HMRC Mileage Rates 2026/27 — What Self-Employed Drivers Need to Know

If you're self-employed and you drive for work, you're probably claiming mileage. But if you're anything like most sole traders, you're probably not claiming it correctly.

The 2026/27 tax year starts on 6 April. Whether you're a plumber doing call-outs, a consultant visiting clients, or a tradesperson driving between jobs, now is a good time to make sure you understand the rules — because they're easy to get wrong.

The rates for 2026/27

HMRC's Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAPs) for the new tax year are:

• Cars and vans: 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles, then 25p per mile after that
• Motorcycles: 24p per mile (all miles)
• Bicycles: 20p per mile (all miles)

If these look familiar, that's because they haven't changed since 2011. Despite fuel costs rising significantly over the past 15 years, HMRC hasn't updated the rates. There's been pressure from trade bodies and motoring organisations to increase them, but for now they remain the same.

The 10,000-mile threshold — the bit most people get wrong

The 45p rate only applies to the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year. After that, it drops to 25p. This catches people out in two ways:

• High-mileage drivers claim too much — if you do 15,000 business miles, the last 5,000 should be at 25p, not 45p. Overclaiming triggers HMRC enquiries.
• Everyone else claims too little — if you're not tracking every business mile, you'll never hit 10,000 and you'll leave the full 45p on the table. Every unrecorded mile is money you're giving away.

What's worse, if a single journey crosses the 10,000-mile mark, it should technically be split — part at 45p, part at 25p. Almost nobody does this correctly by hand.

What counts as a business mile?

This is simpler than most people think, but there's one common trap:

• Visiting a client or customer — business
• Driving to a job site or supplier — business
• Travelling between two workplaces — business
• Your regular commute from home to your usual workplace — not business
• Personal errands, even in your work van — not business

The commute rule trips up a lot of tradespeople. If you have a fixed workshop or office that you go to every day, that drive doesn't count. But if your "workplace" changes daily — different job sites, different clients — then those journeys are claimable.

HMRC's test is whether the journey is "wholly and exclusively for business purposes." If you're driving to a customer's house to fix their boiler, that's business. If you're driving to your own lock-up, that's a commute.

The new tax year is 3 weeks away — what to do now

Whether you've been tracking mileage all year or you've been scribbling in a notebook (or not tracking at all), here's what to sort out before 6 April:

• Finish classifying this year's journeys — any unclassified miles are unclaimed money. Go through your records and mark everything as business, personal, or commute before the tax year closes.
• Export your 2025/26 records — generate a report now while the details are fresh. You'll need this for your Self Assessment, and HMRC can request records going back several years.
• Start fresh on 6 April — the 10,000-mile counter resets. Make sure your tracking is set up and ready to go from day one of the new tax year.
• Set up auto-tracking — if you're still relying on memory or a paper log, you're losing miles. An app that detects driving automatically captures journeys you'd otherwise forget.

Stop guessing. Start tracking.

Most mileage apps either charge a fortune, get the 45p/25p split wrong, or make you tap "start" and "stop" every time you get in the van. That's why we're building KeptMiles.

KeptMiles auto-detects when you're driving, records every mile, handles the 10,000-mile threshold correctly, and generates HMRC-ready reports you can hand straight to your accountant.

We're about to open the closed beta — and we're looking for sole traders, tradespeople, and small business owners to help us test it before the new tax year starts.