Business mileage is the distance driven for work, and the whole of the mileage system rests on drawing the line correctly between that and everything else. Get a journey on the wrong side of the line and the payment for it is taxable pay rather than a tax-free expense, or a relief claim that HMRC refuses. This page sets out the tests HMRC applies, the journeys that fail them, how a business mile is valued in the driver's own car and in a company car, and the log that has to stand behind every claim, with the arithmetic on the mileage worksheets on this site.
The journeys that count
Travel between two workplaces, travel to a temporary workplace, travel to a client, a supplier or a site, and travel in the performance of the duties, a delivery driver's round or a district nurse's visits. The test is whether the journey is required by the job rather than by where the employee has chosen to live. A journey from home to a client counts where the client is not a permanent workplace.
The journeys that do not
Ordinary commuting, which is home to a permanent workplace and back, is never business mileage, and neither is private travel of any kind. A journey that is substantially the same as the ordinary commute, a client's office next door to the permanent workplace, is treated as commuting. A workplace attended for a task expected to last more than two years, or for most of the working time over that period, is permanent rather than temporary.
Valuing a business mile
In the driver's own car a business mile is worth the approved mileage rate, 55p up to 10,000 miles in the year and 25p after, tax free from the employer and relief on any shortfall. In a company car the employer already pays for the car, so a business mile is worth the advisory fuel rate for the fuel and engine size, or the electricity rate for an electric company car, and nothing more.
The log
Date, start and end points, purpose, and miles, for every business journey, kept as it happens rather than reconstructed at the year end. The log is what supports the employer's tax-free payment, the driver's relief claim, and, for a company car driver who repays private fuel, the split between business and private miles. Carbikly Pro keeps each claim against the car and the driver with its miles; the log itself stays with the driver.
Questions people ask about business mileage
Is travel from home to my first appointment business mileage?
It depends on whether you have a permanent workplace. A field worker with no permanent workplace can count it; an office-based employee calling on a client on the way in usually cannot count the commuting element.
Does business mileage include the return journey?
Yes, where the outbound journey qualifies: the return from a client to the office or to home is part of the same business travel.
What if my employer pays a fuel card?
In a company car, private fuel on a fuel card creates the fuel benefit charge unless you repay it in full by 6 July; in your own car it is taxable pay, offset by the approved amount for the business miles.