HMRC mileage rates 2026/27: 55p and 25p a mile
For 2026 to 2027 HMRC's approved rate for a car or van is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p after. Muster counts the year's miles for you.
The rates
From gov.uk's Travel: mileage and fuel rates and allowances, read on 3 November 2026:
| Tax year | Cars and vans, first 10,000 business miles | After 10,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 to 2027 | 55p | 25p |
| 2011 to 2026 | 45p | 25p |
The same page gives motorcycles 24p a mile and bicycles 20p, in both bands and both periods. The rates can change at a Budget, so check the page before you claim: the 45p figure stood for fifteen years and then moved.
The approved rate is what an employer can pay for business miles in your own vehicle without tax or National Insurance, and what a self-employed person can use under HMRC's simplified expenses in place of actual running costs. The 10,000 miles are business miles in the tax year, 6 April to 5 April, across all your business driving, not per job or per employer.
How Muster does it
Muster keeps the mileage log, measures each drive by road, and shows one figure at the top of Journeys: your personal vehicle miles this tax year, from 6 April, claimed or not, so you can see when you pass 10,000 and the rate steps down. Each journey takes the rate for the tax year it is dated in.
- If you are employed, Muster counts your miles and does not price them: what a mile is worth is your employer's to say. You claim from the Journeys list the way your employer asks.
- If you are self-employed, the drives go on your invoices at your own rate, or at the approved rate for each journey's tax year if you have set none: 55p and 25p for 2026/27, as gov.uk's simplified expenses for vehicles page gives them.
- A blank is not zero. A drive with no miles yet stays visibly unmeasured and cannot be claimed or charged until it has a figure.
How a drive gets into the log, and how it is measured, is in A mileage log for your claim, measured by road. Try it in the demo: the Journeys tab has invented drives and the figure against 10,000.
A worked example
A self-employed electrician's tax year, charged at the approved rate.
| Miles in 2026/27 | Rate | Comes to |
|---|---|---|
| First 10,000 | 55p | £5,500 |
| The next 2,000 | 25p | £500 |
| 12,000 in all | £6,000 |
The same 12,000 miles in the year before, at 45p and 25p, would have come to £5,000. Muster's Journeys figure says which side of the step a drive is on.
Questions people ask
Does the 10,000 reset with the tax year?
Yes. It is a tax-year count, 6 April to 5 April, and Muster's figure on Journeys restarts with it.
Is 55p the rate for every year from now?
It is the rate on gov.uk's page for 2026 to 2027. Rates are set by HMRC and can change; read the page before each claim. The date Muster's guide last read the page is at the top of this one.
What if I drive a company van?
The approved rates are for your own vehicle. A company vehicle has its own rules, which gov.uk sets out separately; Muster's mileage log is for personal vehicle miles.
Related
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