No, and HopSkipDrive's own help center explains exactly why. The ride time and distance used to calculate a CareDriver's fee are measured from the first pickup on a ride to the last dropoff. Everything before the first pickup falls outside the calculation. It is unpaid, it is not shown to you as mileage, and it is fully deductible on your tax return.
The drive to the student is the whole problem
School transportation does not cluster the way food delivery does. A ride is assigned because a specific student needs to get from a specific address to a specific school, and the CareDriver who accepts it may be 15 or 20 miles away when the day starts. That drive is real, it is required by the work, and by HopSkipDrive's stated fee formula it is outside the paid portion of the ride.
Which HopSkipDrive miles are deductible?
- The drive from your home to the first pickup of the morning
- The ride itself, pickup to school or appointment
- The drive between a dropoff and your next assigned pickup
- Return driving after an afternoon route ends
- Driving to a ride that was canceled after you were already en route
The drive between a dropoff and the next pickup is the classic deadhead mile. CareDrivers who work a morning and an afternoon block frequently drive more unpaid miles than paid ones, because school start and end times force the geography rather than the other way around.
What does that add up to?
A CareDriver running two morning rides and two afternoon rides, with 12 miles of unpaid positioning around each, drives roughly 48 unpaid miles a day. Across a 180-day school year that is 8,640 miles that no fee statement records. At 76 cents per mile those miles carry $6,566 in deductions, on top of whatever the paid ride distance itself contributes.
What does HopSkipDrive give you at tax time?
A record of the fees it paid you. CareDrivers are independent contractors who choose which rides to accept and control their own schedules, which means no withholding, no employer, and no expense reporting. The platform's job ends at reporting what it paid. Building the expense side is yours.
What is the 2026 mileage rate?
72.5 cents per mile from January 1 through June 30, 2026, and 76 cents per mile from July 1 through December 31, 2026. A school year straddles that date twice, once in the spring semester and once in the fall, so a CareDriver working continuously needs the two periods totaled separately.
What has to be in the log?
The date, the miles, and the business purpose of the drive, recorded at or near the time you drove. That is what the IRS means by a contemporaneous log. Your HopSkipDrive ride history proves the paid legs happened. It says nothing about the positioning miles, which is where most of the missing deduction lives.
How is it claimed?
On Schedule C against your CareDriver income, with the total flowing through to self-employment tax as well as income tax. The full walkthrough is in how to claim mileage on your taxes.
Sources: HopSkipDrive, are CareDrivers paid for the time and mileage on the way to pick up a rider (fees calculated from first pickup to last dropoff) and are CareDrivers employees (independent contractor status). IRS, Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-29. IRS, Publication 463. IRS, Self-Employment Tax.
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