Home to First Job Doesn't Count
Driving from home to your first job of the day is a personal commute under IRS rules — not deductible, no exceptions. The mileage deduction clock starts once you leave that first job for the next one.
Every Mile Between Job Sites Counts
Once you're on the clock between jobs, every mile is business mileage: job site to job site, job site to the supply store and back, job site to a client consultation. This is where most home service pros under-claim without realizing it.
Supply Runs Are Business Miles Too
A trip to Home Depot, Lowe's, or your supplier to pick up materials for a specific job is fully deductible mileage — even if it's a detour in the middle of your day.
What the 2026 Rate Is Actually Worth
The mileage deduction rate for 2026 is $0.76 per mile for trips July through December, and $0.725 for trips January through June. An extra 20 miles a day of job-site driving works out to over $5,500 a year in deductions — money most home service pros are leaving on the table by not logging it.
Log It as You Drive, Not After
SUNY's GPS auto-log captures every trip automatically, so you're not reconstructing routes from memory at tax time — which the IRS explicitly does not accept as a substitute for a contemporaneous log.