What this line means
The total number of miles you drove this vehicle for business purposes during the year. Business miles include driving to client sites, making deliveries, traveling between work locations, and running business errands. Commuting between your home and a regular place of business is not included. If you use the standard mileage rate, this number multiplied by the rate (70 cents per mile in 2025) is your deduction. If you use actual expenses, this determines your business-use percentage.
Does this apply to you?
- You use a vehicle for business and claim car and truck expenses on line 9
- You drive to client sites, job locations, or for deliveries
- You use a vehicle for a rideshare or delivery platform
- You travel between your home office and other business locations
Easy to overlook
A home office converts commuting miles to business miles Without a home office, your drive from home to your first business stop is commuting (not deductible). With a qualifying home office, your home is your principal place of business, and every drive from home to a business destination counts as a business mile. This can add thousands of deductible miles per year. 1 IRS Publication 463 — Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses
You need contemporaneous records to support this number The IRS requires a written log made at or near the time of each trip showing the date, destination, business purpose, and miles driven. A spreadsheet reconstructed at tax time from memory does not satisfy the requirement. In an audit, no log means no deduction — even if the driving was legitimate. 2 Audit pattern — vehicle expense deductions without mileage logs
Watch out for this
Including commuting miles in the business miles total. Driving from your home to a regular place of business is commuting, even if you are self-employed. If you rent an office or studio and drive there daily, those are commuting miles. Only driving from one business location to another, or from a qualifying home office to any business destination, counts as business miles.
Footnotes
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IRS Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p463.pdf ↩
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IRS Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, Recordkeeping. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p463.pdf ↩