A single annual mileage number is not a record. The IRS publication on car expenses lists the elements, and it is specific about when you have to write them down.
Quoted from IRS Publication 463, read 2026-10-13. This page reports what the publication says. It is not tax advice and it is not a complete account of the publication.
Publication 463 sets out what adequate records have to show. For car expenses, in its own words:
“For car expenses, the cost of the car and any improvements, the date you started using it for business, the mileage for each business use, and the total miles for the year.”
Alongside that it lists the date, the destination and the purpose:
Source: Internal Revenue Service, Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, 2025 revision, “For use in preparing 2025 Returns”, recordkeeping chapter, read 2026-10-13. Note that the standard mileage rate quoted inside that revision is 2025's 70 cents; the 2026 rates are 72.5 cents through June 30 and 76 cents from July 1, published separately. The recordkeeping requirements and the rate table are different things and come from different documents.
| Column | Example | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Date of use | 2026-07-02 | Also decides which 2026 rate the mile gets, since the rate changed on July 1. |
| Miles for that use | 14.6 | “The mileage for each business use” is per use, not an annual total. |
| Destination | 1400 N Main, Logan | “Your business destination.” |
| Business purpose | DoorDash delivery | “Business purpose for the expense.” |
Plus the per-vehicle facts that sit outside the per-trip rows: what the car cost, any improvements, the date you started using it for business, and the total miles you drove for the year, business and personal together.
That last one catches people out. The total for the year is not just your business miles. Without it there is nothing to express business use as a share of.
“You should record the elements of an expense or of a business use at or near the time of the expense or use and support it with sufficient documentary evidence. A timely kept record has more value than a statement prepared later when there is generally a lack of accurate recall.”
The publication is not asking for the same day, though. It says so directly:
“You don’t need to write down the elements of every expense on the day of the expense. If you maintain a log on a weekly basis that accounts for use during the week, the log is considered a timely kept record.”
A weekly habit clears the bar. A figure assembled in April from bank statements and memory is the version the publication is contrasting itself with when it talks about a statement prepared later.
There is a provision for not logging every week, and it comes with a condition attached:
“You can keep an adequate record for parts of a tax year and use that record to prove the amount of business or investment use for the entire year. You must demonstrate by other evidence that the periods for which an adequate record is kept are representative of the use throughout the tax year.”
The condition is the whole thing. A sample is only usable if you can show it is representative, and a gig driver's December is not a representative sample of their February. Whether your own sample would qualify is a judgement about your facts, which is a question for a tax professional and not something a web page can answer.
The delivery and rideshare apps report some mileage of their own, and it is useful, but it is not the same thing as a record of each business use with its date, destination and purpose. It typically covers only the miles the platform considers on-trip, which leaves out the drive to your zone, the drive between offers and the drive home.
It also arrives per platform, so a driver on three apps has three partial records in three formats with no single annual total and no way to see where one ends and the next begins. Those are the practical problems; whether a given export satisfies the publication is a question about your facts, not a general one.
Because 2026 has two rates, the date column stops being documentation and starts being arithmetic. A log that records only how many miles you drove in the year cannot produce the right deduction, even if the total is perfectly accurate, because the correct figure needs to know which side of June 30 each mile falls on.
If your record does not carry per-trip dates, the minimum you need is business mileage as at the end of June 30. The deduction calculator takes either that split or a dated log.
The publication describes what the record has to contain and when it should be written, not what software to use. A spreadsheet filled in weekly carries the same elements as anything else. The failure mode is not the format, it is the gap between the driving and the writing down.
The standard mileage rate stands in for your operating costs rather than itemising them, so the per-mile method is about mileage records rather than fuel receipts. Which method you are eligible for, and what substantiation your situation needs, is a question for a tax professional.
The publication asks for the business purpose of the use. “DoorDash delivery” or “Uber Eats, zone 4” states one. What it is not is a blank column, which is the most common defect in a reconstructed log.
The publication's own provision for partial records is the sampling one above, and it requires showing the sampled periods are representative. An estimate with nothing behind it is the situation it is distinguishing itself from. Ask a professional about your own case rather than relying on a page like this one.
No. It quotes a public IRS publication and says what the quoted wording is asking for. It does not apply any of it to your situation, it is not complete, and it is not endorsed by or affiliated with the IRS. The publication itself is the authority, not this summary of it.
MileTruth exists for the part that is actually hard here: having the record at all. It logs each trip with its own date, keeps business and personal separate, and flags a business trip that is missing a field a record needs, so the gap shows up in July rather than in April.
MileTruth is not released yet. There is no store listing yet and nothing to buy. The calculators on this site are free whether or not it ships.
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