If you drive passengers rather than parcels

Updated September 7, 2026 · published by Baker Ventures LLC · sources cited inline

Rideshare produces a different mileage shape from delivery, and it is the shape most trackers handle worst.

One long continuous session rather than discrete jobs with gaps. A tracker tuned to start and stop per job either fragments a six-hour shift or merges it into one enormous trip, and both are wrong.

Dead miles are most of the difference. Driving to a pickup, repositioning after a drop, circling while waiting for a request. All business miles, and none of them in a platform's on-trip figure, which is why the platform number is a floor rather than a total.

And the waiting is not mileage. Airport queues, staging lots and quiet hours generate no miles and dominate your hourly rate, which is a different number and the one you were probably trying to work out.

So the ranking of what matters:

Capture reliability across a long session. The whole decision.
Trip dating, because 2026 splits at 30 June: 72.5 cents, then 76 cents.
Battery behaviour, since the app is running for six hours straight.
Export, in a format a preparer accepts.
Earnings integration, useful and not the point.

Which miles count

Yes:

Home to your working area, once you are online
Driving to a pickup
The fare itself
Repositioning after a drop
Driving to a staging area or airport lot while online
Between platforms, if you run more than one

No:

Driving to the area with the app off, before you start
The drive home after going offline
Personal errands mid-shift

The commuting rule. · The first and last trip of the day. · The unpaid miles are still deductible.

Why the platform figure is a floor

Platform mileage generally reflects on-trip distance. Everything around it is yours to record, and for many rideshare drivers the surrounding driving is comparable in size to the on-trip driving.

Use the platform figure as a check, never as the log. If your record shows fewer miles than theirs, your record is wrong. More is expected and correct.

And it is not contemporaneous. The IRS asks for records made at or near the time of the trip; a figure computed later by a company for its own purposes is a summary. What a log has to contain.

What to test in your first week

Do not evaluate a tracker on its feature list. Do this instead:

1. Drive a full normal shift with it running.
2. Compare its total against the platform's on-trip figure.
   Yours should be meaningfully higher. If it is lower, it is
   losing driving.
3. Check the trip boundaries. Did it record one six-hour trip,
   forty trips, or something that resembles your shift?
4. Check the battery at the end.
5. Export. Look at the file. Is there a date on every trip?

Step three is the one that separates this category. Why apps miss trips. · Why trackers drain your battery.

The rest of the deduction

Deductible in addition to the standard mileage rate: business parking and tolls, the business-use share of phone and plan, mounts and chargers, and passenger supplies such as water, mints and charging cables, which are business supplies rather than vehicle costs.

Car washes are the one people get backwards. Under the standard rate, ordinary washing is already covered as maintenance and is not deducted separately. Under actual expenses it is. Car washes, cleaning and supplies. · Parking, tolls and what else you can deduct.

Where MileTruth sits, disclosed

Our own product, in development, not released. Built around the two things above: capture that holds up across a long continuous session, and a per-trip dated record so the split rate applies correctly and the dead miles are actually in the total.

It does not integrate with every platform's earnings feed, and for a driver whose main question is the deduction and the real hourly rate, capture matters more than a feed does.

The full comparison of every major tracker. · If you run several apps at once. · If you only drive part time. · Why the earnings screen is not your income.

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

What is the best mileage tracker for Uber and Lyft drivers?

One that captures a long continuous session reliably and dates every trip so the 2026 split rate applies correctly. Rideshare driving is one long working period rather than discrete jobs, which is the shape trackers tuned for delivery handle worst.

Are dead miles between fares deductible?

Miles driven while working, including repositioning between fares and driving to a pickup, are business miles. They are typically a large share of a rideshare driver's total and they are not in any platform's on-trip figure.

Does the platform's mileage figure cover everything?

No. Platform figures generally reflect on-trip distance, and the driving between fares, to pickups and while waiting for a request is yours to record. That gap is usually the largest part of the deduction.

What about waiting in an airport queue?

Sitting still generates no mileage. The driving to and from the queue does, and the waiting matters to your hourly rate rather than to your deduction.

Do I need earnings integration?

It helps if you want to compare platforms, and it is not what makes a tracker good. Capture reliability across a long session matters more, because a tracker that loses an hour of driving costs you more than a tracker with no earnings feed.

What is the 2026 rate?

72.5 cents per mile for January through June and 76 cents for July through December, so business miles must be totalled separately for each half of the year.

Cite this page

MileTruth. “If you drive passengers rather than parcels.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 7, 2026. https://miletruth.bakerventuresstudio.com/compare/best-mileage-tracker-for-rideshare-drivers/

Sources