General tax education, not tax advice. Commuting is fact-specific, and your facts change the moment a brokerage reimburses driving. Confirm Publication 463 and your brokerage’s expense policy before you file.
A real estate agent drives more than almost anyone who is not paid to drive: showings, previews, inspections, the title company, the sign that has to go up before Saturday. It is the largest deductible expense most agents have — and the one most often reduced on examination, because it gets claimed from memory in April instead of recorded in the car.
The rules are the ordinary business-mileage rules. What differs is the shape of an agent’s day: a home base that is not an office, an office you rarely work from, and short hops that each need a reason.
The short version: commissioned agents file Schedule C. Home to your brokerage office is commuting, not deductible. Showings, closings, inspections, open houses, sign installs, and photography trips are business. Reimbursed miles come off the top. 2026 uses two rates: 72.5¢ per mile January 1 – June 30 and 76¢ per mile July 1 – December 31.
You are a Schedule C filer, even with a brokerage name on your card
Nearly every licensed agent working under a broker is an independent contractor. You hang a license, split commissions, use their forms — and still receive a 1099, pay self-employment tax, and report income and expenses on Schedule C. The brokerage relationship is supervision, not employment.
That matters, because unreimbursed employee business expenses are not deductible federally under current law: a W-2 employee gets nothing for the same driving. A few states still allow a version on the state return — see our state-by-state guide for W-2 employees. If you are commissioned, your car costs land on Schedule C Line 9, as covered in Schedule C car expenses.
The commuting trap is the whole game
Here is the sentence that decides thousands of dollars: a drive from your home to your regular place of business is commuting, no matter how much work happens when you get there. If that is the brokerage office, the morning drive in is not deductible and neither is the drive home. Almost everything else you do in a car is a trip between business locations or to a temporary work location, and those are deductible.
| The trip | Usual treatment |
|---|---|
| Home to the brokerage office, no stops | Commuting, not deductible |
| Home to a showing or listing appointment | Business — temporary work site |
| Showing to showing | Business — between business locations |
| Office to a closing or title company | Business |
| Inspection, appraisal, final walkthrough | Business |
| Sign or lockbox install and retrieval | Business |
| Property photography or video | Business |
| Picking a client up to tour properties | Business |
| Open house or continuing-education class | Business |
| Office to home at day’s end | Commuting, not deductible |
A stop changes a leg’s character: preview a property on the way in, and the home-to-property leg is business. The underlying framework is in business miles vs. commuting miles.
A qualifying home office changes the first trip of the day
The one legitimate way to convert that morning drive is to make your home the principal place of business under IRC 280A: a specific space used exclusively and regularly for the business, where you do substantial administrative work with no other fixed location for it. Leaving it for the first appointment is then a drive between two business locations, not a commute.
Agents often have a real case, because the brokerage desk is shared or effectively unused — but that is a claim you must defend, and a desk in a bedroom that is still a bedroom does not qualify. The mechanism is worked through in how a home office turns commuting into business miles. Do not build an office in December because someone mentioned the commuting rule.
Mixed-purpose trips: the showing and the grocery run
Agents do not drive in clean segments. You deduct the business portion, treating the trip as legs rather than one round number. Drive 12 miles from home to a listing appointment, 3 to a grocery store, then 9 home: the 12 out are business, the detour is personal, and the conservative return figure is the direct drive home from the appointment. A stop adding no distance does not taint the trip.
The inverse is the trap: a drive-by of a listing bolted onto a personal errand does not convert the errand into business. The test is the trip’s primary purpose. A rule of thumb that survives scrutiny: if the appointment had been cancelled and you would still have made the drive, it was personal.
If your brokerage reimburses driving, the deduction shrinks
This is the agent-specific issue gig drivers never face, and where mileage claims most often fall apart. Many brokerages and most teams reimburse something: a per-mile amount for team listings, a car allowance, a gas card, a covered sign-install run. The question is whether it is an accountable plan — you substantiate the expense, they reimburse only that amount, you return any excess. Under one, the reimbursement is not income to you and you cannot also deduct those miles. Double-dipping there is the fastest way to lose credibility on the whole log. A flat allowance with no substantiation requirement is non-accountable, generally lands in your 1099 income, and leaves your business miles deductible in full.
Tip: if only some driving is reimbursed, tag those trips in the log as you go. Backing four months of reimbursed sign runs out of a single annual total at year end is guesswork — exactly what an examiner is looking for.
Standard mileage or actual expenses for a car full of clients
Agents drive clients, so the car tends to be nicer than a delivery driver’s and the two methods can land far apart. Standard mileage multiplies business miles by the IRS rate, folding in gas, maintenance, insurance, and depreciation. Actual expenses deducts the business percentage of what the car really costs — including depreciation, where an expensive vehicle pulls ahead. The choice matters most in the first year the car is placed in service, because actual expenses with certain depreciation methods can lock you out of the standard rate for that vehicle forever. Run both on paper first; the switching rules are in standard mileage vs. actual expenses.
Either way, 2026 needs the split. Business miles driven January 1 – June 30, 2026 are deducted at 72.5¢ per mile; miles driven July 1 – December 31, 2026 at 76¢. Applying one rate to an annual total is wrong this year — the arithmetic is in the mid-year rate increase guide.
Why agents get their mileage reduced on examination
Round numbers. A Schedule C reporting exactly 20,000 business miles reads as a reconstruction. Real driving produces uneven totals; three trailing zeros invite a request for the log behind them.
No contemporaneous record. The rules want a log kept at or near the time of the trip. A spreadsheet assembled in March from your calendar and the MLS is weighed as a reconstruction — there is a right way to do that in reconstructing a mileage log, but it is salvage, not a plan.
Miles claimed on top of reimbursement. If the brokerage issues a 1099 and also reimburses driving, an examiner sees both sides. Claiming the full log anyway turns a narrow question into a full review. Track total annual miles as well as business miles, so the percentage stays defensible.
What a compliant log actually needs
Four fields per trip: date, destination or route, business purpose, and miles — plus total annual mileage for the vehicle and its in-service date.
Business purpose is the field agents write badly. “Work” is not a purpose; “Showing — 412 Oak, buyer client Rivera” is. A property address does double duty, because it is itself evidence the destination was business. Full requirements and retention periods are in IRS mileage log requirements. The practical problem is volume: fifteen short trips on a busy Saturday never get written down by hand, which is why logs end up reconstructed.
Write-offs that stack on top of the rate
The standard mileage rate covers vehicle operating costs, not the rest of the business — and agents have a long list of the rest. MLS dues and board fees, including MLS access and lockbox or Supra key fees. Licensing and E&O — renewal, continuing education, and errors-and-omissions insurance. Marketing — signage, flyers, photography, video, staging, mailers, and paid listing promotion. Desk and technology fees. And client gifts, capped federally at $25 per recipient per year: a $200 closing gift is a $25 deduction.
Parking and tolls on a business trip are deductible in addition to the standard rate; car washes, oil changes, and insurance are not, because they are already inside it. The full list is in write-offs that stack with the mileage deduction and self-employed tax deductions.
Showings do not get logged by hand
TaxMiles auto-detects trips and lets you classify a showing, a closing run, or an errand the same day, so 72.5¢ and 76¢ attach to the right dates. Free plan is 40 trips a month; Pro is $5.99/month.
Download TaxMiles FreeFrequently Asked Questions
Can a realtor deduct miles to showings?
Yes. For a self-employed agent, driving to show a property, driving between showings, and driving from a showing back to the office are all business miles. What matters is that the destination has a business purpose you can name.
Is driving to my brokerage office deductible?
Usually no. A plain drive from home to the brokerage office and back is commuting, and commuting is never deductible. It changes if your home qualifies as your principal place of business, or if you stop at a property, a closing, or a client meeting on the way.
What if my broker reimburses mileage?
You cannot deduct miles already reimbursed under an accountable plan, so subtract those trips first. If the money is a non-accountable allowance that lands in your 1099 income instead, you report it as income and deduct your business miles in full.
Should real estate agents use standard mileage or actual expenses?
It depends on the car. High miles in an ordinary vehicle usually favor the standard rate; low miles in an expensive vehicle often favor actual expenses plus depreciation. The choice matters most in the first year the car is placed in service, because actual expenses with certain depreciation methods can lock you out of the standard rate for that vehicle.
Can I deduct closing gifts for my clients?
Business gifts are deductible only up to 25 dollars per recipient per year under the federal rule. A 200 dollar closing gift is a 25 dollar deduction. The limit is separate from mileage, so the drive to deliver the gift is still a business trip.
What mileage rate do real estate agents use for 2026?
The same rates every other business driver uses, and 2026 has two of them. Business miles driven January 1 through June 30, 2026 are deducted at 72.5 cents per mile, and miles driven July 1 through December 31, 2026 at 76 cents per mile. Multiplying one annual total by a single rate is wrong this year.
Related: business vs. commuting miles and the 2026 IRS mileage rate.
Related reading: Amend a Tax Return for Missed Mileage Deduction, Instacart Taxes: Mileage Deductions for Shoppers, Amazon Flex Taxes: Mileage and Deductions, Grubhub Taxes: Mileage and Deductions.
This article is general tax education for U.S. federal Schedule C filers, not legal, tax, or accounting advice and not a guarantee of any deduction. Commuting rules, IRC 280A, accountable-plan rules, the business-gift limit, and IRS mileage rates can change; read the current IRS forms (Publication 463, Publication 587, Notice 2026-10, and Announcement 2026-11) or work with a licensed professional. Worker classification is fact-specific. TaxMiles: Mileage Tracker (App Store id 6758579463, seller Gigabyte LLC) is not affiliated with the IRS, and is not MileIQ, Everlance, or Mileage Tracker for Taxes (id 6758426140).