Mileage tracking for photographers

Yes, if your photography is a business you run for yourself: you do it mainly to make a profit, regularly rather than now and then, and nobody takes tax out of what clients pay you. Its business miles go on Schedule C, line 9, at the IRS standard mileage rate (72.5¢ a mile through June 30, 2026, 76¢ from July 1) or as the business share of the car's running costs, such as gas, repairs and insurance, plus business parking and tolls; you don't need an LLC or a 1099 for that. Three limits apply: the drive between home and your regular place of work is commuting and doesn't count unless a home office is your principal place of business, you need a record of each business drive kept as you go, and the mileage rate is open to a car you own only if you used the rate for that car's first year in your business. The same rules apply to videographers. The total lowers the profit you're taxed on; it isn't money back (Schedule C, line by line).

It's a business when you do it mainly to make a profit, and a hobby when you do it mainly for pleasure. No single fact decides it: the IRS weighs how businesslike you are, with complete and accurate books and records, and the other questions on its list (opens in a new tab), and enjoying the work doesn't make it a hobby on its own. A business reports its income and costs on Schedule C, the driving included. A hobby still reports its income, on Schedule 1, line 8j, less what any prints or albums it sold cost you, but its other costs “can no longer be deducted” (IRS Publication 529), and the 2025 tax law made that permanent, so none of its miles count. This is general information, not tax advice; if yours is near the line, ask a tax preparer.

Not by itself: losses that are “normal in the startup phase of your type of business” are one of the facts the IRS weighs, and “No one factor alone is decisive.” The tax code also assumes an activity is run for profit if it made a profit in at least 3 of the last 5 years, the current one included, and they needn't be in a row; missing that count doesn't make it a hobby, it only means that rule doesn't help you. The answer matters most in a year like this, because a business loss on Schedule C can lower the tax on your other income, such as wages, within limits (the at-risk rules, for one, generally let you claim a loss only up to what you could actually lose in the business), while a hobby's loss can't be used against other income. So keep what shows you're working to make it pay: contracts, invoices, marketing, prices you changed, and the mileage log. If it has run at a loss for several years, talk to a tax preparer before you claim the miles.

Only the drives for your photography, and the rules for the first and last drive of the day apply to it as a business of its own. On a Saturday, home to the first stop of a wedding and back from the last are commuting unless your photography has a home office that qualifies or a studio you rent and work at regularly, or the venue is outside your metro area; Publication 463 calls the drive “between home and a part-time job on a day off from your main job” commuting. The drives between the getting-ready location, the ceremony and the reception count, and on a weekday so does a drive straight from your W-2 job to an evening session: Publication 463 lets you deduct “the expense of getting from one workplace to the other.” The drive from home to your employer never counts, and a home office for your photography doesn't change that, because the home office rule covers only drives in the same business (the home office rule). Nobody withholds tax from your photography income, so you may need to pay estimated tax or have more withheld at your job.

Not on your federal return: an employee can't deduct driving the employer doesn't pay back, and the 2025 tax law made that permanent, apart from a few named groups such as Armed Forces reservists (IRS Notice 2026-10). What you can do is ask your employer to pay the miles back; under an accountable plan, where you show the miles and return anything paid over, that money isn't income to you. An OdoTax report made with your employer's rate per mile prints as a mileage reimbursement claim. If you also shoot for your own clients, those drives are your own business, and the rest of this page applies to them (who can use the business rate).

Each person deducts the car they drive, for their own business. If you second-shoot as a contractor (the lead says what to deliver and leaves the how to you, and no tax is taken out), your drives to their weddings go on your own Schedule C under the first-and-last-drive rules for your own setup; riding in the lead's car gives you no car expense, so delete that ride in OdoTax rather than marking it Personal, which would add its miles to your car's other miles in Part IV. If you're the lead, what you pay a second shooter you don't treat as an employee goes on Schedule C, line 11, contract labor, with a 1099-NEC to them once you pay $2,000 or more in 2026 ($600 through 2025). A second shooter on your payroll can't deduct unreimbursed driving on a federal return, so pay the miles back under an accountable plan instead. A second shooter who wants a log needs an OdoTax account of their own, because a phone signed in to yours adds every drive it's on, personal ones too, to your log (1099 or W-2).

Yes to both: Publication 334, the IRS's tax guide for small business, says to report “all income you receive from your business, including income not reported to you on a Form 1099 filed by the payor,” and your business costs, the miles included, come off it on Schedule C. A couple paying for their own wedding sends no 1099-NEC, because the form is only for payments made in the course of a business, and a business that hires you for headshots or product photos sends one only if it paid you $2,000 or more in 2026 ($600 through 2025) and didn't pay by card or through a payment app. A payment app or online marketplace has to send a 1099-K once it has paid you more than $20,000 in more than 200 payments in the year, and may send one below that, while card payments you take through a card processor are reported on a 1099-K whatever their total. Travel fees and print sales are part of what clients pay you too, so keep your own record of every payment (where the 1099 comes from).

You don't need an LLC: a photography business you own alone is a sole proprietorship and files Schedule C, and so does a one-owner LLC unless you chose to have it taxed as a corporation. A married couple who run it together, file a joint return and both materially participate (take part regularly and substantially) can choose to be a qualified joint venture, so each files a Schedule C for their share, but only if the business isn't an LLC or another state-law entity; otherwise two owners, a two-member LLC included, are generally taxed as a partnership unless they chose otherwise, and the business's costs go on the partnership's return, not on a Schedule C of yours (couples in community property states have rules of their own). If you work in your own S corporation, the IRS treats you as its employee, so the usual route is for the corporation to pay you back for business miles under an accountable plan, and that payment isn't income to you. Either way the same mileage log backs the numbers; set it up with your accountant.

The drives you make for the work: between the stops of a shoot, from your studio to a session, to a client for a consultation or to drop off an album, and to suppliers such as the camera store, a gear rental shop, the print lab or the framer. Publication 463 counts visiting clients and business meetings away from your regular workplace, and its example of business use includes meeting suppliers and picking up and delivering items to clients. Driving for yourself or your family is personal, and home to a studio you work at regularly is commuting unless your home office qualifies. Whether the first drive from home counts depends on where you work from, which is the next question; name the client or the job in each drive's purpose, such as “Wedding shoot — Harlow/Kim” (purpose lines by trade).

It depends on where you work from. With a studio you rent and work at regularly, home straight to a temporary location, such as a venue or a client's home for one session, counts at any distance, and so does the drive back, but home to the studio doesn't. With a home office that qualifies as your principal place of business, home to any shoot, client or supplier counts, and so does home to the studio. With neither, the first and last drives of the day are commuting unless the stop is a temporary one outside your metro area, and the drives between stops count in every case (three cases, side by side).

Yes, if the studio is your regular place of work and your home office doesn't qualify: home to the studio and back is commuting “no matter how far your home is from your regular place of work,” and parking there is a commuting cost too. The studio helps with everything else: drives from it to a session count, and so does home straight to a temporary location, such as a venue, and back. The photographer in our Schedule C example rents a studio across town; of the car's 15,500 miles in 2026, 9,300 were business and the 1,200 between home and the studio were commuting, counted on line 44b. If you do the booking, invoicing and books at home in a space used only for the business, and not at the studio, the home office can be your principal place of business, and then home to the studio counts too. Whether a studio you rent by the hour now and then is a regular place of work isn't settled by Publication 463, so ask your tax preparer (a photographer's year).

It can, if your home is your photography's principal place of business. Publication 587 weighs where the most important work is done and where you spend the most time, and gives a test most home offices are judged by: you use a specific area only and regularly for the business's paperwork, such as booking clients, contracts, invoices, ordering and the books, and you have no other fixed place where you do substantial paperwork for it. Editing there is business use too, and a corner of a room can pass with no partition, but a desk the family also uses fails, and the paperwork test does too if you do the booking and the books at a rented studio. When your home is your principal place of business, every drive from home to a shoot, client, supplier or studio for your photography counts, regular or temporary, at any distance. Whether yours is, above all if you shoot and edit mostly at home, is for you and your tax preparer; this is general information from Publication 587, not tax advice (the home office test).

Publication 463 makes your first stop your office: “the location of your first business contact inside the metropolitan area is considered your office.” So home to the first stop of the day and the last stop back home are commuting, and every drive between them is business: venue to venue, a session to the print lab, the camera store to a consultation, listing to listing for a real estate photographer. On a day with one family session in town and nothing else, that can mean no business miles at all. Home to a temporary location outside your metro area, and back, counts; a metro area is “the area within the city limits and the suburbs that are considered part of that metropolitan area,” with no distance in miles, so for a venue near the edge, ask your tax preparer (why the drive from home is usually commuting).

Most of these are named in the rules: Publication 463's example of business use is a car used to “meet with suppliers and other subcontractors, and pick up and deliver items to clients,” which covers picking up and returning rented gear, buying from a camera store, the print lab, the framer, and dropping off an album. Location scouting and the post office aren't named, so they rest on the general test that a business cost is ordinary and necessary in your line of work, with a purpose you can write down, such as “Scouted Riverside Park for the Patel engagement” or “Mailed album, Reyes family.” The first-and-last-drive rules still apply: from your studio, or from home with a home office that qualifies, the round trip counts, but with neither, a run from home where that store is your only stop is commuting both ways, while the same stop made between two shoots counts. A stop that's really for yourself, such as shopping for the family at the same mall, isn't business; for anything you're unsure of, ask your tax preparer (“business” is not a purpose).

A lunch stop doesn't break it: Publication 463 says “Minimal personal use, such as a stop for lunch on the way between two business stops, isn't an interruption of business use.” A real detour is different: if for a personal reason you don't go straight from one shoot to the next, you “can't deduct more than the amount it would have cost you to go directly,” so count the direct route's miles. OdoTax records the drive as you drove it and can't shorten a recorded drive's miles, so for a detour, write the direct route's miles in the drive's note, which goes into the report's CSV, for your tax preparer (round trips and routes).

No. Publication 463: “Hauling tools or instruments in your car while commuting to and from work doesn't make your car expenses deductible”; only an extra cost of hauling them, such as renting a trailer, is. Advertising on the car “doesn't change the use of your car from personal use to business use,” and taking client calls on the way doesn't either. A drive is business because of where you're going and why, and the log has to say why (tools in the back).

Your own car's business miles count wherever the shoot is, priced on line 9 like any other drive, and a day trip to a venue outside your metro area counts from your driveway and back, even with no studio or home office that qualifies. Staying overnight makes it travel: you're “traveling away from home” when the work keeps you away from the general area of your tax home (generally your regular place of business, or, if you have none, possibly where you regularly live) “substantially longer than an ordinary day's work” and you need sleep or rest, and then the hotel and airfare go on line 24a and meals on line 24b, generally at 50%. If the trip is mainly for the shoot and you stay on for a vacation, getting there and back still counts but the extra days' costs don't, and someone who comes along, such as your spouse, counts only if they're your employee or a business associate, such as a client or a supplier, with a real business reason to be there. In OdoTax a flight never becomes a drive, and the drives to and from the airport are recorded like any other; Airport / travel is one of the purposes it starts you with. A shoot abroad has more rules, in Publication 463, chapter 1, so ask your tax preparer (where travel goes on Schedule C).

Schedule C, Profit or Loss From Business, is the part of your federal return where a business you own by yourself reports what it took in and what it cost; what's left is the profit that income tax and self-employment tax are figured on, and on line B you give a business code, which for photography is 541920, Photographic services (for video work, 512100, Motion picture & video industries). Your car shows up on it twice: what its business miles come to on line 9, Car and truck expenses, and its use in Part IV, Information on Your Vehicle (when it went into business use, and its business, commuting and other miles). You don't have to itemize: business miles come off your profit, which carries over to your Form 1040 through Schedule 1, so you can take the standard deduction as well. Itemizing matters only for medical and charity miles (Schedule C, line by line).

It's one IRS amount per business mile that stands in for what the car costs to run: for 2026, 72.5¢ for drives through June 30 (Notice 2026-10) and 76¢ for drives from July 1 (Announcement 2026-11), raised because fuel prices went up. Each drive gets the rate for its own date: the photographer in our Schedule C example drove 4,200 business miles before July 1 and 5,100 after, which come to 4,200 × $0.725 + 5,100 × $0.76 = $6,921.00, and with $186.50 of business parking and tolls, $7,107.50 on line 9. OdoTax prices every drive by its date, so the two halves add up on their own (the 2026 rates).

No: a deduction lowers the profit you're taxed on, and the dollar amounts OdoTax shows on your drives are that deduction, not cash. On Schedule C it lowers self-employment tax by about 14¢ for every dollar deducted (15.3% on 92.35% of profit), which at 76¢ a mile is about 10.7¢ a mile, as long as your wages and self-employment earnings together stay under $184,500 for 2026; above that, only the 2.9% Medicare part is left. For the photographer in our example, with $7,107.50 on line 9, that's $7,107.50 × 92.35% × 15.3% = $1,004.26 less self-employment tax. Income tax falls too, by up to the rate your last dollar is taxed at, and what that adds up to depends on your whole return, so OdoTax shows the deduction, not a saving (deduction or refund).

Yes, the profit is taxable however small it is: income tax is figured on it with the rest of your income, and self-employment tax is owed once your net earnings from self-employment reach $400 for the year. Both come after costs, and on a small business the car is often the biggest one. Say your shoots brought in $6,000 and your only cost was 2,000 business miles in the fall: at 76¢ a mile that's $1,520, which leaves $4,480 of profit. Self-employment tax is then $4,480 × 92.35% × 15.3% = $633.00, against $847.77 without the miles, $214.77 less, and income tax can fall too, by up to the rate your last dollar is taxed at, depending on the rest of your return (what changes at tax time).

Yes, and yes. A travel fee is part of what the client pays you, so it goes on Schedule C, line 1, with the rest of what clients paid you (the line for gross receipts), along with the rest of the package: Publication 334 says to report “all income you receive from your business.” The drive is deducted on line 9 like any other business drive, so the fee doesn't cancel the miles and the miles don't cancel the fee, and the IRS rate isn't a price list: charge per mile, a flat fee or past a radius, as you like. If a client instead pays back a trip's actual costs against your records, Publication 463 has rules of its own for accounting to a client, so ask your tax preparer. To show a client the drive behind a fee, open it in the OdoTax app and tap Report: they get that drive alone as a PDF and a CSV (send a report).

Usually, if you expect to owe $1,000 or more for the year after withholding and refundable credits, because nobody takes tax out of what clients pay you. For 2026 the payments are due April 15, June 15 and September 15, 2026, and January 15, 2027; they cover income tax and self-employment tax, both figured on profit after costs, so an up-to-date mileage log keeps the estimate right. If most of your income comes in summer and fall, the annualized income installment method can figure each payment from what you had earned by the end of March, May or August, and the whole year for the last; you use it with Form 2210 and Schedule AI, filed with your return. If you also have a W-2 job, extra withholding there counts as paid evenly through the year, whenever it was taken out (quarterly estimated taxes).

Yes: Publication 463's own example is a car used for clients and suppliers that “you and your family use ... for personal purposes,” and on the standard rate you simply deduct the business miles. Only your business drives need the four facts (the date, where you went, why and the miles), but Schedule C, Part IV also asks for the car's total miles for the year, everyone's driving included, split into business, commuting and other; the odometer on January 1 and December 31 is the simplest proof. The date on line 43 is the day the photography started using the car, not the day you bought it, and that first year is when the mileage rate has to be chosen. OdoTax records only the drives your phone is on, so your partner's drives without you aren't in it (the readings cover them), and a ride along to soccer practice is recorded for you to mark Personal. Don't sign a family member's phone in to your account: every drive it's on would land in your log and your free count (Part IV, line by line).

No: in a year you use the standard rate, Publication 463 says you “can't deduct depreciation, lease payments, maintenance and repairs, gasoline (including gasoline taxes), oil, insurance, or vehicle registration fees,” because the rate covers them, and 35¢ of each 2026 business mile counts as the car's depreciation. Of a car payment, only the interest goes on top, at the business share, and so does the business share of state and local personal property tax on the car: with 60% business use, our photographer deducts $870 of $1,450 in loan interest and $180 of $300 in property tax. Business parking and tolls are added at what you paid, but parking at your own studio is a commuting cost, and a parking ticket never counts. Keep a receipt for any parking fee or toll of $75 or more, and the car's purchase papers; there are no fuel or repair receipts to keep (what the rate covers).

Where both are open to you, Publication 463 suggests you “figure your deduction both ways to see which gives you a larger deduction”: the standard rate is business miles times the rate for each drive's date, and actual expenses are the business share (business miles divided by total miles) of what the car really cost, with receipts. The timing matters more than the choice: for a car you own, the standard rate has to be used in the first year the car is available for use in your business, after which you can use either method each year, but a car started on actual costs can never use the rate. A car on which you claim section 179 or the special depreciation allowance (often called bonus depreciation) in its first year can never use it either, so make that choice for an SUV bought for the gear with your tax preparer. A leased car on the standard rate stays on it for the whole lease. Either way you need the mileage log (standard rate or actual expenses).

Maybe not on that car. The Schedule C instructions allow the standard rate only if you “owned the vehicle and used the standard mileage rate for the first year you placed the vehicle in service,” and Publication 463 says that choice is made “by the due date (including extensions) of your return” for that first year. If 2026 is the first year the car works for your photography, choose the rate on your 2026 return; if it has carried your gear to paid shoots since an earlier year you never claimed, ask a tax preparer which method it can use before you file. Actual expenses are open to it and need the same mileage log, and the next car you put to work gets its own first year.

For each business drive, Publication 463's Table 5-1 asks for four things: the date, where you went, the business purpose and the miles. For a photographer the purpose names the shoot or the client, such as “Wedding shoot — Harlow/Kim” or “Dropped off album, Reyes family”; “business” on its own is too thin. Once a year, for each car, it also asks for the total miles, the date it went into business use and what it cost. It has to be written at or near the time, while you still remember the drive; a log kept weekly counts, and paper, a spreadsheet and an app all qualify. OdoTax records the date, both addresses and the miles as you drive, and the purpose is yours to add (what the IRS wants).

A business drive you can't prove isn't allowed, and no part of it can be allowed on a guess: “You can't deduct amounts that you approximate or estimate.” A penalty can come on top: 20% of the tax underpaid through negligence, and the tax regulations count failing to keep adequate records as negligence. Keep the log at least 3 years from the date you file (a return filed early counts as filed on the due date), so a 2026 log on a return filed by April 15, 2027 is kept until April 15, 2030, and keep each year's business-mile total until 3 years after you file for the year you sell the car, because standard-rate miles lower its basis. The IRS doesn't approve or certify mileage apps: what counts is what's in the log and when it was written, and OdoTax's PDF is laid out the way Publication 463 describes, with the purposes and the weekly sort yours to add (keep records for years).

Not for the rest of the year: from the day you turn tracking on, every drive is recorded as you go. For January to now you can't estimate, but you can rebuild drives one by one from what you kept at the time: signed contracts with the venue and the date, invoices, your booking calendar, print-lab receipts or your phone's location history; a calendar backs up a drive, but it isn't the log. If Google Maps Timeline was on, OdoTax can import the drives it kept, and you can add others by hand; the report marks both, and on the free plan they count toward each month's 35 like any other drive, so with more than that to rebuild in a month, go Pro first. A rebuilt drive counts only as far as that evidence backs it up, and it weighs less than one logged at the time. Logging October to December doesn't prove the summer either: Publication 463 lets part of the year stand for the whole only when other evidence shows that part is representative, and a wedding season isn't typical of the winter.

To change a return you already filed, you file an amended return, Form 1040-X, generally within 3 years after you filed it or 2 years after you paid the tax, whichever is later, and if the new figures show less tax, the IRS refunds what you overpaid. The proof rules don't change: no estimates, and a drive rebuilt now counts only as far as contracts, invoices, calendars or a location history from that time back it up. The method is a second question: Publication 463 says the standard mileage rate is chosen “by the due date (including extensions) of your return” for the car's first year in your business, so an amended return may not be able to choose it. OdoTax accepts drives added by hand or imported from Google Maps Timeline back to January 1 three years ago and prices each at the IRS rate for its own date; on the free plan they count toward that month's 35 like any other drive, so for a month with more than that, go Pro first, or an import stops at the limit and a drive added past it lands locked and hidden from the list. Ask a tax preparer first whether amending is worth it and which method your car can use for those years (a log rebuilt after the fact).

No. Between drives the phone's motion sensors, and a boundary around where it last stopped, notice when you pull away; OdoTax then switches GPS on, records the route and the miles, and ends the drive once you've been stopped for about five minutes, with OdoTax closed and the phone in your camera bag. That works as long as location is set to Always on an iPhone, or Allow all the time on Android, with Precise on; allow Physical activity (Motion & Fitness on an iPhone) too, or a drive can be noticed a mile or two in, and on Android set battery use to Unrestricted; Settings → Tracking configuration shows anything still missing. Moving the car across a venue's lot isn't kept: drives shorter than 0.2 mile or a minute are dropped. On an iPhone you can end a drive as you park with Stop drive on the Lock Screen, or by telling Siri “End my drive in odo” (on your home screen the app is called odo) (how detection works).

Little. On a wedding day the car is parked most of the time, and between drives OdoTax doesn't track where you are: the phone waits for the next drive with the motion sensors it already runs and a boundary around where it last stopped, and GPS runs at full accuracy only while a drive is being recorded. What to watch is the phone's own power saving: on an iPhone, Low Power Mode can slow background work, and on Android a battery saver that limits location can make drives go missing or end early; Settings → Tracking configuration warns about both. On Android you'll see a notification the whole time, “Ready to detect a drive” and then the miles so far, because Android requires one from any app that uses location in the background (battery use).

Yes. The route and the miles come from the phone's GPS, which needs no internet; the drive is kept on the phone and uploads by itself once you're back in signal, and until then Home says “N drives tracked offline.” Sorting or editing a drive and adding an odometer reading need a connection, so do those later. Silent mode and Do Not Disturb don't stop it either, because detection doesn't depend on notifications at all; by default OdoTax sends one reminder a week, on Sunday evening, when drives are waiting to be sorted. A barn or a field with no street address is still recorded where you parked, and to find the spot by name next time, save it under Settings → Named places → Add place → My location doesn't have an address — pick on map (without a connection).

Each drive waits until you say what it was: on Home, tap Classify and the drives come up one at a time, tap Business or Personal, or press and hold Business to pick a purpose; on the website you can tick a whole wedding Saturday and mark it at once. The purpose is the line the report prints to say why a business drive was made, and a business drive without one shows “Not recorded” in the PDF. OdoTax starts you with purposes such as Customer visit, Meeting, Errand / supplies and Airport / travel, and you add your own, up to 40 characters, under Settings → Custom purposes: “Wedding — Harlow/Kim”, “Consultation — Patel”, “Scouting”, “Print lab”. After you hold Business and pick one, a single tap on Business sorts the next drive with that same purpose, and the PDF prints each end of a drive as a street address, not your name for the place, so name the client in the purpose. Sorting once a week is enough: a log kept weekly counts as written at or near the time (business or personal).

Until you change it, yes: work hours start as Monday to Friday, 9 to 6, so a drive inside them is suggested as business and one outside as personal, and a Saturday wedding comes up as personal. A suggestion sorts a drive only when you tap Apply, unless you turn on Auto-classify, which sorts drives by the clock without asking, so set your hours before you switch it on. Under Settings → Work hours, tap Saturday or Sunday to give it hours, or Add shift for evening sessions, or switch the off-hours suggestion off (on the website, Settings → Classification → Off hours = personal). Saved places and frequent drives are suggested before the clock, so a drive from or to your saved Home is still suggested as personal, and on an irregular week you may prefer to switch work hours off and sort each drive with a tap (sorting by schedule).

It suggests it: under Settings → Named places, save your home with the kind Home and the studio with the kind Work, and drives between them are offered as Commute, kept out of the deduction but counted, because Schedule C asks for the car's commuting miles. Drives from the studio to a session are offered as business. A drive from home straight to a client or a venue is suggested as Personal, because one end is home, so mark it Business when the rules for your setup say it counts. If your home office qualifies, leave the studio as an ordinary place, so drives from home to it aren't offered as Commute (the commute).

Yes. In the app, open Drives and tap +, pick From and To (a saved place or an address), and OdoTax measures the road between them; change the distance if you went another way, then set the time, the vehicle and the purpose, or on the website use Trips → Add a drive. The drive says Added by hand, with an asterisk in the PDF, and that isn't a mark against it: a log kept by hand is still a log. Drives can be added back to January 1 three years ago, and on the free plan a month that already has its 35 free drives takes no more added by hand. If drives keep going missing, check Settings → Tracking configuration first (a missed drive).

OdoTax runs on an iPhone with iOS 17 or newer and on Android 7 or newer, and the same account opens in any browser at my.odo.tax, where a month of drives fits on one screen. It isn't listed in the App Store and Google Play yet, so Get the app on this page (odo.tax/get) leads to the test version: TestFlight, Apple's app for testing new apps, on an iPhone, and the Android test on Android. If you carry a personal phone and a work phone, sign in to one account on both: each records the drives it's on, and when both record the same drive, OdoTax keeps one. The app, the website and the reports are in English, built for US tax returns (the web account).

The free plan covers 35 drives each calendar month; it needs only an email (no card), doesn't expire, and includes everything else, PDF and CSV reports too. Every drive counts toward the limit, personal ones too, and a long stop starts a new drive: the wedding Saturday on this page is five drives, a 20-minute stop at the print lab splits a trip in two, and a weekday commute to a W-2 job is two drives a workday on its own. Drives past the limit are still recorded but arrive Locked, left out of totals and reports, and the count starts again on the 1st; Settings shows how many free drives are left this month. Pro removes the limit for $7.99 a month or $74.99 a year (the free limit).

Yes: a monthly plan can be canceled any time, Pro runs to the end of the period you paid for, the account then goes back to the free plan, nothing is deleted, and drives recorded while you were paying stay open for good. Drives locked in a month on the free plan stay locked when you subscribe later, though, and once they're out of reach they're hidden from the list, not deleted: only an account's first payment for Pro also reopens the 31 days before it, and only once, so start Pro before a busy month passes 35 drives, not after. Nine months of Pro cost $71.91 month by month; from ten months on, the $74.99 year is cheaper. A plan is managed where you bought it: the App Store, Google Play or the website (change or cancel).

A report, as a PDF and a CSV: in Reports, pick a period (last tax year, a quarter, the year so far, or your own dates), all drives or business only, and a car if you have more than one. Before you make it, sort every drive still waiting, because an unsorted one adds nothing, fill in any purpose the report would print as “Not recorded,” add your odometer readings, and set the car's In business use since date under Vehicles on the website. The PDF's first page has the figures for Schedule C, line 9 and Part IV, and OdoTax doesn't connect to tax software, so you or your preparer type them in, whatever you file with; the CSV opens in any spreadsheet. To hand it over, save your accountant once as a contact and tap Email this report; they don't need an account (send a report).

No. OdoTax keeps the log and applies the IRS standard mileage rate to the drives you mark as business; which drives are business for your work, whether your photography is a business at all, and whether the standard rate or actual costs suit your car are for you and your tax preparer. The rules on this page come from IRS Publications 463, 587 and 334 and the Schedule C instructions, and our guides quote them, starting with home office and mileage.

“All the time” (Always on an iPhone) is what lets OdoTax catch a drive that starts while OdoTax is closed; with “only while using,” it records nothing unless OdoTax is open on screen, and during a drive it usually isn't. It also needs Precise location, because a log built from rough positions isn't accurate enough to claim. GPS runs at full accuracy only while a drive is being recorded: once you've parked at a client's home, the drive ends there and the phone waits for the next one; between drives it is asked where it is when you use Locate in your web account to find a lost phone, an answer kept for 30 days, or when OdoTax support looks into drives that went missing. For hours you don't want logged, Settings → Pause auto-tracking in the app stops detection For 1 hour, For 4 hours, Until tomorrow 9am or For the rest of today, on every phone on your account; nothing is recorded meanwhile, business drives included, but you can add one by hand (what data is kept).

Your clients see a drive only in a report you send them. For each drive OdoTax keeps the route, both addresses, the miles and the times, plus what you add. A map service fits the GPS points to the roads and an address service turns the two ends into street addresses, and under the privacy policy service providers like these get only the data their job needs. Whoever you send a report to sees the addresses of both ends of each drive in it and your purposes, client names included, and in the CSV your notes and your names for saved places too, but not the route; make a report for business drives only and your personal stops stay out. If you connect OdoTax to Claude, it is sent your drives, totals and saved places when it asks, never a drive's GPS track, and if you report a problem with a drive, a person on the OdoTax team looks at it (what data is kept).