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Pet Sitter and Dog Walker Mileage Calculator
Three drop-ins in the morning, two walks at midday, a late feed across town — the driving between visits is the real cost of a route. Enter a typical day and see what those miles are worth over a week, a month, and a year. It all runs in your browser, 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
$159.60
210 mi
Per month
$665.00
875 mi
Per year
$7,980.00
10,500 mi
How this is worked out: 35 miles a day gives 35 mi of reimbursable driving per day. Multiplied by 6 working days that is 210 mi a week, and by 50 working weeks that is 10,500 mi a year. Monthly figures are the yearly total divided by twelve. Each mile is valued at $0.760.
https://casedaisy.com/tools/pet-sitter-mileage-calculator?miles=35&days=6&weeks=50&rate=0.76&commute=0&commuteMiles=8
Casedaisy totals the driving on each round as you complete it
Your day's drop-ins and walks become an ordered route with the distance between each household measured, so the mileage figure comes from the visits you actually did rather than an estimate at year end.
Only driven miles count — walked and cycled ones do not
This catches a lot of sitters out. The standard mileage rate applies to a vehicle you drive for business. The miles you cover on foot with a dog, or on a bike between two apartment blocks, are not deductible mileage at any rate, no matter how many of them there are in a week. A 45-minute walk is billable time for your client and it is real work, but it is not vehicle mileage for the IRS.
Enter only the distance the car travels. If part of your round is walked or cycled, keep those visits out of the miles-per-day figure entirely rather than converting them into an equivalent.
Where a round trip starts and ends
Most sitters work from home, and that matters here. If your home is your principal place of business — you take the bookings, do the scheduling and invoicing there, and have no other base — the drive from home to the first drop-in is business travel rather than a personal commute. If you instead operate from a kennel, grooming shop, or daycare premises you regularly work from, the home-to-premises leg is a commute and comes off the total. The toggle above lets you model it either way.
Midday gaps are the other thing worth thinking about. Driving home between the morning round and the evening round adds two more legs. Those trips are still between business stops if the reason for them is business, but a trip home for lunch and back out again looks personal, and the safer treatment is to leave it out unless a tax professional tells you otherwise.
What to log for a round with many short stops
Pet care mileage is unusual because the trips are short and numerous. Twenty stops of two miles each look trivial one at a time and add up to a substantial annual figure. The IRS expects a record made close to the time, not a reconstruction, so log by route rather than by trip: the date, the stops in order, the addresses, and the total distance for the round. That is enough to substantiate the miles without writing twenty separate entries.
Also useful: Pet care info and vaccination template.
Rates come from the IRS standard mileage rate for business use (IRS, Standard mileage rates). This page explains public IRS guidance and is not tax advice. Last reviewed: September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
- Can dog walkers deduct the miles they walk?
- No. The IRS standard mileage rate applies to business use of a vehicle. Miles covered on foot with a dog, or on a bicycle, are not deductible mileage. Only the distance your car travels between clients counts.
- Is the drive from my house to the first pet visit deductible?
- It depends on whether your home is your principal place of business. If you run the business from home with no other premises you regularly work from, the trip to the first client is business travel. If you work out of a kennel, shop, or daycare facility, the home-to-premises drive is a personal commute and is not deductible.
- Do overnight stays and house-sitting change the mileage?
- The drive to and from an overnight stay is business travel on the same terms as any other client trip, but nights spent at the property add no mileage. Trips you make from the client's house during the stay — to a vet, a supply run for that pet — are business miles and worth logging separately.