center control and Siri support — "Start a trip in TaxMiles" — so logging a drive never needs the Home Screen.

TaxMiles uses GPS and device motion to detect when you start driving, then switches to precision GPS for the trip. Brief stops, such as traffic lights, do not end the trip. The trip finalizes after you have been stationary.

No. TaxMiles uses low-power monitoring when idle and precision GPS only during an active trip.

Yes. Our reports include all fields required by the IRS: date, starting location, ending location, trip purpose, business/personal classification, and mileage. Reports use the current IRS standard mileage rate and are available in PDF and CSV formats.

Absolutely. The Free plan gives you your first 40 business trips with full auto-detection, and you can see every trip and your deduction totals — no credit card required. Exports and the tax tools are Pro.

TaxMiles is free to download, and the Free plan covers your first 40 business trips in total, not per month. Pro is $7.99 a month or $59.99 a year on the US App Store and adds unlimited trips, every export and the tax tools. There is no lifetime purchase and no family plan, so each driver needs their own subscription.

iPhone users who drive for work and claim mileage themselves: rideshare and delivery drivers, real estate agents, contractors, home health workers and other self-employed or 1099 workers. It also applies the UK, Canada, Australia and six other countries’ mileage schemes. It isn’t available on Android, and most W-2 employees can’t deduct unreimbursed mileage on their federal return.

Your trips stay on your device and in your own private iCloud account, which we can't read. We never sell location data, never share it with third parties, and never use it for advertising. Period.

Yes. TaxMiles has a dedicated CPA Export feature that generates IRS-ready Schedule C reports in PDF and CSV, plus import files for QuickBooks (CSV and IIF), Xero, FreshBooks and Wave. You send them by email, AirDrop or Files. TaxMiles doesn't connect to your accountant's software, and nobody else gets access to your data.

Add each vehicle you drive. TaxMiles can assign trips to a vehicle, and you can assign them yourself and keep mileage and expenses separate per vehicle.

Audit Shield is a readiness scoring system that analyzes your mileage records against IRS compliance criteria. It checks for missing trip purposes, incomplete classifications, and other audit red flags, giving you a score and actionable recommendations.

Tax Runway shows how many more business miles you need to reach your next savings milestone. Deduction Velocity tracks your hourly and per-mile efficiency so you can see which routes and times of day produce the most deductible miles.

Never. Trip data is stored on your device and synced through your own private iCloud account, which we can't read. Voice notes are transcribed on-device. We have no ads, no cross-app tracking, and we never sell data. You can use Sign in with Apple for maximum privacy.

Yes. Log your income and shifts, and TaxMiles shows a live estimate of what to set aside — self-employment tax, federal, and state — updated with every mile you drive and every deduction you add. You even get a nudge each time your set-aside crosses a new milestone.

Yes, with Pro. The Deduction Finder covers non-vehicle Schedule C write-offs — phone and internet, home office, supplies, software, insurance, business meals and more — with suggestions tailored to your line of work. Add one-time purchases or recurring monthly bills and they flow straight into your tax estimate.

The IRS asks for your vehicle's odometer reading at the start and end of each tax year to support your business-use percentage. TaxMiles lets you snap a dated dashboard photo and stores each reading with its date; it does not send a reminder, so put December 31 and January 1 in your own calendar. Entering readings is free; the business-use percentage report is Pro.