How to claim mileage as a sole trader
Use your own car or van for work? Here's how to claim mileage as a sole trader - including the new 55p rate, what counts as a business journey and what your mileage log needs to show.
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10/28/20264 min read
How to claim mileage as a sole trader
If you use your own car, van or motorbike for work, you can claim the cost against your income and pay less tax. It's one of the most valuable expenses for a lot of sole traders, and one of the easiest to under-claim because the miles were never written down.
Here's how it works, including a rate change that took effect in April 2026.
Two ways to claim
You can claim vehicle costs in one of two ways:
A flat rate per mile - you multiply your business miles by HMRC's rate. This is called simplified expenses.
Actual costs - you add up what the vehicle really cost to run and claim the business share
Most sole traders use the flat rate because it's far less work.
The mileage rates
For cars and vans, the rate for the first 10,000 business miles went up on 6 April 2026:
Journeys before 6 April 2026: 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles
Journeys in the 2026/27 tax year: 55p a mile for the first 10,000 miles
After 10,000 miles: 25p a mile, in both years
Motorcycles: 24p a mile, in both years
That means two different rates are in play this winter. The 2025/26 return you file by 31 January 2027 uses 45p. The miles you're driving now, in 2026/27, are worth 55p.
Two examples:
For your 2025/26 return: 6,000 business miles x 45p = £2,700
For 2026/27: 11,000 business miles = 10,000 x 55p (£5,500) plus 1,000 x 25p (£250) = £5,750
What the flat rate covers
The flat rate is meant to cover the cost of running the vehicle, including fuel, insurance, repairs and servicing. If you use it, you can't claim those separately.
You can still claim parking and other travel costs, such as train fares, on top.
What counts as a business journey?
Journeys you make for your work count: visiting clients, going to a job, collecting supplies, travelling to a temporary workplace.
Travel between home and a regular place of work doesn't count. That's ordinary commuting. Neither do personal trips, even in a van with your name on the side.
Rules to know before you choose
Once you use the flat rate for a vehicle, you have to keep using it for as long as you use that vehicle in your business
You can't use the flat rate for a vehicle you've already claimed capital allowances on, or already included as an expense
A few vehicles are excluded, including black cabs and dual-control driving school cars
Is the flat rate or actual costs better?
The flat rate is simpler: you only need a mileage log. Actual costs means keeping every fuel, insurance, repair and servicing receipt, and working out what share of the vehicle's use is for business.
Actual costs can work out higher if your vehicle is expensive to run and used mostly for work. It's worth doing a rough comparison when you first start using a vehicle, because you can't switch away from the flat rate later.
What your mileage log needs
For each business journey, record:
The date
Where you went from and to
The reason for the trip
The number of miles
Do it as you go. A mileage log can't really be rebuilt months later, and HMRC can ask to see it. You need to keep it for at least 5 years after the 31 January deadline for that tax year.
Tools that make it easier
A notebook in the glovebox works. So does a spreadsheet. But a mileage app takes most of the effort out of it.
Tripcatcher is UK-only. You enter the postcodes and it works out the distance and applies HMRC's rates. £1.49 a month or £15 a year, plus VAT, with a 14-day free trial.
MileIQ tracks your drives automatically in the background, then you swipe to mark each one as business or personal. Free for up to 40 drives a month, or £7.91 a month billed annually for unlimited.
Dext handles mileage alongside receipts, if you want both in one place
Whichever app you use, check it has been updated to the 55p rate for 2026/27.
You can compare these in our Expense & Mileage Tracking directory. For everything else you can claim, see our post on what expenses you can claim as a sole trader.
Rates correct at time of publication. Always check GOV.UK for the current rates before you file.
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