Business Mileage vs. Commuting

The IRS rule, in one sentence

Travel between your home and your regular place of work is personal commuting and is not deductible. Travel for business purposes during the workday — between two work locations, to a client, to a temporary job site, to pick up supplies — is business mileage and is deductible.

This is the rule that catches first-time filers more than any other. It feels wrong: if you're driving to a job, isn't that work? The IRS doesn't see it that way. The drive to the place where you regularly work is treated as a personal expense — like buying clothes for the office or paying rent on a place near your job.

What counts as business mileage

• Travel between two work locations during the workday — from your office to a client's office, from one job site to another, from your shop to a delivery destination.
• Travel to a temporary work location — a job site you'll be working at for less than a year (the temporary-vs-regular line).
• Travel from a qualifying home office to any work location — including ones you'd otherwise consider "your office." A home office that meets the regular-and-exclusive-use test changes commuting calculus throughout the year.
• Travel between two jobs if you have multiple employers or businesses — driving from your day job to an evening side gig is business mileage.
• Business errands — supply runs, bank deposits, post office, equipment pickups, business meals.

What counts as commuting (not deductible)

• Home to your regular workplace in the morning.
• Your regular workplace home in the evening.
• Home to your usual office, even if you stop somewhere "on the way" — that stop doesn't convert the underlying commute into business unless the stop materially changes the trip.
• Home to a client if that client is your usual place of business — for example, a contractor whose work is at one site for an extended period (a "regular" location, not "temporary").

The temporary-vs-regular line

This is where it gets interesting for tradespeople, traveling consultants, and contractors. A work location is temporary if you reasonably expect to work there for one year or less — and you actually work there for one year or less. Travel from home to a temporary work location is business mileage, even if it's daily.

If a "temporary" engagement extends beyond one year, the location becomes "regular" prospectively, and travel from home becomes commuting from that point forward. Retroactively, the IRS doesn't disallow what you already deducted while it qualified as temporary — but the moment you know it'll exceed a year, the clock starts.

The home-office angle

If you have a qualifying home office (regular and exclusive use, principal place of business or where you meet clients), your trips from home to any work location are business mileage from the start. This is a major mileage lever for self-employed filers who could qualify for a home-office deduction but haven't claimed one.

Without a qualifying home office, the same trip might break into a non-deductible commute leg followed by deductible business legs. With the home office, the whole trip is business.

Common edge cases

• Lunch with a client. The drive to and from is business mileage if the meeting has a clear business purpose.
• Working from a coffee shop. If your home is your principal place of business, driving to the coffee shop and back may count. If not, it's commuting.
• Carpooling. Doesn't change the rule. Commuting is commuting whether you drive alone or with passengers.
• Personal stops on a business trip. The business portion is deductible; personal detours aren't. Long round-trip detours with a small business stop tacked on may not qualify as business mileage at all.
• Working from home occasionally. Not enough to convert a commute into business mileage. The home-office test is regular and exclusive — not "I sometimes answer email at the kitchen table."

How to keep the line clean in your log

The simplest discipline: tag every drive with its purpose at the time of the trip. AutoDrive's classification options — Business, Personal, Medical, Charity, Commute — map directly to how the IRS sees the trip. Tagging during the day means you don't have to remember the context six months later, and the year-end totals fall out automatically.

The "commute" classification is intentional, not a missing feature. Commute miles aren't deductible, but they're worth tracking — for actual-expenses business-use percentage, for fleet driver visibility, and for reconciling odometer totals against business-mile totals.

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