The IRS Raised the Mileage Rate to 76 Cents Mid-Year

If you drive between service calls for Field Nation, WorkMarket, or direct clients, your mileage is usually the single largest deduction on your Schedule C. So a mid-year rate change matters. In IRS Announcement 2026-11, the IRS raised the business standard mileage rate to 76 cents per mile for miles driven on or after July 1, 2026. For the first half of the year — January 1 through June 30 — the rate was 72.5 cents per mile, set earlier in Notice 2026-10.

What actually changed

The 2026 business mileage rate is not a single number for the whole year. It steps up part way through:

• 72.5 cents per mile for business miles driven January 1 through June 30, 2026 (Notice 2026-10)
• 76 cents per mile for business miles driven July 1 through December 31, 2026 (Announcement 2026-11)

Mid-year adjustments like this are unusual but not unheard of — the IRS has done it before when fuel and vehicle-operating costs move sharply within a year. The practical effect for a busy field tech is real money: every 1,000 business miles you drive in the second half of the year is now worth 76 dollars of deduction instead of 72.50, a 3.5-cent bump per mile.

What field techs should do now

The key habit is simple: track your miles by date so each mile is deducted at the rate in effect on the day you drove it. A mile driven on June 30 uses 72.5 cents; the same route on July 1 uses 76 cents. If your log only shows a single yearly total, you cannot correctly split it across the two rates, and you may end up estimating instead of substantiating.

A few concrete steps:

• Keep a contemporaneous log. Record the date, starting point, destination or purpose, and miles for each business trip as you go — not reconstructed months later. Odometer readings at the start and end of the year help tie it together.
• Separate first-half and second-half totals. When you tally the year, keep two running subtotals — miles through June 30 and miles from July 1 — so the two rates apply cleanly.
• Log commuting separately. Miles from home to your first job and from your last job home are generally personal commuting, not deductible business miles. Trips between job sites during the day generally are business miles.

If you use TechLedger, you enter miles by date and it applies the correct half-year rate for you as part of the after-tax profit estimate. Our deeper walkthrough of the standard mileage method — including what counts as a business mile and how it interacts with your other deductions — lives on the mileage deduction page.

Parking and tolls still deduct on top

The standard mileage rate is meant to cover the cost of operating your vehicle — gas, maintenance, depreciation, insurance, and so on. It does not absorb parking fees and tolls you pay on a business trip. Those are deducted separately, on top of your mileage, so keep those receipts too. Whether you use the standard mileage rate or actual expenses, business-related parking and tolls are handled as their own line.

One caution: you generally choose the standard mileage method for a vehicle in the first year you use it for business, and there are rules about switching between the standard rate and actual expenses in later years. If that applies to you, it is worth confirming your situation with a qualified tax professional.

Why this affects your quarterly plan

A larger deduction lowers your net Schedule C profit, which in turn lowers both your income tax and your self-employment tax on that profit. If you are paying quarterly estimated taxes, an accurate second-half mileage figure feeds directly into how much you set aside for your September and January payments. Under-counting your miles means over-reserving; over-counting means a surprise at filing time. Tracking by date keeps the estimate honest.

Mileage is one piece of the broader picture for platform techs — self-employment tax, the QBI deduction, and how Field Nation and WorkMarket report your income all interact. If you are new to filing as a 1099 contractor, start with our overview of taxes for 1099 field technicians.

The bottom line

For the rest of 2026, business miles are worth 76 cents each — up from 72.5 cents in the first half of the year (IRS Announcement 2026-11, building on Notice 2026-10). Keep a dated, contemporaneous log, split your first-half and second-half miles, and remember that parking and tolls deduct separately. Then plug the numbers into your reserve so your next quarterly estimate reflects the higher rate. You can run the estimate anytime at techledger.app.

This is general information for planning, not tax advice.