Every year a client asks "what's the mileage rate this year" expecting a single number back. In 2026 the honest answer is two numbers: 72.5 cents per mile from January 1 through June 30, then 76 cents per mile from July 1 through December 31, because the IRS raised the rate mid-year. Clients who do not hear this clearly will hand you a mileage total calculated at the wrong rate, or averaged in a way the IRS does not allow.
Source: IRS Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-29, announcing the mid-year increase to 76 cents per mile effective July 1, 2026.
Why this needs explaining every single year it happens
A flat annual rate is simple enough that clients absorb it without much explanation. A mid-year change is not intuitive, and most clients assume either the old rate applies for the whole year, or the new rate does, when in fact the correct treatment splits their mileage by the actual date each mile was driven. Left unexplained, this produces returns filed at the wrong rate.
The one sentence that prevents the mistake
"Miles you drove before July 1 are worth 72.5 cents each. Miles you drove from July 1 on are worth 76 cents each. You cannot average the two rates or apply one to the whole year, your log needs to show which miles fall in which half." Sent early enough in the year, this one message saves a client from building an entire year's log around the wrong assumption.
A worked example clients actually follow
A client drives 10,000 business miles for the year, split evenly across the two rate periods: 5,000 miles before July 1, 5,000 after. The deduction is not 10,000 times a blended average. It is 5,000 times 72.5 cents ($3,625) plus 5,000 times 76 cents ($3,800), for a total of $7,425. A client who mistakenly applies 76 cents to the full 10,000 miles ($7,600) overstates the deduction by $175, small on paper, real if a preparer does not catch it.
Why an evenly split example understates the real-world risk
Most clients do not drive evenly across the year, seasonal businesses, new ventures that ramped up mid-year, and drivers who took time off all produce lopsided splits. A landscaping client who drove 80 percent of their annual mileage between April and October, the exact window straddling the rate change, needs their log split by actual date far more carefully than the evenly split example above suggests. Never let a client assume an even split is a safe shortcut.
What to ask for instead of a single annual total
Ask every mileage client for two subtotals, not one: miles driven January 1 through June 30, and miles driven July 1 through December 31. A log that only produces one annual figure cannot be split accurately after the fact without going back through every entry, which is exactly the kind of avoidable rework a clear explanation up front prevents.
Send the explanation before the rate changes, not after
The most effective version of this conversation happens in the weeks before July 1, not at the following year's tax appointment. A short note to every mileage client in June, reminding them the rate is changing on a specific date and that their log needs to reflect the split, prevents an entire year of driving from needing to be reconstructed and divided after the fact. Clients who hear about it after December are stuck estimating which of their trips fell before or after the change, a weaker position than a log that captured the split as it happened.
Does the mid-year split apply to the medical and charitable mileage rates too?
The medical and moving mileage rate also has a 2026 mid-year split of its own, rising from 20.5 cents to 23.5 cents per mile on July 1. The charitable mileage rate is fixed by statute at 14 cents per mile and does not change mid-year. Confirm the current figures before applying any of them.
Will this happen again next year?
The IRS does not commit to mid-year adjustments as a regular practice, they happen when fuel and vehicle cost data justify it during the year. Check the current year's rate announcement rather than assuming either a flat rate or another mid-year split by default.
How should a client's tax software handle the split automatically?
Don't count on it. Most tax software asks for business miles as totals, and in a split-rate year it asks for them by rate period. Give the client's software, or your own workpaper, the January–June and July–December subtotals from a trip-level log.
Why mid-year changes catch more clients off guard than annual ones
A rate that changes once, at the start of a new calendar year, aligns naturally with when clients are already thinking about a fresh year of recordkeeping. A rate that changes mid-year, as in 2026, breaks that natural alignment: a client's habits, and often their tracking spreadsheet or app defaults, were set up around the January rate and simply don't update themselves when July arrives unless something specifically prompts the change.
This is exactly the kind of gap a preparer should flag proactively mid-year, not wait to discover during the following tax season, since a client who kept applying the wrong rate for six months has a real, avoidable error sitting in their records that only gets harder to fully correct the longer it goes unnoticed.
An app that auto-applies the correct rate by trip date removes this problem for the client entirely. Recommend it before the next rate change catches someone off guard. Try TruMile →
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