Commute or business trip: what counts as business mileage?
Driving between home and your regular workplace is commuting, and no country Milo covers lets you claim it at the business mileage rate. Business mileage is driving for the work itself: to a client, between workplaces, or to a temporary place of work.
What usually counts as business
- Driving from your workplace to a client, a site or a supplier, and back.
- Driving between two places of work during the day.
- Driving to a temporary workplace, such as a project site you expect to attend for a limited time.
What usually doesn't
- Home to your regular office and back, even if you take calls on the way.
- A detour for personal errands in the middle of a business trip: only the business part counts.
Country differences
United States: commuting is never deductible. Trips from home to a temporary work location can be, and if your home is your principal place of business, trips from home to other work locations count.
United Kingdom: ordinary commuting to a permanent workplace doesn't qualify. Travel to a temporary workplace does, generally where you expect to be there for less than 24 months.
Australia: home to your regular workplace is private. Trips between workplaces count, and so can trips where you must carry bulky tools you need for work.
Germany, Austria and Denmark: the commute has its own allowance with its own rules (Entfernungspauschale, Pendlerpauschale, befordringsfradrag), separate from the business mileage rate.
Netherlands: the tax-free travel allowance can cover commuting as well as business trips.
France: with frais réels, home to work trips count, normally up to 40 km each way.
How Milo handles it
Every trip is marked business, personal or commute. Only business trips go into the claim; commuting is logged separately so you still have the record where a commuting allowance applies.