This article is general information, not tax advice. The rules below are described in broad terms and change over time. Before you file, consult a CPA or tax professional who can confirm how the Schedule C mileage deduction applies to your specific situation.
Who files a Schedule C — and why mileage matters
Schedule C (Form 1040) is where most self-employed people report the profit or loss from a business they run themselves. Generally that includes sole proprietors and single-member LLCs — which is to say, the bulk of independent contractors, owner-operators, and 1099 trades workers. If that's you, and you drive your own vehicle to do the work, the business-use portion of those miles is generally one of the larger deductions available to you.
Field work is mileage-heavy by nature. A plumber bouncing between four service calls, an electrician running to the supply house mid-job, a general contractor checking three active sites in a morning — those miles are the cost of doing business. The deduction exists precisely because the vehicle is a tool of the trade. The catch is that the IRS doesn't take your word for the total; it expects records. We'll get to those, because they're where most contractors leave money on the table.
Two methods: standard mileage vs actual expenses
There are generally two ways to deduct vehicle costs on Schedule C, and you pick one approach per vehicle.
The standard-mileage method is the simple one. You multiply your deductible business miles by a flat per-mile rate the IRS publishes each year. You don't itemize gas and oil changes; the rate is designed to bundle the typical cost of operating a vehicle into a single number. Most contractors find this method easiest to track and defend, especially with a clean mileage log.
The actual-expense method tracks the business-use share of your real vehicle costs — fuel, maintenance, repairs, insurance, registration, and depreciation — and deducts that proportion. For an expensive truck, or a vehicle that runs up heavy repair bills, this can produce a larger deduction than the flat rate. It also means keeping every receipt and calculating your business-use percentage carefully.
Which one wins is genuinely situation-specific, and there are eligibility and consistency rules around choosing and switching methods — for example, the first-year choice can limit what you're allowed to do later. This is exactly the kind of decision your tax professional can confirm; the right answer depends on your vehicle, your costs, and your prior filings. What both methods share is a dependency on accurate business-mile records — so no matter which you choose, the log is the foundation.
What counts as a business mile for a contractor
A business mile is, generally, a mile you drive for the work itself. For a field-service contractor, the everyday examples are clear:
Driving from one job site to the next during the day is generally deductible. The run to the supply house for parts mid-job is generally deductible. Travel to a customer's location to provide service is generally deductible. A trip to drop off a permit or meet an inspector for an active project is generally deductible. In each case the drive exists because the business exists.
The miles that trip people up are the ones at the edges — the first drive of the morning and the last drive home. That's where the commuting rule comes in, and it deserves its own section.
Commuting is generally not deductible
This is the rule that surprises the most contractors: the drive between your home and a regular work location is generally treated as commuting, and commuting miles are generally not deductible — even though you're driving to earn a living. The IRS draws a line between personal commuting and business travel, and the morning drive to your first regular stop usually falls on the personal side of it.
There are real nuances that can change the analysis — a qualifying home office can shift where your "first" business mile begins, and travel to a temporary work location can be treated differently than travel to a regular one. These are not corner cases for trades workers; they're common. But they're also fact-specific, and getting them wrong in either direction costs you — either an overstated deduction that won't survive scrutiny, or an understated one that leaves money behind. Your tax professional can confirm where your commute ends and your deductible business miles begin.
The 2026 standard mileage rate
For 2026, the IRS set the business standard mileage rate at 72.5 cents per mile — up 2.5 cents from the 2025 rate, per the IRS announcement of the 2026 business standard mileage rate. If you use the standard-mileage method, that's the multiplier: deductible business miles times the rate gives you the estimated deduction.
One important habit: the rate changes most years, so don't hardcode it in your head. Confirm the current figure from the IRS announcement for the tax year you're filing, or let your tax professional confirm it. A number that was right last April may be wrong this April. (For a deeper look at the 2026 figure and how it lands for field-service businesses, see our companion piece on the IRS mileage rate for 2026.)
A worked example
Numbers make this concrete. Suppose you're a self-employed contractor who drove 20,000 business miles over the year — job-to-job runs, supply trips, and customer visits, with your commuting miles excluded. Under the standard-mileage method at the 2026 rate:
20,000 business miles × $0.725 per mile ≈ $14,500 estimated deduction.
That's a meaningful reduction in taxable business income for a single line item — which is exactly why the IRS scrutinizes it, and why the records behind the 20,000 matter. This figure is an illustration only; your actual deduction depends on your real business miles, the method you're eligible to use, and your specific tax situation. Treat the math as a model, not a promise, and let your CPA confirm the number you actually file.
The records are the deduction
Here's the part most articles underplay: the deduction isn't the miles, it's the provable miles. The IRS generally expects a contemporaneous log — records kept at or near the time you drove, not reconstructed from memory the week before taxes are due. For each trip that generally means the date, the business purpose, the destination, and the miles driven.
A reconstructed estimate is the weakest possible position to be in if your return is ever questioned. A contemporaneous, GPS-based record tied to the actual work you did is the strongest. The difference between those two isn't the size of the deduction — it's whether the deduction holds up. For a 20,000-mile year, that's real money riding on whether you kept the log.
How FSM Navigator keeps the records to back it up
This is where mileage tracking built into your field-service software earns its keep. Instead of a paper logbook in the glovebox or a separate app you have to remember to start, FSM Navigator captures driving records as part of the work itself.
Capture happens per job leg: a trip starts when a technician marks a job En Route and ends on Arrived. Because the system already knows where the technician was headed, each trip is automatically tied to the job — and its customer — that the drive was for. That linkage is the business purpose and the destination, captured at the moment of travel rather than reconstructed at tax time. Each technician sets their vehicle type once, every trip is tagged to it, and any trip's type (business, commute, or personal) can be fixed in a tap if it was classified wrong.
At year end, that becomes a contemporaneous, GPS-based record you can hand to your accountant — date, purpose, destination, and miles, per trip, per vehicle, per technician — with the per-mile rate applied to estimate the deduction (defaulting to the 2026 rate of $0.725). FSM Navigator keeps the records; you and your tax professional decide the deduction. Capture is consent-gated and on-duty only.
Learn more on the mileage tracking feature page, or see how it fits a specific trade on the mileage tracking for general contractors page. Mileage tracking is available on the Pro and Enterprise plans.
The mileage deduction rewards the contractor who kept the log, not the one who drove the most. Build the record automatically and the number defends itself — then let your CPA confirm what you file.