If you’re self-employed and driving for business, the mileage deduction is one of the easiest ways to cut your tax bill. For 2025, the IRS standard mileage rate is 70¢ per mile driven for business purposes—and those miles add up fast.
What qualifies as business mileage?
• Any driving you do for work counts:
• Meeting with clients
• Visiting job sites
• Running business errands (e.g. bank, post office, etc.)
• Driving to networking events or conferences
The Home Office Advantage
Here’s where it gets even better: if your home is your primary place of business, and you drive to a secondary office or workspace less than 50% of the time, you can deduct those miles back and forth.
Normally you can’t write off your daily commute. But when your home office is your principal place of business, travel from there to meet clients or visit another work location counts as deductible business mileage—not a commute.
Quick Example:
Let’s say you’re a consultant who works from home four days a week and drives to a co-working space one day a week to meet with clients. That 20-mile round trip? Fully deductible. Over a year, that’s 1,000 miles, or $700 in deductions.
How to Get the Mileage Deduction:
- Choose a tool that makes sense to you:
- You can purchase a simple notebook
- Use a spreadsheet
- Subscribe to an app (my current fave is MileIQ)
- Anytime you use your personal vehicle for business reasons, record the mileage and the business purpose of the trip
- If your business is taxed on Schedule C or as a Partnership on Form 1065, provide this record to your tax pro when you file your return
- If your business is taxed as an S-Corp on Form 1120-S, you will want to process a reimbursement from the business to you prior to December 31st.
Mileage is a low-effort, high-impact deduction. With basic tracking and the right home-office setup, it can quietly save you thousands each year.
