Can you deduct mileage if you drive a rental car for gig work?

What Publication 463 says about a rented car

Table 1-1 in Publication 463, which summarizes deductible travel expenses, states: "If you rent a car while away from home on business, you can deduct only the business-use portion of the expenses." That's the actual-expense framing — a business percentage applied to the real rental bill — not a per-mile rate applied to distance driven.

The own-or-lease requirement, specifically

Topic 510's "you must own or lease the car" sits alongside the standard mileage rate's other eligibility conditions — not operating five or more cars at once, and not having claimed certain depreciation methods on the vehicle. Publication 463's leasing rules (the ones requiring you to commit to standard mileage for an entire lease period if you choose it) are written around a lease, with its own inclusion-amount mechanics for higher-value vehicles — a structure that describes a longer-term financing-like arrangement, not an ordinary day- or week-long rental.

Where the rental cost actually goes on your return

The Schedule C instructions keep these separate by design. Line 9 (car and truck expenses) is where the standard mileage rate or actual owned/leased-vehicle expenses are reported. Line 20a is described as covering "the business portion of your rental cost" for "rented or leased vehicles, machinery, or equipment" — a distinct line, used for the actual cost of the rental itself, prorated to business use.

In practice, that means a driver renting a car for gig work is generally looking at the rental fee's business-use percentage on Line 20a, rather than a mileage figure on Line 9 — a different calculation, and a different place on the form, than an owned or leased vehicle would use.

The genuine gray area: multi-week rideshare rental programs

Rideshare companies run rental programs — Hertz's rental-to-drive arrangement with Uber is the best-known example — that run longer than a typical day-rate rental, often billed weekly, sometimes with an eventual purchase option. Whether an arrangement like that counts as a "rental" or functions closely enough to a "lease" to open up the standard mileage rate isn't something the primary sources checked for this page (Publication 463, Topic 510, the Schedule C instructions) spell out with a clear duration-based test. Rather than guess at where that line falls, the honest position is: it's unsettled by the plain text of these sources, and a driver in this specific situation should get guidance from a tax professional on their actual rental terms before choosing a deduction method.

What's still deductible either way

Regardless of which line the rental fee itself lands on, out-of-pocket costs incurred while driving the rental for gig work — fuel, tolls, and parking — remain separately deductible business expenses. Publication 463 is explicit that parking fees and tolls attributable to business use are deductible in addition to whichever car-expense method applies. Keep those receipts the same way you would for an owned vehicle; see mileage log requirements for what a compliant record needs regardless of how the vehicle was acquired.