Is commuting to work deductible?

The rule and the reason for it

The tax code treats where you live as a personal choice. The publication therefore calls the cost of getting from your home to your main or regular place of work a personal commuting expense and says it is not deductible no matter how far your home is from work. Making business calls on the way does not change that, and neither does having a colleague in the car for a business discussion; the publication uses both as its example of activities that do not turn a personal trip into a business one. Parking at your place of business is likewise a nondeductible commuting cost, though business-related parking when you visit a customer or client can be deducted.

Small things that do not change the answer

The publication addresses several tempting arguments directly. Putting display material that advertises your business on your car does not change personal use into business use. Hauling tools or instruments in your car does not make the commute deductible, although any additional cost of hauling them, such as renting a trailer, is deductible. Driving in a nonprofit car pool is not deductible, and payments from passengers are not income; a car pool run for profit is the opposite, with the payments included in income and car expenses deductible. If you pick up assignments at a union hall, the cost of getting from the union hall to the job is still commuting, because you are employed where you work.

When a trip from home is deductible

The exceptions all turn on one idea: the destination is not your regular place of work. If you have one or more regular work locations away from home and you go to a temporary location in the same trade or business, you can deduct the daily round trip between home and the temporary location regardless of distance. Employment at a location is temporary if it is realistically expected to last, and does last, one year or less. If you have no regular place of work but ordinarily work in your metropolitan area, you can deduct daily costs between home and a temporary site outside that area, but not to a temporary site inside it. If your home is your principal place of business under the home office rules (see Pub. 587), you can deduct the daily trip from home to another work location in the same trade or business.

Working at two places in one day also qualifies. You can deduct the cost of getting from the first workplace to the second, though if you detour for a personal reason you cannot deduct more than the direct trip would have cost. The same publication warns that the trip between home and a part-time job on a day off from your main job is commuting.

Worked example with the 2025 mileage rate

Suppose you regularly work in an office in the city where you live and your employer sends you to a one-week training session at a different office in the same city. The publication’s own example says you can deduct the daily round trip between home and the training location. If that round trip is 36 miles and you go five days, the mileage amount at the 2025 standard rate of 70 cents a mile is 36 x 5 x 0.70 = $126. Choose “temporary site (I also have a regular workplace)” in the calculator with 36 miles and 5 days to see $126. Choose “my main or regular place of work” and the same numbers produce $0.

Compare a contractor with no office who normally works around one metro area and takes a job at a site 60 miles outside it. Daily home-to-site costs are deductible under the temporary-site rule, while a site inside the metro area at the same distance is not. That difference, inside or outside the metro area, is the most frequently missed line in this section. A metropolitan area generally includes the area within the city limits and the suburbs considered part of it.

Reservists and the one-year line

A reserve unit meeting held on a day you also work at your regular job is a second place of business, so getting from the job to the meeting is deductible. If the meeting is on a day you do not work at your regular job, the trip is generally commuting, unless the meeting location is temporary and you have a regular workplace, or you work in a metro area without a specific location and the meeting is outside it. For travel over 100 miles from home, see the reservist page linked below.

If a temporary job is expected to last more than a year, it is not temporary and the exception ends, even if the job ends up lasting less.

Who can actually claim it

One caution applies to employees. The publication says the cost of using a car as an employee, whether measured by actual expenses or the standard mileage rate, can no longer be claimed as an unreimbursed employee travel expense for tax years beginning after 2017, because the miscellaneous itemized deduction was suspended. Armed Forces reservists, qualified performing artists and fee-basis state or local government officials still deduct unreimbursed employee travel as an adjustment to income on Schedule 1, line 12. Self-employed people claim business transportation on Schedule C or Schedule F. Reimbursed employees are paid under the plan rules in chapter 6. The calculator therefore shows what Pub. 463 treats as deductible transportation; whether you can claim it depends on your status.

Sources

• IRS Publication 463, Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses (2025): Chapter 4, Transportation; Temporary work location; No regular place of work; Two places of work; Commuting expenses; Office in the home; Examples of deductible transportation. Read November 2, 2026.

Edition read: Publication 463 (2025), for use in preparing 2025 returns. Rates and dollar limits on this page are the 2025 figures printed in that edition; check the current publication, form instructions and GSA.gov per diem tables for your tax year. This page summarizes the publication and does not replace it.