What is the biggest mistake gig drivers make with mileage?

Assuming that having a mileage app installed means their miles are being recorded. Automatic trackers routinely lose trips to operating-system suspension, late trip starts and forgotten manual starts, and almost no driver ever compares their app's total against their odometer.

Why is 2026 different from previous tax years for mileage?

2026 has two business standard mileage rates rather than one. Miles driven January 1 through June 30 are worth 72.5 cents and miles driven July 1 through December 31 are worth 76 cents. A mileage log without dates cannot be computed correctly for 2026.

Do gig platforms track my miles for me?

Only partially. Platform mileage figures typically cover the paid portion of a trip and exclude the unpaid miles driving to a pickup, repositioning between offers or returning from a delivery zone, which are often 30 to 50 percent of a driver's total.

The problems this site is about

Updated September 6, 2026 · published by Baker Ventures LLC · sources cited inline

Four problems, and they compound. Gig drivers lose money on mileage in a sequence: the miles are not recorded, or they are recorded incompletely, or they are recorded but undated in a year with two rates, or they are recorded perfectly and still tell you nothing about whether the work was profitable. Each page below takes one of them.

Start here

Do I actually need a mileage tracker?The arithmetic on what skipping it costs, and who genuinely does not need one. Why your mileage app keeps missing tripsThe five failure modes, and the two-photograph odometer test that measures your own capture rate. Why your gig pay is lower than it looksUnpaid miles, the four hidden vehicle costs, and how to compute your real hourly. What happens if the IRS questions your mileageWhat adequate records mean under Publication 463, and what a reconstruction can and cannot do. Is it worth it if I only drive part time?The break-even is about six miles a week. Here is the table.

The 2026 change that sits behind all of it

2026 is the first year in a long time with two business standard mileage rates: 72.5 cents per mile for January 1 through June 30, and 76 cents for July 1 through December 31. Publication 463 always required a date on every trip. This year that requirement became load-bearing, because a log without dates cannot be split at the boundary and therefore cannot produce a correct deduction.

Every problem on this page got slightly worse in 2026 as a result. A missed trip is now a missed trip on a specific side of June 30. A reconstruction now has to establish not just how many miles but when. Read the two-rate explainer.

Then the answers

Once you know which problem you have, the answers section covers the specifics: what the IRS requires in a log, which gig miles count, standard mileage versus actual expenses, Schedule C for drivers, and platform-by-platform pages for DoorDash, Uber and Lyft, Instacart, Amazon Flex and Walmart Spark.

And if you want to see the numbers on your own driving, the two-rate mileage deduction calculator is free and needs no signup.

Cite this page

MileTruth. “The problems this site is about.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 6, 2026. https://miletruth.bakerventuresstudio.com/why/

Sources