Short answer: if you sell baked goods as a business, the drives you make for it are deductible: ingredient and packaging runs made just for orders, deliveries, and trips to markets and pop-ups where you sell. Every business mile from July 1 to December 31, 2026 is worth 76¢ at the standard rate, plus parking and tolls. Two things don't count: the family grocery trip where you also grab butter, and anything at all if the baking is a hobby rather than a business.
The holiday order form goes up in October. By the first week of November you have 40 dozen cookies and a dozen pies booked, and you can already see the next six weeks: runs to the warehouse store for flour and butter, a trip across town for cake boxes, a delivery loop every Saturday, a craft-fair table in December. That is a lot of driving for a small margin, and most home bakers never claim any of it, either because nobody told them they could or because they assumed a kitchen business doesn't "count". Here's where the line sits, worked out before the first order goes out rather than reconstructed in April.
First: is this a business or a hobby?
Mileage is a business expense, so the first question is whether there is a business. The IRS looks at things like whether you run it like one (prices, records, a separate account), whether you're trying to make a profit, and how much time you put in. Someone who takes orders every holiday season, sets prices to cover ingredients and time, and keeps receipts is very likely in business. Someone who sold a few loaves to a neighbour once is not.
- Business: report the income on Schedule C and deduct the costs, including mileage. If your net earnings reach $400 for the year, you also owe self-employment tax, and every deducted mile lowers that too.
- Hobby: the income is still taxable, but hobby expenses haven't been deductible since 2018, and the 2025 tax law made that permanent. No mileage, no flour, nothing.
- Charity bake sale: baking and driving for a school or 501(c)(3) fundraiser isn't a business at all. Unreimbursed miles count as a charitable contribution at 14¢ a mile if you itemize. Medical, charity and moving mileage covers that rate.
Which drives count
The test for each trip is simple: would you have made this drive if you didn't sell baked goods? If the answer is no, it's a business trip.
| Trip | Business mile? |
|---|---|
| Warehouse-store run only for this week's orders | Yes |
| Weekly family groceries, plus a few pounds of butter for orders | No: personal trip (the butter itself is still a business expense) |
| Delivering orders to customers' homes | Yes |
| Picking up boxes, labels or a stand mixer part | Yes |
| Driving to a holiday market where you have a table | Yes |
| Dropping a tray at the café that sells your cookies | Yes |
| A food-handler class or permit appointment for the business | Yes |
| School drop-off, then on to the restaurant-supply store | Only the leg from school to the store |
Parking and tolls on business trips are deductible on top of the standard rate. The ingredients, boxes and market-table fees are separate business expenses with their own receipts. Don't fold them into your mileage.
The drive from your front door
This is the one detail most guides skip. Under IRS Revenue Ruling 99-7, the drive from home to a business stop is a business trip if your home is your principal place of business. For a home baker that usually means a space used only and regularly for the business: a desk or corner where you take orders, plan production and keep the books, with no other office anywhere. The family kitchen, which also makes dinner, generally doesn't pass the "only" test by itself.
If you have that kind of space, every trip that starts at home for the business counts from the driveway. If you don't, the trips between business stops still count (supply store to customer to café), but the first drive out and the last drive home are less certain. Ask a preparer before you claim them. Home office and first and last trips walks through the office test, and business miles vs. commuting miles covers the commuting rules in general. Don't set up a pretend office just to make those miles count.
What it's worth over one holiday season
Say that for six weeks you make three supply runs of 14 miles round trip and two delivery loops of 25 miles each week, plus four Saturday markets at 30 miles round trip. That's 552 miles of runs and deliveries and 120 miles of markets: 672 miles × 76¢ = $510.72. On a season that brings in a few thousand dollars, that deduction reduces income tax and self-employment tax alike. That's real money for a baker charging $30 a dozen.
One choice to make now: if this is the first year you've used this car for the business, use the standard mileage rate this year. You can't switch a car to the standard rate after taking actual expenses on it first. Standard mileage vs. actual expenses explains the trade-off.
Keep the record as you go
IRS Publication 463 expects a log made at or near the time of each trip, with the date, where you went, the business purpose and the miles. "Costco, flour and butter for Nov 22 orders, 14 mi" is enough. Bank statements show you bought something; they don't show how far you drove or why. What an IRS mileage log needs has the full list.
Tip: before you start taking orders, check your state's cottage food rules. States differ on whether you can deliver, sell online, ship, or sell through a café, and some need a permit or label first. It's easier to plan delivery routes around rules you already know.
Our app: TaxMiles, the app this site is for, records drives in the background. You mark each one Business or Personal and type a purpose such as "deliveries, Smith and Patel orders", and it applies 72.5¢ or 76¢ depending on the date. The free version logs up to 40 business trips a month, enough for most holiday seasons, and shows every trip and total in the app; exporting a PDF or CSV for your preparer is part of Pro. If you only make a handful of runs, a notebook in the glove box works just as well.
The rest of the order season
The driving is one part of a holiday baking season. We make three other apps for problems home bakers often run into, and there's a free way to handle each one without them.
Turning one recipe into 40 dozen
Multiplying a cookie recipe by six isn't the same as multiplying every line by six: leavening, salt and bake times don't scale in a straight line. RecipeScan's guide to doubling or halving a recipe covers what scales and what doesn't. Its guide to making one grocery list from several recipes turns the week's bakes into a single supply run, and fewer runs means fewer miles.
Our app: RecipeScan scales a recipe's servings and adds the ingredients from several recipes to one grocery list, combining repeated items like butter and sugar.
Your camera roll is full of cookie photos
Getting one good shot for the order post usually means forty near-identical ones, many of them bursts. This guide shows how to delete burst photos on iPhone with the built-in Photos app and keep only the frame you want.
Our app: Phone Diet groups near-identical shots, including bursts, so you can keep the best one and clear the rest.
Music on the delivery loop
On a Saturday delivery run with directions on, it's common for the music to stop after a turn prompt or a customer's call and stay stopped. Trending Music's explainer on why music doesn't restart after a call or GPS directions shows the iPhone settings that cause it and how to change them.
Our app: Trending Music is free with ads. The fix in that guide works whichever music app you use.
Frequently asked questions
Can I deduct mileage for delivering baked goods I sell from home?
Yes, if the baking is a business you run to make a profit. Deliveries, ingredient and packaging runs, and drives to markets where you sell are business miles. For miles driven from July 1 to December 31, 2026 the standard rate is 76 cents a mile, plus parking and tolls.
Does my regular grocery trip count if I buy baking ingredients too?
No. A trip you would have made anyway for the family is a personal trip, even if half the cart is butter for orders. Deduct the ingredients themselves as a business expense. A separate run made only for the business is a business trip.
I only sell at one holiday bake sale for my kid's school. Can I deduct anything?
Not as a business. If the sale raises money for a qualified charity, such as a public school or a 501(c)(3) parent group, and you are not reimbursed, the miles you drive for it are a charitable contribution at 14 cents a mile, which only helps if you itemize.
Does the drive from my house to the first stop count?
It does if your home is your principal place of business, which generally needs a space used only and regularly for the business, such as a desk where you take orders and keep the books. A kitchen that is also the family kitchen usually doesn't qualify on its own. Without that, ask a preparer about the first and last drive of the day.
Taking holiday orders this year?
TaxMiles records each supply run and delivery in the background, so all you do is tap Business and type what the drive was for. Free for 40 business trips a month.
Get TaxMilesThis article is general education for U.S. taxpayers, not legal, tax or accounting advice. Rates and rules change; check current IRS guidance or ask a tax professional about your situation. Cottage food rules are set by each state. TaxMiles, Phone Diet, RecipeScan and Trending Music are our apps. Apple and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc., which doesn't endorse this article.