How to track mileage for taxes: app, spreadsheet or paper
A notebook, a spreadsheet and an app all count as a mileage log. The rules each one has to meet, what each is good and bad at, and one week of driving kept all three ways.
Any of the three works. The IRS accepts a log kept in a notebook, and Publication 463 says that “if you prepare a record on a computer, it is considered an adequate record.” What matters is what the log shows: the date, the destination, the business purpose and the miles of each business drive, written down while you still remember them. Paper costs nothing and depends on your habit. A spreadsheet adds itself up but is still typed by hand. An app catches the drives you would forget, but it still needs your purpose and your review.
What the IRS actually wants in a mileage log has each rule in full; this piece is about meeting them.
What any method has to capture
Publication 463, Table 5-1, lists what a record of car expenses has to show. For each business drive:
- the date: “the date of the use of the car”
- where you went: “Your business destination”
- why: “Business purpose for the expense” (what to write there)
- the miles: “the mileage for each business use”
Only business drives go in. The drive between home and a regular workplace is commuting, and Publication 463 says “You can’t deduct commuting expenses no matter how far your home is from your regular place of work” (what counts as a business mile).
For the car, once a year: “the cost of the car and any improvements, the date you started using it for business” and “the total miles for the year.” Odometer readings on January 1 and December 31 are the simplest proof of that last one. Keep the car’s cost with its purchase papers.
When it has to be written down
The regulation behind the table, 26 CFR 1.274-5T, asks for each entry “at or near the time” of the drive, while you have “full present knowledge” of it. That does not mean the same day. Publication 463: “If you maintain a log on a weekly basis that accounts for use during the week, the log is considered a timely kept record.”
The real test of any method is whether you will fill it in every week. Publication 463: “A timely kept record has more value than a statement prepared later when there is generally a lack of accurate recall.”
Estimates are out. Publication 463: “You can’t deduct amounts that you approximate or estimate.” The regulation allows no deduction “on the basis of such approximations or unsupported testimony of the taxpayer.” “About 200 miles a week” is not a log.
Sampling, briefly
Publication 463 lets you log part of the year: “You can keep an adequate record for parts of a tax year and use that record to prove the amount of business or investment use for the entire year.” But “You must demonstrate by other evidence that the periods for which an adequate record is kept are representative of the use throughout the tax year.” In its example, the first week of each month is logged and shows 75% of the car’s use is for business, and invoices and bills show the other weeks ran the same way; the logged weeks are “sufficient evidence to support the percentage of business use for the year.”
That suits a steady routine. In the regulation’s counter-example, a salesman logs only the week he delivers orders, and that week “is not representative of use during other periods.” If your weeks vary, log them all.
What a sample proves is a share of the car’s use, not a number of miles. Your business miles are that share of the year’s total miles, from the odometer readings on January 1 and December 31. For 2026, also read the odometer on July 1 and keep sampling in both halves of the year, so the share can be applied to the miles before July 1 at 72.5¢ and to the miles from July 1 at 76¢.
Paper, spreadsheet or app
Publication 463 lists “an account book, diary, log, statement of expense, trip sheets, or similar record”, and the regulation says a record of a car’s business use “prepared in a computer memory device with the aid of a logging program will constitute an adequate record.” All three ways qualify. They differ in how much of the work is yours.
Paper. The printable log has a column for each thing Table 5-1 asks of a drive, odometer readings, and a year page with a line for the miles driven before July 1 (why each column is there). A week you skip becomes a gap filled from memory.
A spreadsheet. Use the template’s columns (Date, From, To, Business purpose, Odometer start, Odometer end, Miles, Parking and tolls), type each date so the spreadsheet reads it as a date (for example 6/29/2026), not as text, and two formulas split the year: =SUMIFS(G:G,A:A,">="&DATE(2026,1,1),A:A,"<"&DATE(2026,7,1)) for the miles before July 1 and =SUMIFS(G:G,A:A,">="&DATE(2026,7,1),A:A,"<"&DATE(2027,1,1)) for the rest. Multiply the first by 0.725 and the second by 0.76. Each row is still typed by hand, so it holds only the drives you remember.
An app that records drives on its own removes the step where drives get lost: remembering them. A ten-minute supply run is recorded like a client visit. It cannot know why you drove, so you still sort business from personal and add the purpose. Location must be allowed in the background, and a battery saver or a phone update can stop an app from noticing drives. A year of unsorted drives is not a log: review them, export the year, and keep the file. Publication 463 says that, generally, you keep records “for 3 years from the date you file the income tax return on which the deduction is claimed. A return filed early is considered filed on the due date.” Some cases run longer (how long to keep it).
Location history and trip summaries
A phone’s location history, or a gig platform’s record of your trips, is kept for you, not by you. Publication 463 does not mention either. It says “You should keep the proof you need” in a log or similar record, and where your records are incomplete, you prove an element with “Your own written or oral statement containing specific information about the element” and “Other supporting evidence that is sufficient to establish the element.” For the cost, time, place or date, that evidence “must be either direct evidence or documentary evidence.” One of its examples: “Invoices of deliveries establish when you used the car for business.”
So a location history or a platform’s records can back up your log, or help you rebuild a missed drive beside your own statement. They are not the log: a location history does not say which drives were business or why, and a platform’s records list only that platform’s trips, not your other business drives. A log rebuilt later carries less weight (a log rebuilt after the fact).
Why the date of each drive matters
Notice 2026-10 set the 2026 business rate at 72.5¢ a mile, and Announcement 2026-11 raised it to 76¢ a mile for business driving on or after July 1, 2026. A business mile driven on June 30 is worth 72.5¢; one driven on July 1, 76¢. So a 2026 log needs a date on every drive, not a weekly total, and the year is added up in two halves (the 2026 rates).
That is for the standard mileage rate. If you deduct actual car costs instead, you keep the same log. Publication 463: “You can divide your expense based on the miles driven for each purpose,” so your business miles over the year’s total miles give the share of those costs you deduct (either method needs the log; car expenses on Schedule C).
One week, kept three ways
Jordan is a self-employed IT consultant. His home office is his principal place of business, so drives from home to clients count: “If you have an office in your home that qualifies as a principal place of business, you can deduct your daily transportation costs between your home and another work location in the same trade or business” (home office and mileage). This is his week of June 29, 2026, when the rate changed:
| Day | Drive | Miles |
|---|---|---|
| Mon, June 29 | Home → Harbor Dental → home: network install | 28.4 |
| Tue, June 30 | Home → office supply store → home: toner for Lakeside Law | 9.6 |
| Wed, July 1 | Home → Lakeside Law → Pine Street Dental → home: printer setup, then a call-out | 36.0 |
| Thu, July 2 | Home → Harbor Dental → home: follow-up visit | 28.4 |
| Fri, July 3 | Groceries, personal | 6.0 |
That is 38.0 business miles before July 1 and 64.4 from July 1: 38.0 × 72.5¢ = $27.55, plus 64.4 × 76¢ = $48.94, or $76.49 for the week. Here is the same week kept each of the three ways:
- Paper, written in the car at each stop. Four lines, one per day: Publication 463 lets you account for “a round trip or uninterrupted business use” “with a single record.” Odometer readings give the miles, and nothing is missing. Jordan adds up 38.0 and 64.4 by hand. Tuesday’s line was the one at risk: a short errand, no appointment, nothing to remind him later.
- Spreadsheet, typed in on Friday from the calendar and receipts. Tuesday is there because the toner receipt was in his wallet. The Pine Street call-out was a phone call, not an appointment, so Wednesday goes in as home → Lakeside Law → home, 23.0 miles off a map. The formulas give 38.0 and 51.4 miles: $27.55 + $39.06 = $66.61. The 13.0 missing miles were worth $9.88.
- App, reviewed on Friday. Every leg is there with addresses and GPS miles, groceries included. Jordan marks the groceries personal, adds the purposes, and the week matches the table. The only way it could have lost a drive was a phone setting: with background location switched off, the phone records nothing.
The spreadsheet’s gap comes from when it was filled in, not from the spreadsheet. Typed in at each stop, it would match the notebook, and a notebook filled in on Friday from the calendar would have the same hole.
Over the year, Jordan’s log shows 2,540 business miles from January through June and 2,760 from July through December:
| Period | Miles × rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| January 1 – June 30 | 2,540 × 72.5¢ | $1,841.50 |
| July 1 – December 31 | 2,760 × 76¢ | $2,097.60 |
| 2026 | 5,300 | $3,939.10 |
At one rate for the whole year, the same miles come out wrong: 5,300 × 72.5¢ = $3,842.50, which is $96.60 short, and 5,300 × 76¢ = $4,028.00, which is $88.90 too much. If you use the standard mileage rate, the total, plus business parking fees and tolls, goes on Schedule C, line 9 (car expenses on Schedule C); not every car qualifies (who can use the rate). The mileage calculator takes the miles before July 1 and the miles from July 1 and prices each part.
Whichever way you keep the log
- a line for every business drive: the date, where you went, why, and the miles
- miles from odometer readings, GPS, or the route you actually drove measured on a map, never a guess
- filled in every week, while you still remember the week
- the odometer read on January 1 and December 31, and on July 1 if you sample
- at the standard rate, 2026 business miles split at July 1: 72.5¢ before, 76¢ from that day
- a copy kept at least 3 years from the day you file (from the due date if you file early), and longer in the cases that run longer
Where OdoTax fits
OdoTax is the third way. It records drives in the background, with no start button, and prices each one at the IRS rate for its date, so a 2026 year splits at July 1 on its own. You mark each drive business or personal and add the purpose. In the app, Settings → Tracking configuration lists every permission and phone setting detection depends on, and a red row says what to fix. Every report comes as a PDF and a CSV.
The free plan covers 35 drives a month, and Pro removes the limit.
The bottom line
A log on paper, in a spreadsheet or in an app is an adequate record when it shows the date, destination, purpose and miles of each business drive, written down within the week. Paper and spreadsheets miss the drives you forget; an app misses the reasons until you add them. Pick the way you will keep every week, and give every 2026 drive its date.
Sources
- IRS, Publication 463: Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses (2025): chapter 4, Commuting expenses, Office in the home, Business and personal use; chapter 5, Recordkeeping: How To Prove Expenses, What Are Adequate Records?, Timely kept records, What if I Have Incomplete Records?, Table 5-1, Sampling, Car expenses, How Long To Keep Records and Receipts.
- 26 CFR § 1.274-5T: (a) no deduction on approximations; (c)(2)(i) adequate records; (c)(2)(ii)(A) at or near the time, full present knowledge, the weekly log; (c)(2)(ii)(C) a record kept with a logging program; (c)(3)(ii) sampling and its counter-example.
- IRS, Notice 2026-10: the 2026 business rate, 72.5¢ a mile; Announcement 2026-11, I.R.B. 2026-29: 76¢ a mile from July 1, 2026.
- IRS, Instructions for Schedule C (Form 1040): line 9, business miles at the standard rate plus parking fees and tolls.
This article is general information, not tax advice. Tax situations vary — check with a qualified professional before you file.
