Starting a mileage log, today, in ten minutes
Ten minutes, now. Four steps.
1. Photograph your odometer. Right now, with today's date. This establishes your starting total, and it cannot be done retroactively. Do the same on 31 December.
2. Pick where the log lives. A notes app, a spreadsheet, a notebook in the car, or a tracking app. Any of them satisfies the requirement.
3. Write down the four fields for every business trip:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Date | 7 September |
| Miles | 14 |
| Destination | Delivery, Elm St |
| Business purpose | DoorDash delivery |
4. Set one recurring reminder for the end of each week, to catch anything missed while the day is still recallable.
That is the whole requirement. Not per-trip odometer readings, not receipts for fuel, not a route map. Four fields per trip, plus the vehicle's total annual mileage, which the two photographs give you.
And one thing to know from the start: 2026 is a split-rate year. 72.5 cents a mile January to June, 76 cents July to December, so business miles must be totalled separately for each half.
The three ways to keep it
A notes app. Free, in your pocket, backs up. One line per trip. Works, and it depends entirely on you remembering.
A spreadsheet. Better if you want it to total the two halves of the year for you. Worse to fill in one-handed in a car park.
A tracking app. Adds automatic capture, which is the thing that matters, because the trips you forget are the trips you lose and forgetting is not a discipline problem, it is what happens. The tracker comparison. · Why apps miss trips.
Whichever you pick, export it once a year to a file you control. A log that lives only in one app on one phone is gone with the phone, which is the most common way a year of records disappears. What records to keep and for how long.
Writing a business purpose that survives
You are writing for someone reading it in a year, and that someone is usually you.
Good: "Delivery, Elm St", "repositioning to retail zone", "return to store, undelivered order", "store to customer, batch 3".
Useless: "drive", "work", a blank.
A few words. It takes two seconds and it is the difference between a log that explains itself and one you have to reconstruct.
The two habits that decide whether it is worth anything
Record at or near the time. The IRS describes records made at or near the time of use as having greater value than a statement prepared later, and that is the whole reason a contemporaneous log beats a reconstruction.
Go online before you pull out of the driveway, if your work has an online state. The app being on when you start driving is usually what determines whether the drive is business or commuting, and it reflects when you actually started working. The commuting rule. · The first and last trip of the day.
If the year has already started
Start now anyway, and photograph the odometer today with the date noted.
Then reconstruct the earlier part while the evidence exists: platform delivery histories, bank timestamps, phone location history, messages. Keep a note of what you used. A documented reconstruction is much weaker than a contemporaneous log and much stronger than a guess. What to do if you did not track your miles.
What you do not need
- Per-trip odometer readings, if you record trip miles
- Fuel receipts, under the standard mileage rate
- A GPS route map
- A separate log per platform. The miles belong to your business, not to an app. Multi-apping.
What it is worth
8,000 business miles in the second half of 2026 is $6,080 of deduction. That reduces the profit that carries both income tax and self-employment tax at 15.3 percent.
The log is the only thing that makes it claimable, and it is four fields and a photograph. The calculator. · Why a deduction is not a refund. · The four numbers every gig driver should know.
More in this section
About MileTruth
MileTruth is an iOS app from Baker Ventures LLC that tracks deductible business mileage for gig and delivery drivers and shows true net pay: what is left after mileage, fuel and self-employment tax, not what the platform showed you at acceptance. It is built for people driving several platforms in the same shift, and for anyone who needs a mileage log that would hold up if the IRS asked for it. The app is in development.
Everything on this site is free and needs no account: the mileage deduction calculator, the per-platform pay breakdowns, and the answers, each one linked to the IRS publication or platform document it came from. MileTruth publishes the source for every number, including the 2026 split-year standard mileage rate, because a deduction you cannot substantiate is not a deduction.
Questions and answers
How do I start a mileage log?
Photograph your odometer today, then record four fields for every business trip: date, miles, destination and business purpose. That is the whole requirement, and any medium that holds those four works.
Do I need an app to keep a mileage log?
No. A notes app, a spreadsheet or a paper notebook kept in the car all satisfy the requirement. An app adds automatic capture, which matters because the trips you forget are the ones you lose.
What if the year has already started?
Start now and photograph the odometer today, noting the date. A log covering part of the year is worth having, and reconstructing the earlier part from platform records and bank timestamps is a separate job worth doing while the evidence exists.
What is a business purpose, written down?
A few words that will still make sense in a year. "Delivery, downtown" or "repositioning to zone" rather than "drive". You are writing for someone reading it later, and that someone is usually you.
Do I need to record my odometer for every trip?
Per-trip odometer readings are not required if you record the miles for the trip. What you do need is the vehicle's total annual mileage, which is what the readings at each end of the year establish.
How much time does this take once it is set up?
A few seconds per trip, or none if capture is automatic, plus ten seconds twice a year for the odometer. The setup is the only part that takes ten minutes.
MileTruth. “Starting a mileage log, today, in ten minutes.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 7, 2026. https://miletruth.bakerventuresstudio.com/answers/how-to-start-a-mileage-log-today/