Government mileage rates: the HMRC approved rates, the IRS standard rate and the federal travel rate

Somebody asks what the government mileage rate is, and the honest answer is a question back: which government, and whose car? There is no single figure. The United Kingdom publishes two sets of rates that get confused with each other constantly. The United States has two federal figures, one from the tax authority and one from the agency that writes the federal travel rules, and they are not the same thing even in the years when the numbers match.

This post sets out what each rate is, who publishes it, the period it covers and what happens if you pay above or below it. Every figure below was taken from the publisher's own page on the date in the updated line. It is general information and not tax or legal advice.

Mileage claims are an approval problem before they are a tax problem. Where New Dynamics workflows help is in fixing who checks a claim, in what order, with reminders built in rather than chased by email.

Which figure "government mileage" actually means

Three different official numbers answer to that phrase, and picking the wrong one is how a reimbursement becomes taxable.

1. An employee drives their own car for work. In the United Kingdom that is HMRC's approved mileage allowance payments, usually shortened to AMAP. In the United States it is the IRS standard mileage rate.
2. An employee drives a company car for work. In the United Kingdom that is the advisory fuel rates, a completely separate table, because the employer already bears the cost of the car itself and only the fuel is in question.
3. A federal employee in the United States travels on official business in their own vehicle. That is the General Services Administration rate, and it is where the search term "government mileage" most often comes from.

United Kingdom: the HMRC approved mileage rates

HMRC's guidance on business travel mileage for employees' own vehicles explains the mechanism before the money. Mileage Allowance Payments, it says, "are what you pay your employee for using their own vehicle for business journeys", and "You're allowed to pay your employee a certain amount of MAPs each year without having to report them to HMRC. This is called an 'approved amount'."

The approved amount is not a flat allowance. You work it out: "multiply your employee's business travel miles for the year by the rate per mile for their vehicle." The rates per business mile on that page are:

• Cars and vans: "55p from 6 April 2026 (45p before 6 April 2026)" for the first 10,000 miles, and 25p for each mile above 10,000.
• Motorcycles: 24p for the first 10,000 miles and 24p above 10,000.
• Bikes: 20p for the first 10,000 miles and 20p above 10,000.

HMRC's own worked example on that page: "Your employee travels 12,000 business miles in their car, the approved amount for the year would be £6,000 (10,000 × 55p plus 2,000 × 25p)." The 10,000 mile step is per tax year and per employee, not per vehicle. HMRC is explicit that "It does not matter if your employee uses more than one vehicle in a year, it's all calculated together."

Electric bikes get no separate figure. HMRC states that the rates are "the same as the bike rates if it's an electrically assisted pedal bike" and "the same as the motorcycle rates for any other electric bike".

The same figures appear in HMRC's rates publication, travel, mileage and fuel rates and allowances, under two headings worth noticing: "Approved mileage rates from tax year 2026 to 2027", giving 55p and 25p, and "Approved mileage rates from tax year 2011 to 2026", giving 45p and 25p. One rate had stood for fifteen tax years before the April 2026 change.

The passenger rate, which most policies leave out

The same publication sets a separate figure for carrying colleagues: "5p per passenger per business mile for carrying fellow employees in a car or van on journeys which are also work journeys for them." Two conditions follow in the same sentence. "Only payments specifically for carrying passengers count and there is no relief if you receive less than 5p or nothing at all."

Read that second clause carefully. Unlike the main approved rate, the passenger rate gives the employee no claim if the employer pays nothing. If your expense form has no passenger field, the 5p is simply gone.

Pay at, above or below the approved amount

This is the part that decides whether anybody has a reporting obligation, and it is the part people get wrong.

At or below the approved amount. HMRC states plainly that "You will not have to report to HMRC or pay tax". Nothing reaches a P11D, nothing reaches payroll, and no National Insurance arises. The National Insurance guidance calls the same threshold the "qualifying amount" and confirms that below it you have "nothing to report" and "no National Insurance to pay".

Above the approved amount. HMRC gives the employer two routes: "report on form P11D", or "add anything above the 'approved amount' to the employee's pay, and deduct and pay tax as normal". National Insurance is handled differently again. The guidance on the National Insurance rules says to "add the excess to their other earnings for that earnings period when calculating Class 1 National Insurance (but not Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax) through payroll". The two are also measured over different periods: the tax approved amount runs across the tax year, while the qualifying amount is worked out in each earnings period.

Below the approved amount. The employer owes nothing extra, but the employee gains a claim. HMRC says the employee "will be able to get tax relief (called Mileage Allowance Relief, or MAR) on the unused balance of the approved amount". Someone paid 30p a mile in a tax year where the approved rate is 55p can claim relief on the 25p gap at their own marginal rate. Employers can report those balances voluntarily under the Mileage Allowance Relief Optional Reporting Scheme.

National Insurance has no equivalent. HMRC's note is blunt: "There's no Mileage Allowance Relief for National Insurance, and you cannot carry forward the difference between RME and the qualifying amount to a later earnings period."

Because the relief depends on what the employer actually paid per mile, that figure belongs on the payslip or the expense record, not only in the policy document. Our post on pay stub deductions covers what a payslip should show, and payroll deductions covers what may lawfully be taken off.

United Kingdom: advisory fuel rates are a different table

If the employee drives a company car, the approved mileage rates do not apply at all. HMRC's advisory fuel rates guidance opens with the restriction: "These rates only apply to employees using a company car." It then adds a sentence that should end most arguments about borrowing one table for the other job: "You must not use these rates in any other circumstances."

The rates cover two jobs, reimbursing business travel in a company car and recovering the cost of fuel used for private travel. The tax effect mirrors AMAP: "If the mileage rate you pay is no higher than the advisory fuel rates for the engine size and fuel type of the company car, there will be no taxable profit and no Class 1A National Insurance to pay." Pay more without being able to show a higher cost per mile and "you'll have to treat any excess as taxable profit and as earnings for Class 1 National Insurance purposes."

These figures change four times a year. HMRC states it plainly: "HMRC reviews rates quarterly on: 1 March, 1 June, 1 September, 1 December." That page was last updated on 21 August 2026, and the current table is headed "From 1 September 2026". It gives petrol at 14 pence per mile up to 1400cc, 17 pence for 1401cc to 2000cc and 27 pence over 2000cc; diesel at 15 pence up to 1600cc, 16 pence for 1601cc to 2000cc and 22 pence over 2000cc; and LPG at 11, 13 and 20 pence across the same petrol bands. For fully electric company cars the rate depends on where the car is charged: "7 pence per mile for home charging" and "15 pence per mile for public charging". HMRC adds that "Hybrid cars are treated as either petrol or diesel cars for advisory fuel rates".

One practical allowance in the same section saves a lot of payroll corrections: "You can use the previous rates for up to 1 month from the date any new rates apply." A quarterly rate is the strongest argument there is for not typing a mileage figure into a policy PDF.

United States: the IRS standard mileage rate

The IRS publishes a standard mileage rates page listing a rate for every period since 2011. It is normally announced once a year, in advance, by a numbered news release. For 2026 the IRS announced two.

The page, last reviewed or updated on 28 July 2026, gives the rates "for 2026 (July 1 to Dec. 31)" as 76 cents a mile for self-employed and business use, 14 cents for charities, 23.5 cents for medical and 23.5 cents for military moving, citing release IR-2026-29. For 2026 (Jan. 1 to June 30) the same table gives 72.5 cents for business, 14 cents for charity and 20.5 cents for medical or military moving, citing IR-2025-128. The 2025 business figure was 70 cents. IRS Topic no. 510, business use of car, confirms the split in its own words: "Note that for 2026 there are different standard mileage rates for the first and second halves of the year."

Two details in that table reward a second look. The charity rate is 14 cents in every row back to 2011, because it is fixed in statute rather than recalculated each year. And the 2018 row carries the label TCJA, which marks the change that decides who the rate is useful to.

Most employees cannot use it as a deduction. Topic no. 510 states: "Most employees cannot deduct unreimbursed car expenses, but there are exceptions for a member of the Armed Forces or military reservist, a qualified performing artist, a fee-basis state or local government official, or if you're self-employed." Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, an ordinary employee who drives for work and is not reimbursed generally has nowhere to put the mileage on a federal return. So the standard rate matters in two places: an employer reimbursing employees, and a self-employed person computing their own deduction. For employees, the employer's policy is the whole of it.

United States: the GSA rate for federal travel

The third figure is the one the phrase "government mileage" usually means. The General Services Administration publishes mileage reimbursements for federal travellers, under the authority it names on the page, Chapter 301 Subpart D, Privately Owned Vehicle. It applies to federal employees travelling on official business in their own vehicle, and to nobody else. A private employer has no obligation to use it.

Under the heading "Current mileage rates for official travel on or after July 1, 2026", the page gives five figures:

• Automobile, where one "was authorized, or no government-owned automobile was authorized or available": $0.76 per mile.
• Automobile, where "A government-owned automobile was authorized and available, but you chose to drive your own automobile": $0.235 per mile.
• Motorcycle: $0.74 per mile.
• Airplane: $1.935 per mile.
• Automobile for a work-related move: $0.235 per mile.

The automobile rate currently matches the IRS business figure of 76 cents, which is why the two get treated as one number. They are not. The second automobile row has no IRS equivalent, and the motorcycle and airplane rates exist only in the GSA table. The historical table shows the pair moving together over time but not in lockstep: effective 1 January 2026 the figures were $0.725, $0.205, $0.705 and $1.78. The page also notes that "Each rate stays in effect until the date listed in the row above it."

If your readers are federal employees, the GSA page is the one to send them to. If they are anybody else, it is the wrong number, however authoritative it looks.

Writing a mileage policy that survives a rate change

Four habits keep this out of trouble, in either country.

Name the vehicle, not the journey. The first question your form asks should be whose car it is. Own vehicle and company car are different tables in the United Kingdom, and mixing them is the most common error.

Store the rate once. A figure revised quarterly, as the advisory fuel rates are, or twice in one year, as the IRS business rate was in 2026, belongs in one configurable field. Typed into a policy PDF, an intranet page and a spreadsheet, two of the three will be stale within a quarter.

Record the per mile figure you paid. The employee's Mileage Allowance Relief claim depends on it, and so does your evidence that you stayed at or below the approved amount.

Treat the 10,000 mile step as a per person, per tax year counter. It does not reset when somebody changes car, and it is not a per journey rule.

For what counts as a benefit and what does not, see our post on fringe benefits. For the figures we keep in one place across posts, see the HR statistics hub.

Frequently asked questions

What is the government mileage rate?

There is no single rate. HMRC's approved rate for a United Kingdom employee using their own car or van is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles from 6 April 2026, 45p before that date, and 25p above 10,000 miles in the tax year. In the United States the IRS standard business rate is 76 cents a mile for 1 July to 31 December 2026, and the General Services Administration rate for official federal travel is $0.76 a mile for an automobile.

What are the current HMRC mileage rates?

For an employee's own vehicle, HMRC gives cars and vans as 55p a mile from 6 April 2026, and 45p before it, for the first 10,000 business miles, then 25p for each business mile above 10,000 in the tax year. Motorcycles are 24p and bicycles 20p in both bands. A separate 5p per passenger per business mile applies to carrying fellow employees on a journey that is also a work journey for them.

Is mileage reimbursement taxable in the UK?

Not if you pay at or below the approved amount. HMRC states that you will then not have to report to HMRC or pay tax, and that no National Insurance arises below the qualifying amount. Anything above the approved amount must either be reported on form P11D or added to the employee's pay with tax deducted, and the excess goes into the Class 1 National Insurance calculation through payroll.

What is Mileage Allowance Relief?

It is the employee's claim when the employer pays less than the approved amount. HMRC says the employee will be able to get tax relief, called Mileage Allowance Relief or MAR, on the unused balance of the approved amount. Someone paid 30p a mile against a 55p approved rate claims relief on the 25p difference at their own marginal rate. There is no equivalent relief for National Insurance.

How often do advisory fuel rates change?

Four times a year. HMRC states that it reviews the rates quarterly on 1 March, 1 June, 1 September and 1 December. The table in force when this post was updated is headed from 1 September 2026. Employers may use the previous rates for up to one month from the date new rates apply, which is the window for updating an expense system without breaking a pay run.

Can an employee deduct unreimbursed mileage in the United States?

Usually no. IRS Topic no. 510 states that most employees cannot deduct unreimbursed car expenses, with exceptions for a member of the Armed Forces or military reservist, a qualified performing artist, a fee-basis state or local government official, or a self-employed person. Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act the standard mileage rate matters mainly for employer reimbursement and for the self-employed.

Is the GSA rate the same as the IRS rate?

Not reliably. The GSA automobile rate and the IRS business rate are both 76 cents a mile for travel on or after 1 July 2026, but the GSA table also sets $0.235 a mile where a government car was authorised and available and the traveller used their own anyway, plus separate motorcycle and airplane rates that have no IRS equivalent. The GSA rate governs official federal travel only.

Your next step: check your policy against the right table

1. Separate your expense categories by vehicle ownership. Own vehicle and company car are different rates in the United Kingdom, and merging them guarantees an error one way or the other.
2. Find every place a mileage figure is written down. Policy document, intranet page, expense form, finance spreadsheet. Reduce it to one source your process reads.
3. Add a passenger field to the United Kingdom form. The 5p rate gives the employee no claim if the employer pays nothing, so a missing field is a real loss.
4. Set a reminder for 1 March, 1 June, 1 September and 1 December if you reimburse company car mileage, and check the IRS page mid year as well as in January.
5. Put the per mile figure you paid on the record, so an employee can calculate Mileage Allowance Relief and you can show you stayed inside the approved amount.
6. For federal travellers in the United States, link the GSA page rather than restating the figure, and say which column applies.

For the policy frame around pay and expenses, read and download our compensation policy guide. The guide is free to read, and the PDF uses our short download form.

Want expense approvals, reminders and records to sit in one process instead of three inboxes? Book a New Dynamics demo and bring your current mileage form. You can also email contact@new-dynamics.com.