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Rideshare drivers

Mileage tracking for rideshare drivers

If you drive for Uber or Lyft as an independent contractor, the miles you drive for rides are a business expense: from a pickup to the drop-off, and on to the next pickup. OdoTax records every drive on its own, whichever app you're online in, you mark each one business or personal, and at tax time the report gives the total for Schedule C, the business part of your federal tax return.

$13,400

on Schedule C, line 9 (car and truck expenses) for a year of business driving in 2026: 18,000 miles, 8,000 of them at 72.5¢ to June 30 and 10,000 at 76¢ after. It lowers the profit that is taxed; it is not money back.

A driver's year, worked through in our guide to quarterly estimated taxes.
A smiling rideshare driver in an olive bomber jacket holding his phone, a car key fob hanging from his other hand.

New to this?

Three terms this page uses

Three terms you'll meet all through this page; the rest are explained at the foot of the page.

Deduction
A cost taken off the profit you pay tax on. It is not a refund: nobody pays it back to you.
Standard mileage rate
The IRS's amount per business mile, which stands in for what the car costs to run: 72.5¢ for drives through June 30, 2026, and 76¢ from July 1.
Schedule C
The part of your federal tax return where a business you own by yourself reports what it took in and what it cost. The car's business miles go on line 9, Car and truck expenses.

Is this you?

Who can deduct their driving

You can if you drive for Uber, Lyft or another ride app as an independent contractor: the IRS counts driving “a car for booked rides or deliveries” as gig work, nobody takes tax out of what the platform pays you, and your costs come off what you earned, on your own Schedule C. If a company pays you on a W-2 to drive, you can't deduct the driving it doesn't pay back on your federal return, apart from a few groups the law names, such as Armed Forces reservists.

A comparison of a W-2 employee and a 1099 contractor. Who decides how the work is done: the employer, or you. Tax taken out of each payment: yes for the employee, no for the contractor. Social Security and Medicare: split with the employer, or all yours, as self-employment tax. Car, phone and tools: usually the employer's, or paid back, for the employee; the contractor's own, with the share used for work deductible. Where the income goes on your return: the wage line of Form 1040, or Schedule C, as business income.

You can be both in one year: an employee at a day job and self-employed for your evenings on the app. Only the driving for rides is a business on your return, and the drive to your employer stays a commute. What is a 1099 contractor? explains how to tell.

What counts

Which miles are business miles

The miles from a pickup to the drop-off count, and so do the miles from that drop-off to the next pickup, in the same app or another. Tolls and parking you pay on a ride go on top. Errands and days off are personal miles. Two kinds of driving are less simple: the drive from home to your first pickup and home from the last drop-off, which comes next, and the miles you drive with no ride to go to.

Two lists of drives for a rideshare driver. Counts: from a pickup to the drop-off, with the rider in the car; from a drop-off to the next pickup, one workplace to another; from one app's drop-off to another's pickup, such as a Lyft ride and then an Uber ride; and tolls and parking on a ride, added at what you paid. Ask first, or doesn't count: home to the first pickup and home from the last drop-off, which is commuting unless a home office qualifies, so log it and ask; driving with no ride to go to, such as toward a busier area, for which no rule is written, so log it and ask; a detour for yourself between rides, where only the direct route counts; and errands and days off, which are personal driving.

Publication 463, the IRS's guide to travel, gift and car expenses, lists “Getting from one workplace to another in the course of your business or profession” and “Visiting clients or customers,” and even in its strictest case says “you can deduct the costs of going from one client or customer to another.” It has no rule written for miles driven with no ride to go to, such as heading toward a busier part of town: they are in your log like every other mile, and how to treat them is a question for a tax preparer. A stop for lunch between two rides doesn't break the business use; a detour for yourself counts only as far as the direct route would have (waiting, and stops of your own).

From home

The first and last drive of a shift

Commuting, the drive between home and your regular place of work, is never deductible. Publication 463 doesn't mention app-based driving, so it doesn't say which of its rules fits the first and last drive of a shift. Two of them bear on it, and they give different answers.

The first and last drive of a shift, as two routes from home to a pickup, a drop-off, a second pickup, a second drop-off and back home. With no regular place of work and no home office, the legs from home to the first pickup and from the last drop-off back home are commuting, and the legs between pickups and drop-offs are business miles: your first pickup counts as your office, so home to it, and back from the last drop-off, is commuting, unless the stop is outside your metro area. With a home office that is your principal place of business, every leg is business miles: home to the first pickup, and back from the last drop-off, counts too. Publication 463 does not say which rule fits a shift of rides; the legs between pickups and drop-offs count under both.

With no regular place of work and no home office, Publication 463's example treats your first business contact inside your metro area as your office, so the drive to it, and home from the last one, is commuting. With a home office that is your principal place of business, home to any work location in the same business counts, such as your first pickup. Which fits you is worth one question to a tax preparer, and this is general information, not tax advice. Log those drives either way: a logged drive can be left out of the deduction later, and one never logged has to be rebuilt. Commuting miles still go on the return, on Schedule C, Part IV, line 44b (the first and last drive).

The app's miles

The platform's online miles are not your log

Uber's Tax Summary and Lyft's Annual Summary each give a figure for your online miles, and neither is an official tax document. Uber counts the miles while you're active in its app: waiting for a trip, driving to a pickup and on a trip. Miles for another app, and miles with the app off, aren't in it. The record the IRS asks for is your own: the date, where you went, why and the miles, for each business use.

The platform's online miles and your log, side by side. The platform's yearly summary: Uber's Tax Summary and Lyft's Annual Summary, out by January 31, neither an official tax document; online miles in that app only, which for Uber are waiting, driving to a pickup and on a trip while you're active in its app; not in it, miles for another app and miles with the app off; supporting evidence, with your trip history, where a log falls short. Your log: for each business use, the date, your business destination, the business purpose and the miles; for the car, total miles for the year, its cost and the date you started using it for business; kept at or near the time, and a weekly log counts as timely; a run of rides can be one record, with a purpose such as Online for Uber — rides.

A run of rides needn't be logged ride by ride: Publication 463 lets “uninterrupted business use” go in “a single record,” with one purpose that says what the driving was, such as “Online for Uber — rides.” The platform's summary and your trip history still help: where a log falls short they can back it up, but they aren't the log (what the IRS wants in a mileage log).

The deduction

A year of driving, on Schedule C

Jordan, the driver in our quarterly taxes guide, drives for Uber and DoorDash. In 2026, 8,000 business miles through June 30 at 72.5¢ and 10,000 from July 1 at 76¢ come to $13,400 on Schedule C, line 9, car and truck expenses. That takes the year's profit from $40,000 to $26,600, and self-employment tax from $5,651.82 to $3,758.46. It is a deduction, not money back.

Jordan's 2026 self-employment tax as two bars in proportion: $5,651.82 on $40,000 of profit without the miles, and $3,758.46 on $26,600 of profit after $13,400 for 18,000 business miles. The miles take $1,893.36 off it: $13,400 times 92.35% times 15.3%.

What it is worth to you depends on your whole return: self-employment tax falls by about 14¢ for every dollar deducted (only the 2.9% Medicare part, about 2.7¢, once your wages and self-employment earnings together pass $184,500 for 2026), and income tax by up to the rate your last dollar is taxed at (a driver's year, worked through).

Gas, repairs, the car

What the rate covers, and what goes on top

The mileage rate already stands in for gas, oil, repairs and maintenance, insurance, registration, and depreciation or lease payments, so none of those is deducted on top. Business parking and tolls are added at what you paid, and so is the business share of the interest on a car loan and of state and local personal property tax on the car (a yearly tax based on its value).

Two lists. Covered by the standard rate, so not deducted on top: depreciation or lease payments; maintenance and repairs; gasoline, including gasoline taxes; oil; insurance; vehicle registration fees. Added on top, at what you paid: business parking and tolls, though parking at your place of work is commuting and is not deductible; if you are self-employed, the business share of the interest on a car loan; and, if you are self-employed, the business share of state and local personal property tax on the car. Below them: 35¢ of each 2026 business mile is depreciation, which comes off the car's basis, though not below zero.

The platform's service fees, your phone plan and anything you buy for riders aren't car costs: they go on other lines of Schedule C. The rate is the same for an electric or hybrid car. Actual expenses are the other way to deduct the car: the business share of what it really cost to run, with receipts. Either way you need the mileage log (standard rate or actual expenses).

The records

The log the IRS asks for, and who fills it in

For each business drive: the date, where you went, why, and the miles, written down while you still remember it; once a week is enough. For the car, once a year: its total miles, the date it went into business use, and what it cost. OdoTax records the date, both addresses and the miles as you drive; the rest is yours to add, as the drawing shows.

Who fills in each part of the mileage log that Publication 463 and Schedule C ask for. For each business drive, OdoTax records the date, with the start and end times; where you went, both addresses, from the GPS; and the miles, measured along the route. You add whether it was business, personal or commute, a tap each, setting a drive to Commute on its own page; the purpose, saying what the driving was, such as Online for Uber — rides; and parking and tolls, the amounts, keeping receipts of $75 or more yourself. For each car, once a year, OdoTax adds up the business, commuting and other miles from the drives you sorted. You add the total miles for the year, with the odometer on January 1 and December 31 as the simplest proof; the date the car went into business use, set as In business use since on the website; and what it cost, which isn't kept in OdoTax, so keep the purchase papers. A log sorted once a week is on time: Publication 463 says a log kept weekly is a timely kept record.

A drive you can't prove isn't deductible, and an estimate can't take its place. Keep the log at least 3 years from the day you file (what the IRS wants in a mileage log).

Common mix-ups

What people often get wrong

Things drivers often hear about tax and miles, and what the rules say.

Often heardThe rule

Uber already tracks my miles, so I don't need a log.

Uber calls its Tax Summary “not an official tax document,” and its online miles are only the miles while you're active in Uber's app. The record Publication 463 asks for is your own: the date, where you went, why and the miles for each business use, written at or near the time.

IRS Publication 463: Recordkeeping (opens in a new tab)

Only the miles with a passenger in the car count.

The drive from a drop-off to the next pickup counts too: Publication 463 lists “Getting from one workplace to another in the course of your business or profession” and “Visiting clients or customers.”

IRS Publication 463: Transportation (opens in a new tab)

Every mile I drive with the app on is business.

Being online doesn't decide it. Publication 463 has no rule written for miles driven with no ride to go to, a detour for yourself counts only as far as the direct route, and the drive home may be commuting. Log each drive as it was, and ask a tax preparer about the unsettled ones.

IRS Publication 463: Commuting expenses (opens in a new tab)

The drive from home to my first ride always counts.

Publication 463 doesn't settle it for ride apps. With no regular place of work and no home office, its example makes your first stop inside your metro area your office, so home to it is commuting; with a home office that is your principal place of business, it counts. Log those drives and ask.

Instructions for Schedule C: Part IV, line 44b (opens in a new tab)

I can deduct my gas and the mileage rate.

Not both. In a year you use the standard rate 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. Business tolls and parking go on top.

IRS Publication 463: Standard mileage rate (opens in a new tab)

My 1099-K shows what I made.

It shows the gross amount riders paid, before the platform's cut: the IRS says the gross payment amount “isn't adjusted for any” fees, credits or refunds, and “You can deduct them from the gross amount.” Your profit is what is left after those, your car and your other costs.

IRS: What to do with Form 1099-K (opens in a new tab)

No 1099 came, so there is nothing to report.

“You must report all income on your tax return, even if you don't receive Forms 1099 from the businesses that pay you.” A platform has to send a 1099-K only once it has paid you more than $20,000 in more than 200 transactions in the year (some states set a lower bar), so many part-time drivers get none.

IRS: Manage taxes for your gig work (opens in a new tab)

I'll work out my miles from my trip history at tax time.

“You can't deduct amounts that you approximate or estimate.” A trip history can back up a drive rebuilt one at a time, but a log written at or near the time is the record the rules ask for, and a weekly log counts.

IRS Publication 463: Recordkeeping (opens in a new tab)

OdoTax decides which drives were for work.

You do. OdoTax suggests, and a suggestion sorts a drive only when you accept it, unless you turn on Auto-classify or save a route as a frequent drive.

OdoTax help: How does OdoTax know which drives are for work?

What OdoTax does

The app, the website and the report

Drives are recorded on the phone; you sort them and make reports in the app or on the website.

Every drive, whichever app you're in

The phone notices when you pull away and when you stop, and records the route, both addresses and the miles, with or without signal. It makes no difference which ride app is open, or whether one is.

Business or personal in one tap

Drives wait until you have a free minute, then come up one at a time: tap Business or Personal. Add a purpose of your own once, such as Online for Uber — rides, and pick it by holding Business; after that a tap on Business sorts each drive with it.

A shift is a few drives, not dozens

A drive ends once the car has been stopped for about five minutes, so a run of rides with no long stop is one drive, with one purpose. On the free plan a shift is a few of the month's 35, not one for every ride.

Commuting miles, counted apart

The drives from and to home are recorded like the rest. When one was only the trip from or to home and turns out to be commuting, set it to Commute on its own page: it stays out of the deduction and is counted for Schedule C. The drive from home often runs into your first rides as one drive; then write the miles from home in its note, for your tax preparer.

Parking and tolls with the drive

Add a toll or a parking fee you paid to the drive it belongs to; on a business drive it goes on top of the miles. OdoTax keeps the amounts, not the receipts: keep the receipt for anything $75 or more.

A report for Schedule C

Every drive priced at its own date's IRS rate, so the two rates of 2026 add up on their own, as a PDF to keep with your return or send to your accountant, and a CSV, from the app or the website.

At tax time

Where the report goes on your return

Every report comes as a PDF and a CSV. The PDF's first page has the total for Schedule C, line 9 and the car's figures for Part IV (the questions about your vehicle); its last page prints Part IV's yes-or-no questions with boxes for you to tick, and has a line for your signature. OdoTax doesn't file your return or connect to tax software: you or your preparer type the figures in.

Where the OdoTax report goes on Schedule C, for a rideshare driver's car in tax year 2026. The report's first page, Deduction by form, has a row named Schedule C, line 9: $13,400.00, from 18,000 business miles, each drive at the rate for its date; it goes on line 9, car and truck expenses, $13,400.00. The vehicle information table's In service date, set as In business use since on the website, goes on line 43, when the car went into business use. Its business, commute and other miles, 18,000, 2,400 and 6,100, counted from the drives OdoTax recorded, with the odometer at 61,870 at the start and 88,370 at the end from your readings, go on lines 44a, 44b and 44c. The last page, Records, with Part IV's yes-or-no questions, how the log was kept and a line for your signature, goes with lines 45 to 47b, personal use and written evidence. You or your preparer type the figures in: OdoTax doesn't file returns or connect to tax software; the miles count the drives OdoTax recorded, and the odometer readings show the car's whole year; loan interest and personal property tax aren't in the report, since their business shares go on lines of their own; if you also file Form 4562, the depreciation form, lines 43 to 47b go in its Part V instead; keep the PDF and its trip log with your return.

Save your accountant as a contact and tap Email this report: they get the PDF attached and links to both files for 60 days, with no account needed (what the report contains).

Questions

What people ask first

Is this for me?

Yes, if you drive as an independent contractor, which is how the ride apps pay their drivers: the IRS counts driving “a car for booked rides or deliveries” as gig work, and your costs come off what you earned, on your own Schedule C. Your business miles go on 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. Three limits apply: commuting never counts, 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 total lowers the profit you're taxed on; it isn't money back (what is a 1099 contractor?).

Only the driving for rides, which is a business of its own on your return. The drive from home to your employer never counts. A drive straight from your W-2 job to your first pickup does: Publication 463 lets you deduct “the expense of getting from one workplace to the other.” Nobody withholds tax from what the apps pay you, so you may need to pay estimated tax or have more withheld at your job (quarterly estimated taxes).

Each platform's income is reported, and your business miles are your miles whichever app they were for: a drop-off in one app to a pickup in the other counts like any other drive between two stops. Each platform's summary counts only the miles while you were active in its own app, so two summaries don't add up to one log; yours has to cover both. OdoTax records every drive whichever app is open, and you can name the app in the purpose. Whether rides and deliveries go on one Schedule C or two is a question for your tax preparer.

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 (who can use the business rate).

You don't need an LLC: a 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.

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 rides brought in $6,000 after the platform's fees and your only other 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).

Which miles count

From a pickup to the drop-off, and from that drop-off to the next pickup, in the same app or another: Publication 463 lists “Getting from one workplace to another in the course of your business or profession” and “Visiting clients or customers.” Business tolls and parking go on top, and errands and days off are personal. Two kinds of driving are unsettled, the first and last drive of a shift and miles with no ride to go to, and the next questions take them one at a time (the miles between stops).

Publication 463 doesn't say, because it has no rule written for ride apps. With no regular place of work and no home office, its example treats “the location of your first business contact inside the metropolitan area” as your office, which makes the drive to it, and home from the last one, commuting. With a home office that is your principal place of business, “you can deduct your daily transportation costs between your home and another work location in the same trade or business.” Ask a tax preparer which fits you, and log those drives either way: a logged drive can be left out later, and one never logged has to be rebuilt (the first and last drive).

Possibly. Publication 587's test is that you use a space “exclusively and regularly for administrative or management activities of your trade or business,” and have “no other fixed location where you conduct substantial administrative or management activities” of it. For a driver that would be a desk used only for the business's paperwork: the log, the books, messages with the platform. Whether yours passes, and whether it then makes the drive from home business, is a question for a tax preparer; this is general information, not tax advice (the home office test).

Publication 463 has no rule written for miles driven with no ride to go to, such as circling downtown or heading toward a busier area. Uber counts them in its online miles, but a platform's summary isn't a tax rule. They are in your log like every other mile you drive; ask your tax preparer how to treat them. Sitting parked with the app on adds no miles either way.

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 stop 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).

The miles of an airport ride count like any other ride's, and so does the drive from that drop-off to your next pickup. Tolls and parking you pay on business drives go on top of the mileage rate: “In addition to using the standard mileage rate, you can deduct any business-related parking fees and tolls.” Fees the platform takes out of the fare, such as service and airport fees, aren't car costs: the platform's summary lists them, and they come off the gross amount elsewhere on Schedule C. Driving back from the airport with no ride to go to is one of the unsettled cases above.

No. Advertising on the car “doesn't change the use of your car from personal use to business use,” and being available doesn't either: a drive is business because of where you're going and why. Errands with the app on are still personal driving, and the log has to say why each business drive was made.

The platform's numbers

It's a start, not the log. Uber says the Tax Summary is “not an official tax document,” and its miles are the ones recorded “while you're active in the Driver app”: waiting for a trip, driving to a pickup and on a trip. That leaves out miles for another app and anything driven with the app off, and it counts waiting miles that no tax rule settles. The record Publication 463 asks for is your own, kept at or near the time: the date, where you went, why and the miles for each business use. The summary and your trip history can back that log up where it falls short (what the IRS wants).

The same. Lyft says “Your Annual Summary isn't an official tax document,” and that it “tells you your total number of rides and online miles for the year.” It covers Lyft only. Use it to check your log, and for the platform fees, service fees and tolls it lists, of which Lyft says “You may be able to deduct these as business expenses while filing.” A toll goes on your return once: one you added to a drive in OdoTax is already in the report's line 9 total, so leave it out when you add up Lyft's.

Every driver gets the platform's yearly summary, by January 31. A 1099-K for rides comes only once the platform has paid you more than $20,000 in more than 200 transactions in the year; some states set a lower bar, and a platform may send one below it. A 1099-NEC covers what you earned outside rides, such as bonuses and referrals, once that reaches $2,000 in 2026 ($600 through 2025). None of them decides what you owe: “You must report all income on your tax return, even if you don't receive Forms 1099 from the businesses that pay you” (where the 1099 comes from).

Because it reports the gross amount riders paid, before the platform's cut. The IRS says the gross payment amount “isn't adjusted for any” fees, credits or refunds, that “These items are not taxable income,” and “You can deduct them from the gross amount.” The platform's summary breaks them out: Uber in its section on expenses, fees and tax, Lyft as platform fees, service fees and tolls. So on Schedule C the gross goes in as income and the fees come off as expenses, and you are taxed on what you kept, less your car and your other costs.

Tips are income like the rest. From tax year 2025 through 2028 there is also a deduction of up to $25,000 of qualified tips a year for the occupations on an IRS list, and “Taxi and Rideshare Drivers and Chauffeurs” are on it. For the self-employed it can't be more than the net income of the business the tips came from, and “tips must be reported on Form 1099-MISC, 1099-NEC, or 1099-K to be eligible for the deduction.” It phases out above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($300,000 on a joint return), covers voluntary tips only and has filing conditions of its own, so check it with your tax preparer (1099s and tips).

The deduction, and where it goes

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. 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 driver in our quarterly taxes guide drove 8,000 business miles before July 1 and 10,000 after, which come to 8,000 × $0.725 + 10,000 × $0.76 = $13,400.00 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 driver in our guide, with $13,400 on line 9, that's $13,400 × 92.35% × 15.3% = $1,893.36 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).

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 the apps 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 your driving income is uneven through the year, 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).

Your car

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 your driving for rides 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. Business parking and tolls are added at what you paid, 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 a car bought for the work 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).

Yes: the IRS says the standard mileage rates “apply to fully-electric and hybrid automobiles, as well as gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.” With the rate you don't deduct charging or gas on top, because the rate stands in for what the car costs to run. Whether actual expenses would come to more for your car is the comparison in the question above.

A leased car on the standard rate stays on it for the whole lease; with actual expenses you deduct the business share of the lease payments instead. A car rented by the week through a platform's rental program is a different arrangement, and what the rental already includes, such as insurance and maintenance, matters, so ask a tax preparer how to deduct it. Either way you need the mileage log to show the business share (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 you drive the car for rides, choose the rate on your 2026 return; if you have driven it for rides 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.

The records you need

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 driver one purpose line can cover a run of rides, such as “Online for Uber — rides”, because Publication 463 lets uninterrupted business use go in a single record; “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: the trip history in each app, the platforms' weekly statements, toll records or your phone's location history; a trip history 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 busy season isn't typical of a slow one.

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 trip histories, statements 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).

How OdoTax works

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 its mount. 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 parking 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).

No: a drive ends once the car has been stopped for about five minutes, and a drive that starts within 10 minutes and 300 meters of where the last one ended is joined to it. So a run of rides with no long stop is one drive, and a shift usually comes out as a few. That fits the rule: Publication 463 lets uninterrupted business use go in a single record. It also means the drive from home runs straight into your first rides unless you were stopped for a while before them; if your tax preparer needs those miles apart, write them in the drive's note, which goes into the report's CSV (splitting and merging).

More than on an ordinary day: GPS runs at full accuracy while a drive is being recorded, and on a shift that is most of the time, so keep the phone on its charger as you do for the ride app. 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. 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 (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 spot 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 shift 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: “Online for Uber — rides”, “Online for Lyft — rides”, “Uber and Lyft — rides”. 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, and an address doesn't say which app the driving was for, so name the app 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 Friday night shift 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 your evening hours, 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).

Not for a driver with no fixed workplace: Commute is offered on its own only between places you saved as Home and Work. A drive that starts or ends at your saved Home is suggested as Personal, but the drive from home usually runs straight into your first rides, and the last ride into the drive home, so a drive with rides in it is Business; if your setup makes the miles from or to home commuting, write them in its note for your tax preparer. Set a drive to Commute on its own page only when it was just the trip from or to home and your setup makes that commuting: it stays out of the deduction and is counted for Schedule C, Part IV (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).

Getting the app, and what it costs

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: a run of rides with no long stop is one drive, and a 20-minute break splits a shift in two, so someone who drives most days will pass the limit. 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).

At tax time

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, how the first and last drive of your shift are treated, 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 what the IRS wants in a mileage log.

Privacy

“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, 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).

The ride apps and your riders 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, 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).

Words on this page

The terms, in plain English

Every term on this page, in a line or two.

Publication 463
The IRS's guide to travel, gift and car expenses; most of the rules on this page are quoted from it.
Publication 587
The IRS's guide to business use of your home, with the test a home office has to pass.
Publication 334
The IRS's tax guide for small business, including what counts as business income.
Self-employed (1099 contractor)
You're paid for the result of the work, not managed as an employee, and nobody takes tax out of what you're paid; the other name comes from the 1099 forms that report what you were paid.
Gig work
The IRS's name for work found through an app or a platform, such as driving a car for booked rides or deliveries.
1099-NEC
The form a platform sends you, and the IRS, for what you earned outside rides, such as bonuses and referrals, once that reaches $2,000 in 2026 ($600 through 2025). The income counts whether or not one arrives.
1099-K
The form a ride app sends once it has paid you more than $20,000 in more than 200 transactions in a year (some states set a lower bar). Its gross amount is what riders paid, before the platform's fees; the income counts whether or not one arrives.
Tax Summary and Annual Summary
Uber's and Lyft's yearly statements of what riders paid, what the platform took in fees and your online miles. Neither is an official tax document.
Online miles
A ride app's own count of the miles you drove while active in that app: waiting for a trip, driving to a pickup and on a trip. It is the platform's summary, not your log.
W-2 employee
Someone whose employer takes tax out of each paycheck and sends a Form W-2 in January; on a federal return, an employee can't deduct driving the employer doesn't pay back, apart from a few groups such as Armed Forces reservists.
Withholding
Tax an employer takes out of each paycheck and pays in for you; nobody withholds tax from what you earn in your own business, which is why estimated taxes may be due.
Sole proprietor
Someone who owns a business alone and hasn't made it a corporation, and reports its income and costs on Schedule C of their own return.
Single-member LLC
A limited liability company (LLC) with one owner, who reports its income and costs on Schedule C like a sole proprietor unless the LLC chose to be taxed as a corporation.
S corporation
A corporation whose profit is taxed on its owners' returns; an owner who works in it is treated as its employee.
Partnership
How the IRS taxes a business with two or more owners, a two-member LLC included, unless it chose otherwise; the business's costs then generally go on the partnership's own return, not on a Schedule C.
Schedule C
Profit or Loss From Business: the part of your federal return where a business you own by yourself reports what it took in and what it cost.
Form 1040
Your federal income tax return; Schedule C and Schedule 1 go with it.
Schedule 1
Additional Income and Adjustments to Income: the form that carries extra income to your Form 1040; a business's profit from Schedule C goes on its line 3.
Line 9, Car and truck expenses
The Schedule C line for your car: business miles at the standard rate, or the business share of running costs such as gas, repairs and insurance (depreciation goes on line 13, lease payments on line 20a), plus business parking and tolls.
Part IV, Information on Your Vehicle
Schedule C's questions about the car: when it went into business use, its business, commuting and other miles, and whether you have written evidence.
Profit
What the business took in, less what it cost; income tax and self-employment tax are figured on it.
Deduction
A cost taken off the income you're taxed on; it is not money paid back to you.
Refund
Money the IRS sends back when you paid more tax during the year than you owe.
Self-employment tax
Social Security and Medicare tax for people who work for themselves: 15.3% of 92.35% of profit, owed once that 92.35% comes to $400 or more for the year. The 12.4% Social Security part stops once wages and self-employment earnings together pass $184,500 in 2026.
Standard deduction
The flat amount taken off your income when you don't itemize; business miles come off your profit on Schedule C either way.
Itemizing
Listing deductions on Schedule A, the itemized-deductions form, instead of taking the standard deduction; it matters for medical and charity miles, not business miles.
Standard mileage rate
One IRS amount per business mile that stands in for gas, repairs, insurance and wear: 72.5¢ for drives through June 30, 2026, and 76¢ from July 1.
Actual expenses
The other way to deduct a car: the business share (business miles divided by total miles) of what it really cost to run, backed by receipts.
Depreciation
Deducting a car's cost over several years instead of all at once; straight line spreads it evenly. 35¢ of each 2026 standard-rate mile counts as depreciation.
Section 179 and the special depreciation allowance
Two ways to deduct much of a car's cost in its first year in service, under actual expenses; the second is often called bonus depreciation. Take either and that car can never use the mileage rate.
Basis
What the car counts as having cost you for tax purposes; depreciation lowers it, though not below zero, and it matters when you sell the car.
Business mile
A mile driven for the work: from a pickup to the drop-off, and from that drop-off to the next pickup, in the same app or another.
Commuting
Driving between home and your regular place of work; never deductible, however far. For a driver with no regular place of work and no home office, Publication 463's example makes the drive to the first stop inside your metro area, and home from the last, commuting. OdoTax keeps commuting drives under Commute, out of the deduction but counted for Part IV.
Regular place of work
A place you work at or report to regularly; a driver who works from the car usually has none.
Metro area
Generally the city and its suburbs; the IRS gives no distance in miles.
Home office that qualifies (principal place of business)
A space at home used only and regularly for the business that is its principal place of business: for a driver, a desk used only for the business's paperwork, with no other fixed place where that paperwork is done. Whether a driver's desk passes is a question for a tax preparer.
Mileage log
Your record of each business drive (the date, where you went, why, and the miles) plus each car's total miles for the year.
Business purpose
One line saying why a drive was for work; for a run of rides, which app you were online in.
At or near the time
While you still remember the drive; a log kept weekly counts.
Odometer reading
The number on the dash on a given date; one at each end of the year proves the car's total miles.
Placed in service
The date a car started being used in the business (Schedule C, line 43); for a family car, the day your driving for rides started using it. In OdoTax it is In business use since, set on the vehicle in the web account.
Accountable plan
A way for an employer or your own corporation to pay back work miles: you account for them and return any excess, and the payment isn't income to you.
Estimated taxes
Tax paid four times a year with Form 1040-ES when nobody withholds it and you expect to owe $1,000 or more.
Form 1040-X
The form for changing a tax return you already filed.
CSV
The same drives as the PDF, in a spreadsheet file; every report comes with one, and it opens in any spreadsheet.
Locked drive
In OdoTax, a drive past the free plan's 35 in a month: recorded, but it can't be sorted and is left out of totals and reports. Going Pro opens every drive from then on, and an account's first payment also reopens the 31 days before it; locked drives older than that are hidden from the list, not deleted.
Frequent drive
In OdoTax, a route saved with its category and purpose; every drive on it is sorted the moment it arrives.

Put it on your phone

Install the app, sign in and turn tracking on. From your next drive, OdoTax records each one; you sort them when you have a minute, after a shift or once a week.

Read first: quarterly estimated taxes for drivers, and the mileage rules between stops, in our guide for delivery drivers.