You buy at thrift stores, estate sales and clearance aisles and resell on eBay, Poshmark, Mercari or Whatnot. November and December are the busy months: more sourcing to stock up for holiday buyers, and a post office run almost every day once orders start landing. That's a lot of miles. Do any of them come off your taxes?
Short answer: yes, if reselling is a business. Drives to source inventory, including runs where you find nothing, trips to the post office or UPS to ship sold orders, and drives to estate sales, flea markets and supply stores are business miles. From July 1 to December 31, 2026 each one is worth 76¢ at the standard mileage rate (72.5¢ before that), plus parking and tolls. Two things don't count: the personal errand you fit a thrift stop into, and anything at all if you're only clearing out your own closet.
Who this is for: US resellers who buy items to resell for profit and report it on Schedule C. Who it's not for: people selling their own used belongings, and W-2 employees of a resale shop. Unreimbursed employee car costs aren't deductible on a federal return.
Flipping versus clearing out your closet
The IRS treats these as two different things, and only one has mileage.
- Selling your own stuff. The old coat, the kids' outgrown toys, a lamp you no longer want. That isn't a business. Per the IRS, you can't deduct a loss on a personal item, and you only owe tax on items you sell for more than you paid. Since there's no business, the drive to ship them is personal too.
- Buying to resell. If you go out to buy things because you can sell them for more, keep track of costs and prices, and put in regular time, that looks like a business. Income and costs go on Schedule C, and so does your mileage. If net earnings reach $400 for the year, self-employment tax applies too, and deducted miles lower that as well.
- Somewhere in between. If you mostly sell for fun and don't really try to make a profit, the IRS may see a hobby. You still report the income, but hobby expenses, including mileage, effectively can't be deducted under current law. Our home-baker guide goes through the business-or-hobby factors in more detail. The test is the same for any side business.
Plenty of people do both: they flip as a business and sometimes list their own things too. That's fine. Keep the personal sales out of the business numbers, and don't count trips made only to ship them.
Trips resellers make, sorted
The question for each drive: would you have made it if you didn't resell? If not, it's a business trip.
| Trip | Business mile? |
|---|---|
| A loop of three thrift stores to look for inventory | Yes, even if you buy nothing |
| Saturday estate sales, garage sales or a flea market, buying to resell | Yes |
| Post office, UPS or a carrier drop point to ship sold orders | Yes |
| Buying poly mailers, boxes, tape or a label printer | Yes |
| Meeting a local buyer to hand off a sale | Yes |
| Grocery run where you also pop into the thrift store next door | No, it's a personal trip. Only extra miles you drove for the store would count |
| Dropping packages at the post office on the way to work | Only the detour |
| Driving to sell your own old furniture | No, it's a personal sale |
| Donating the items that didn't sell | Not as business miles. If the donated items are your inventory, ask a preparer how to treat them |
The car is one expense. Everything you buy is another. The items you source are inventory, which becomes cost of goods sold when they sell. Shipping supplies and platform fees are their own expenses. Keep the receipts for those separately; they aren't part of your mileage.
The empty-handed sourcing run
This is the trip resellers worry about most, and it's the one that's easiest to defend if you write it down. It's the reason you drove that counts, not whether you came home with anything. Any shop owner who checks out a supplier and leaves without buying still made a business trip.
The risk is proof, not the rule. A run that ended with a $40 receipt has a paper trail. A run that ended with nothing has only your log. So note what you did that day: "Goodwill Main St, Savers, Habitat ReStore, sourcing, nothing bought, 23 mi." IRS Publication 463 expects each entry to show the date, the place, the business purpose and the miles, recorded at or near the time. A pattern of sourcing runs, some with buys and some without, alongside steady sales looks like a business. A December full of "sourcing" with no inventory and no sales doesn't.
Where the first mile starts: home, storage unit or neither
Resellers usually work from home: photographing on a spare-room table, listing from the couch, packing in the garage. Whether the drive from your door counts depends on where the IRS says your business is, under Revenue Ruling 99-7.
- Your home is your principal place of business. That means part of it is used regularly and only for the business's admin and management work: listing, bookkeeping, ordering supplies. And you have no other fixed place where you do much of that work. Then every business drive from home counts from the driveway, including to a storage unit.
- You rent a storage unit you go to all the time. If your home doesn't qualify, that unit is probably a regular work location. Home to the unit and back is then commuting. Unit to the post office, to a sale and back to the unit is business.
- Neither. The trips between stops still count: thrift store to thrift store to post office. The first drive out and the last drive home are less clear. Treat them as personal unless your preparer says otherwise.
One trap: Publication 587 lets a seller deduct a home space used regularly to store inventory, even if it isn't used only for that. That rule is about deducting the storage space. It doesn't make your home your principal place of business for the commuting test, which still needs the regular, exclusive admin space. A garage full of bins isn't enough by itself. Business miles vs. commuting miles has the full commuting chart.
What a holiday season of sourcing is worth
Say that for the eight weeks of November and December you make two sourcing loops a week, three post office runs a week, and hit a Saturday estate sale every other week:
| Trips | Miles |
|---|---|
| 16 sourcing loops × 24 mi | 384 |
| 24 post office runs × 5 mi | 120 |
| 4 estate sales × 32 mi | 128 |
| Total × 76¢ | 632 mi = $480.32 |
That deduction lowers both income tax and self-employment tax on your profit. 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. Standard mileage vs. actual expenses covers the choice.
The 1099-K question
Resellers ask about this every fall. For federal purposes, eBay, Poshmark, Mercari and other platforms only have to file a Form 1099-K for you when your payments exceed $20,000 and more than 200 transactions. The 2025 tax law restored that threshold retroactively, replacing the planned $600 limit. A platform can still send a form below that, and some states have lower limits of their own.
Getting a 1099-K or not doesn't change what you owe. If you're in business, all of your sales are income, and all of your legitimate costs, including miles, come off it. If you only sold personal items at a loss, the IRS explains how to zero out a 1099-K amount instead of paying tax on it. 1099-K vs. 1099-NEC explains the forms themselves.
Tip: if you hand an unsold bag of inventory to charity, don't count that drive as a 14¢ charity mile on top of claiming the items as business costs. Ask your preparer how donated inventory is handled before you claim anything for it.
Where TaxMiles fits, and where it doesn't
We make TaxMiles, so weigh this accordingly. Here's what it does for a reseller, and what it doesn't.
- It detects drives on its own. A stop of about two minutes or more ends a trip, so each sourcing stop usually becomes its own trip. If you start driving again within about five minutes near the same spot, like a quick drop at a mailbox, the app attaches it back onto the same drive.
- You mark each drive business or personal, and you can type the stores you checked into the trip's Notes. That's how an empty-handed run gets its record.
- Under Settings → Auto-Classify → Trip Purposes you can keep your own list of purposes. "Supply Pickup" is one of the suggestions; add your own, like "Sourcing" or "Ship orders".
- If a GPS-tracked drive mixed business and personal, Split Trip (Pro) cuts it at the point where the errand changed, so only the business part counts.
- It doesn't track inventory, cost of goods sold or sales, and it has no reseller-specific settings. Use your platform's sales reports and your receipts for those.
- The free plan covers your first 40 business trips in total. Pro is $7.99 a month or $59.99 a year and adds exports, receipt scanning and tools like Split Trip.
Frequently asked questions
Can I deduct mileage for a thrift store trip where I didn't buy anything?
Yes, if reselling is a business and the trip was made to look for inventory. The deduction depends on why you drove, not on whether you found something. Note the stores you checked in your log, because a sourcing run with no receipt is the trip most likely to be questioned.
Do trips to the post office to ship eBay or Poshmark orders count?
Yes. Driving to drop off sold orders is a business errand. If you drop packages on the way to somewhere personal, only the extra miles for the stop count.
I only sell my own old clothes. Can I deduct mileage?
No. Selling your own used things isn't a business, so there are no business expenses to deduct. The IRS says a loss on a personal item can't be deducted, and you pay tax only on items sold for more than you paid.
Will eBay or Poshmark send me a 1099-K for 2026?
Federally, a platform has to file a 1099-K only when your payments exceed $20,000 and more than 200 transactions. Platforms may still send one below that, and some states set lower limits. Either way, business income is reportable whether or not you get a form.
Can I deduct the drive from home to a storage unit full of inventory?
If your home is your principal place of business, yes. If it isn't, a storage unit you visit routinely is likely a regular work location, and the IRS treats home to a regular work location as commuting. Drives from the unit to the post office or a sale still count.
Log the sourcing runs as you drive them
An empty-handed thrift loop only counts if it's on the record. TaxMiles catches each drive, lets you note the stores, and applies 72.5¢ or 76¢ by trip date.
Get TaxMilesSources: IRS standard mileage rates (72.5¢ January 1–June 30 and 76¢ July 1–December 31, 2026; charity 14¢); Rev. Rul. 99-7 (residence as principal place of business; regular and temporary work locations); IRS Publication 587 (principal place of business: administrative or management activities; storage of inventory exception); IRS Publication 463 (recordkeeping; standard rate in the first year); IRS Publication 525 (2025) (activity not for profit; sale of personal items); IRS What to do with Form 1099-K (personal items sold at a loss or gain); IRS IR-2025-107 ($20,000 and 200 transactions, reinstated retroactively). Checked October 24, 2026.
This article is general information for US federal income tax, not tax or legal advice. The example is simplified: one car, standard mileage rate, all trips made only for the business. States have their own rules and 1099-K thresholds. TaxMiles is published by Gigabyte LLC, the company that wrote this article.