Does Wag Track Your Mileage?

No, and Wag is the platform most likely to fool you into thinking otherwise. Wag records the walk with live GPS so the owner can follow the route in real time and read a service report card afterward. That map is the dog's route on foot. Your drive across town to reach the dog is not on it, is not paid, and is not counted anywhere in the app.

Why the GPS map is not a mileage log

The GPS trace exists to reassure the pet parent that the service happened. It starts when the walk starts and ends when the walk ends. Everything on either side of that window, which is all of your actual driving, falls outside what Wag records. A caregiver who assumes the app has the miles covered because they can see a map of the route will reach tax season with no vehicle deduction at all.

What miles does Wag miss?

• The drive from your home to the first client of the day
• The drive between back-to-back walks, drop-ins, or sittings
• The drive to a vet, groomer, or pet store on a client's behalf
• The drive home after the last service of the day
• Miles driven to a service that was canceled after you were already on the road

The between-clients drives are the expensive ones. Wag's model rewards stacking services close together in time, which in most cities means driving between neighborhoods with no gap. Those are deadhead miles, they are fully deductible, and nothing in the caregiver app records a single one.

What is a realistic annual total?

A caregiver running five services a day with an average 7-mile round trip drives 35 miles a day. Across five days a week and 50 weeks that is 8,750 miles. At 76 cents per mile, the rate from July 1, 2026, those miles carry $6,650 in deductions. At the 72.5-cent rate that applied through June 30, 2026, the same miles are worth $6,344. A full year spans both rates, so the real figure sits between them and depends on when you drove.

What does Wag report to the IRS?

Wag reports the money it paid you. Payment platforms report earnings, not expenses, and no gig platform is required to tell the IRS anything about your driving. That asymmetry is the whole problem: the income side of your return arrives pre-filled by someone else, and the deduction side arrives empty unless you filled it in yourself during the year.

What mileage rate applies in 2026?

72.5 cents per mile for driving between January 1 and June 30, 2026, then 76 cents per mile from July 1 through December 31. If you worked across the change, your miles have to be split into the two periods and each period multiplied by its own rate.

What kind of record does the IRS accept?

A contemporaneous log with the date, the mileage, and the business purpose of each trip, recorded when the trip happened. Wag's booking history can tell you which day you walked which dog. It cannot tell you how far you drove to get there, so it cannot substitute for a log.

How do these miles get claimed?

Wag caregivers are independent contractors, so the deduction goes on Schedule C against your Wag income, not on your personal return as an itemized deduction. Full instructions are in how to claim mileage on your taxes.

Sources: Wag!, service report card and on-demand dog walking (live GPS tracking of the walk route). IRS, Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-29 (76 cents per mile from July 1, 2026). IRS, Publication 463. IRS, About Schedule C.

The Wag map follows the dog. TruMile follows the car, logs every client drive automatically, and gives you the mileage record Wag never will. Start tracking with TruMile →

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