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Mileage Reimbursement Calculator for Home-Visit Therapists (2026 IRS Rate)
Estimate what your driving between clients is worth each week, month, and year. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere, and nothing is stored.
Default: 76¢ — the IRS business standard mileage rate for travel on or after July 1, 2026 (IRS, Standard mileage rates). Use your own reimbursement rate if it differs.
Per week
$171.00
225 mi
Per month
$684.00
900 mi
Per year
$8,208.00
10,800 mi
How this is worked out: 45 miles a day gives 45 mi of reimbursable driving per day. Multiplied by 5 working days that is 225 mi a week, and by 48 working weeks that is 10,800 mi a year. Monthly figures are the yearly total divided by twelve. Each mile is valued at $0.760.
https://casedaisy.com/tools/mileage-reimbursement-calculator?miles=45&days=5&weeks=48&rate=0.76&commute=0&commuteMiles=12
casedaisy logs this automatically from your actual route, commute rule included
Your day's visits become a route, the miles between them are measured, and the first and last legs are treated as commute unless you say otherwise. Month-end export included.
What counts as reimbursable mileage for home-visit therapists
The IRS lets you value business driving one of two ways: the optional standard mileage rate, or your actual vehicle costs. Most home-visit clinicians use the standard rate because it needs only a mileage figure rather than every receipt. For travel on or after July 1, 2026 that rate is 76 cents a mile; it was 72.5 cents for the first half of the year (IRS, Standard mileage rates). The miles that count are the ones driven for work: client to client, client to a team meeting, a trip to pick up equipment, a drive to a school observation. Personal errands squeezed into the same trip do not count, even if the car never goes home in between.
The commute rule
The IRS treats the drive between your home and your regular place of work as a personal commute, and commuting is never deductible — no matter how far you live from your first family. For a therapist with a caseload spread across a county, that usually means the home → first visit and last visit → home legs come off the total, which is exactly what the toggle above does.
There is a real exception. If your home is your principal place of business — you have no other office, and you do your scheduling, documentation, and administration there — then trips from home to a client are business travel rather than commuting. Agencies also set their own reimbursement policies, and some pay from the moment you leave the driveway. Their policy governs what they pay you; the IRS rule governs what you can deduct.
What to record for the IRS
The IRS expects timely records, not a reconstruction in April. For each business trip keep the date, the starting point and destination, the business purpose, and the distance — either odometer readings or a mapped distance between the two addresses. A running total for the year and your vehicle's beginning and ending odometer readings round it out. A log written the same week is far stronger evidence than one written from memory.
- Date of the trip
- Start and end location
- Business purpose (client visit, IFSP meeting, supply pickup)
- Miles driven — odometer or mapped distance
- Year-to-date total, kept as you go
The free caseload template includes a Mileage Log tab with these columns already set up.
Agency reimbursement vs. tax deduction
You cannot double-dip. If your agency reimburses your mileage under an accountable plan — you substantiate the miles and return any excess — that payment is not taxable income to you, and those same miles cannot also be deducted. Only unreimbursed business miles are ever deductible, and for employees the deduction for unreimbursed business expenses is suspended under current law; independent contractors deduct theirs on Schedule C. If your agency reimburses below the IRS rate, the shortfall is not automatically deductible either — check with a tax professional about your situation.
Common mistakes
- Counting the home → first visit and last visit → home legs when home is not your principal place of business
- Logging planned mileage instead of the route you actually drove after a cancellation
- Reconstructing the whole year at tax time instead of recording as you go
- Using last year's rate — 2026 has two: 72.5¢ before July 1, 76¢ from July 1
- Deducting miles the agency already reimbursed
- Mixing personal errands into a client trip without splitting the miles
More detail: Mileage tracking for home-visit therapists: IRS rules and what actually counts.
This page explains public IRS guidance and is not tax advice. Last reviewed: September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the IRS standard mileage rate for 2026?
- For travel on or after July 1, 2026, the IRS optional standard mileage rate for business use is 76 cents per mile. For January 1 through June 30, 2026 the rate was 72.5 cents per mile. Source: IRS, Standard mileage rates (Announcement 2026-11 and Notice 2026-10).
- Does driving from home to my first client count as reimbursable mileage?
- Usually not. The IRS treats travel between your home and your regular place of work as a personal commute, which is not deductible. Travel between client locations during the workday is business mileage. If your home is your principal place of business, trips from home to a client can qualify as business travel.
- Can I deduct mileage my agency already reimbursed?
- No. If your employer or agency reimburses your mileage under an accountable plan, that money is not taxable income to you and you cannot also deduct the same miles. You can only deduct unreimbursed business mileage, and employee business expense deductions are limited under current law.