Civil Service Mileage Rates 2026: How to Calculate Tax-Free Mileage in Ireland

The civil service mileage rates for 2026 are the same rates that have applied since 1 September 2022. An employer can repay business kilometres in an employee's own car tax-free at standard rates of between 20.56 and 90.63 cent per km, depending on the engine size and on how many business km the employee has already driven this calendar year. Revenue publishes the table on its civil service rates page, and no new motor travel circular had been issued as of 21 October 2026.

The rate itself is the easy part. The km bands are cumulative, so one trip can be paid at two different rates. Anything paid above the civil service rate, or paid for the commute, is pay and has to go through payroll with PAYE, PRSI and USC. Below you will find the 2026 table, a full-year example where one car crosses three bands, and what the log has to show.

Civil service mileage rates 2026: the Revenue table

The rates were set by the Department of Public Expenditure in Circular 16/2022, dated 27 July 2022. Revenue's page, last published on 9 June 2026, shows the same figures, and Tax and Duty Manual Part 05-01-06, last reviewed in September 2026, repeats them in Appendix 1.

• Electric cars are paid in the middle column. Hybrids are paid by the capacity of their petrol or diesel engine, not as electric.
• Reduced rates are for journeys linked to the job but not solely for doing it: approved courses, conferences, promotion competitions or weekend trips home during a temporary transfer.
• Motorcycles have two bands, split at 6,437 km a year, and a bicycle is paid at 8 cent per km.

Will the rates change? The 2022 circular said the rates would be fixed for three years and that the next review would move towards a single rate for all cars, whatever the engine. That period has passed, but no new circular has been published and nothing in Budget 2027 changed the rates. When the rates changed in 2022 they did so mid-year, and the km already driven still counted towards the year's total.

How the cumulative km bands work through the year

The bands have nothing to do with the length of a single trip. They count the employee's business km since 1 January, and each km is paid at the rate of the band it falls into, much like income tax bands. Revenue gives its own example: someone who had claimed 1,400 km by 31 August 2022 moved to the new band 1 rate for the remaining 100 km in that band, and to band 2 after that.

• Band 2 pays the most. Between 1,501 and 5,500 km a 1.4-litre car earns 79.18 cent per km, then about 32 cent from 5,501 km. So the average rate per km rises up to 5,500 km and falls the further you drive after that.
• The count restarts on 1 January, not at each claim. Starting every monthly or quarterly claim at band 1 overpays, and the overpayment is taxable.
• A trip that crosses a boundary is split. The km up to the boundary go at the lower band, the rest at the next band.
• Only business km count. The drive between home and the normal place of work does not belong in the log at all.

Worked example: one car crossing three bands in 2026

Subsistence rates 2026: day and overnight

Subsistence works the same way: tax-free up to the civil service rates when the employee is away on a business journey. The current rates come from Circular 04/2025 and have applied since 29 January 2025.

In Dublin, the vouched accommodation rate allows the hotel cost on the receipt up to €205.53, plus €46.17 for meals. Beyond 56 nights the employer has to agree a rate with Revenue, and subsistence at any one location is limited to six months.

Normal place of work, home and the 'lesser of' rule

Travel between home and the normal place of work is commuting, and paying mileage for it is paying salary, whatever the payslip calls it. The normal place of work is where the employee normally does the job, usually the employer's premises. Home only counts if there is an objective requirement to work there. Choosing to work from home, or doing some admin at the kitchen table, is not enough, and a hybrid worker's base is still the office.

When a business journey starts or ends at home, the tax-free km are the lesser of:

1. home to the temporary work location, and
2. the normal place of work to the temporary work location.

Say Niamh drives from home to a client's plant and back: 150 km. From the office it would be 110 km there and back, so she can be paid for 110 km (distances for illustration). If her home were nearer the client, the shorter home distance would apply. For travelling appointments, such as sales reps or service engineers with daily customer calls, the employer's base counts as the normal place of work for this test. Travel between two separate jobs is treated as commuting, not as a business journey.

Employees, directors and sole traders: who can use the rates

Revenue's manual on travel expenses for traders is blunt: it will not accept deductions for sole traders based on the civil service rates. The business share is normally business km divided by total km. A self-employed engineer driving Niamh's 9,200 business km out of 18,400 km in total has a 50% business share. On €5,600 of running costs, €2,800 is deductible, plus half of the wear-and-tear allowance on the car: 12.5% a year over eight years, with a cost limit that depends on CO2 emissions. A sole trader bookkeeping template that applies the business-use share and wear and tear on the car keeps that side of the books.

The records Revenue expects for every trip

An employer can pay at or below the civil service rates without Revenue approval, as long as it has a satisfactory recording and internal control system. In practice that means a log with, for each journey:

1. the name and address of the employee or director
2. the date of the journey
3. the reason for the journey
4. the km travelled
5. the starting point, destination and finishing point
6. the basis for the payment, for example an overnight stay.

Receipts are kept for vouched costs such as tolls, parking and hotels. Everything is kept for six years after the end of the tax year, so 2026 records until the end of 2032. Where pay is labelled as tax-free expenses, Revenue says it will consider whether fraud or neglect is involved.

Since 1 January 2024 the employer also reports each tax-free travel and subsistence payment to Revenue under the Enhanced Reporting Requirements (ERR). Mileage at civil service rates goes in as 'Travel unvouched', with the date and amount, on or before the day it is paid. The Finance (No. 2) Bill 2026, published on 19 October 2026, proposes an option to report instead by the 14th of the month after the income tax month of payment. The Budget 2027 statement said the change would apply from January 2027. Until the bill is enacted, the 'on or before' rule stands.

A mileage log that splits each trip across the year's bands has a column for each of those journey details, with each person's name, home area and normal place of work on a staff sheet. It works out the band from the person's business km so far this year, applies the lesser-of distance to trips from home, marks commute lines as not payable and flags any line paid above the civil service rate. Each month becomes a claim form to sign, and the annual summary gives the ERR totals by month.