HMRC Mileage Allowance 2026: AMAP Rates, Rules, and How to Claim

Key Takeaways

• HMRC's Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAP) for 2026 are 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p per mile after that, for cars and vans. Motorcycles are 24p flat. Bicycles are 20p flat. These rates have been frozen since 2011.
• The 10,000-mile threshold resets each tax year on 6 April and is per person, not per employer, so a driver with two jobs cannot reset the limit by splitting miles between them.
• The 45p rate covers everything: fuel, insurance, road tax, servicing, MOT, tyres, depreciation. You cannot claim AMAP and then claim a second time for fuel or servicing on the same mile.
• There is a separate 5p per mile passenger payment for each fellow employee carried on the same business trip. Most drivers miss this.
• AMAP applies when an employee uses their own vehicle for business. Company car drivers use Advisory Fuel Rates (AFR) for business fuel instead; do not confuse the two.
• If your employer pays you less than the AMAP rate, claim Mileage Allowance Relief (MAR) on the shortfall through Self Assessment or a P87 form. If they pay more, the excess is taxable.

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If you use your own car or van for work in the UK, AMAP is the tax-free allowance you are entitled to for every business mile you drive. Most employees assume HMRC mileage is "45p a mile and that is the end of it". It is not. The rate is only the headline. The mechanics, the 10,000-mile cliff, the passenger payment that almost nobody claims, the difference between AMAP and Advisory Fuel Rates, the records HMRC actually wants to see: that is where small businesses and sole traders lose money, or end up under-reimbursed by an employer who has quietly under-paid them for years.

This is the complete 2026 guide to HMRC mileage allowance for UK employees, sole traders, and small businesses running a fleet of personal vehicles on the company's behalf. It covers the current AMAP rates, what the 45p actually buys you, the 10,000-mile rule, passenger payments, AMAP versus Advisory Fuel Rates for company cars, how to claim Mileage Allowance Relief if your employer pays you less, and the records you need to keep to survive an HMRC look.

It is written for tradespeople using their own van, field staff driving their own car between jobs, finance managers reviewing their mileage policy, and the owner-manager who has been doing 45p across the board because "that is what the accountant said".

What AMAP actually is (and when it applies)

AMAP (Approved Mileage Allowance Payments) is HMRC's flat-rate allowance that an employer can pay an employee, tax-free and NIC-free, for business miles in the employee's own vehicle. It is set by HMRC, not negotiated; any employer can pay up to the approved rate without a tax consequence, and anything above the rate is taxable as earnings. Two things it is not: it is not for company cars (those use Advisory Fuel Rates for business fuel), and it is not a reimbursement for actual running costs, it is a deemed rate.

AMAP applies to an employee using their own car, van, motorcycle or bicycle for business travel. "Business travel" under HMRC rules is a journey for work that is not ordinary commuting between home and a permanent workplace. A salesperson driving from home to a customer site is business travel. The same salesperson driving from home to head office every morning is not, it is commuting.

Sole traders and partnerships can use the same rates under the "simplified expenses" regime for their own trading vehicle, provided they do not also claim actual motoring costs on the same vehicle. Limited company directors paying themselves for business miles in a personally owned vehicle use AMAP in the same way as any other employee.

The AMAP rates for 2026 in full

The HMRC-approved mileage rates for the 2026 to 2027 tax year are unchanged from the rates that have applied since 2011: 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a car or van, 25p per mile for each business mile after that, 24p per mile for motorcycles regardless of mileage, and 20p per mile for bicycles regardless of mileage. The 10,000-mile threshold is the point where the car and van rate drops.

The table below is the full 2026 to 2027 AMAP schedule:

• Cars and vans, first 10,000 business miles in the tax year: 45p per mile.
• Cars and vans, every business mile above 10,000 in the tax year: 25p per mile.
• Motorcycles, any business mile: 24p per mile.
• Bicycles, any business mile: 20p per mile.
• Passenger payment (cars and vans only): an extra 5p per mile, per fellow employee, for each employee carried on the same business trip.

Two sharper points that drivers miss. First, electric cars, hybrids, and plug-in vehicles use the same 45p and 25p rates as petrol and diesel cars. There is no separate EV rate for AMAP; the single rate is fuel-agnostic by design. Second, the vehicle class is the legal class, not the price tag: a 2.3-litre diesel Transit is a "van", a Mercedes G-Class is a "car", and the same 45p applies to both for mileage purposes.

The 10,000-mile rule (and why it is stricter than most drivers think)

The 10,000-mile threshold resets every tax year on 6 April, is per person (not per vehicle, not per employer, not per job), and cannot be split, reset, or gamed by changing employer mid-year. That last point is what catches people out.

Three rules for applying the threshold in practice:

Per employee, per tax year. If you drive 11,000 business miles in a car in 2026 to 2027, you get 10,000 at 45p and 1,000 at 25p. The 10,000 does not reset on 6 April 2026 if you have already hit it earlier in the same tax year.

Not per vehicle. If you change your personal car in October, the 10,000-mile count keeps running across both cars. You do not get a fresh 10,000 for the new car.

Not per employer. If you change jobs mid-year, your new employer does not get to start your 10,000 count over. The total is across all your employments in the tax year. You have a duty to tell a new employer what mileage you have already claimed in the current tax year, or their AMAP payments to you may end up partially taxable. In practice this means keeping a running log that survives a job change.

For fleet cost modelling the 45p-to-25p drop is a real financial cliff. A field engineer at 15,000 business miles a year in their own vehicle should see £5,750 of tax-free AMAP (10,000 at 45p plus 5,000 at 25p). At 12,000 miles it is £5,000; at 20,000 miles it is £7,000. That flattening above 10,000 miles is deliberate; HMRC's position is that the fixed cost component of running a vehicle is already recovered in the first 10,000 miles, and the marginal mile above that should only cover variable costs.

What the 45p actually covers (and why you cannot claim twice)

The 45p per mile rate is deemed to cover every cost of running the vehicle: fuel, servicing, MOT, road tax, tyres, insurance, depreciation, and repairs. In HMRC's view it is the total tax-free amount an employer can pay for a business mile in a personal vehicle. You cannot receive AMAP and then claim fuel separately, nor receive AMAP and then claim a proportion of your insurance premium.

What the rate rules out in practice:

• No separate fuel receipt claims. If an employer reimburses AMAP, fuel receipts on that vehicle are not separately reclaimable.
• No proportion-of-costs claim in addition. Sole traders cannot use simplified expenses (AMAP-equivalent) and actual costs on the same vehicle in the same tax year. Choose one method and stick to it.
• No "top up" for an expensive car. If you drive a personal Range Rover on business, the cost per mile of running it is well above 45p. HMRC does not care. The approved rate is the approved rate.
• Parking, tolls, and congestion charges are separate. These are not covered by AMAP and can be reimbursed in addition, with receipts, tax-free.

For a worked view of what a business mile actually costs a fleet, as opposed to what HMRC deems it covers, see How to Calculate Cost Per Mile for Your Fleet (UK, 2026). The gap between AMAP and real cost per mile is precisely the decision point for moving from personal vehicles on AMAP to pool vehicles on actual cost.

Passenger payments: the 5p per mile almost nobody claims

If an employee carries one or more fellow employees on a business trip, HMRC allows an additional 5p per mile, per passenger, tax-free. The payment is set out in HMRC's passenger payments guidance and is paid on top of the ordinary AMAP rate. Three conditions apply: the passenger must be a fellow employee, the journey must be a genuine business journey for both of them, and the employer must actually pay the extra 5p (HMRC does not let the employee claim it if the employer does not pay).

Worked example. A manager drives 80 miles to a client site carrying two colleagues. The ordinary AMAP for the trip is 80 × 45p = £36. The passenger payment is 80 miles × 2 passengers × 5p = £8. The total tax-free payment is £44.

Two realities: most employers do not actually pay this, and most employees do not know to ask. The passenger payment is the one part of AMAP where Mileage Allowance Relief (see below) does not fill the gap: if your employer does not pay the 5p, you cannot claim it on your own tax return. It is entirely at the employer's discretion.

AMAP vs Advisory Fuel Rates (AFR): do not confuse the two

AMAP is for employees using their own vehicle. Advisory Fuel Rates (AFR) are for employees using a company car or company van, to reimburse business fuel. The two systems never overlap; you are in one or the other depending on who owns the vehicle.

The short difference:

• AMAP (45p / 25p / 24p / 20p) pays for all running costs of a personal vehicle used on business.
• AFR (rates vary by engine size and fuel type, updated quarterly by HMRC on 1 March, 1 June, 1 September, and 1 December) reimburse only fuel for a company car on business. The company already pays for the vehicle and servicing.

A driver in a company car who claims AMAP is either under-paid (if they pay their own fuel) or over-paid (if AMAP is applied to a vehicle the company already pays to run). Payroll teams get audited on this, and HMRC corrects the treatment at year end. Fleet operators with a mix of company cars and cash-allowance drivers should check that the reimbursement rate for each driver matches what they actually drive.

How to claim Mileage Allowance Relief if your employer pays less

If your employer pays you less than the AMAP rate, you can claim Mileage Allowance Relief (MAR) on the shortfall through Self Assessment or HMRC's P87 expense claim. The relief reduces your taxable income by the gap between what your employer paid and the AMAP rate, at your marginal rate of tax.

Worked example. You drive 8,000 business miles in the tax year in your own car. Your employer pays 25p per mile, so £2,000. Under AMAP you should have received 45p × 8,000 = £3,600. The shortfall is £1,600. You claim MAR on that £1,600 through a P87 or Self Assessment. At 20 percent basic rate you get £320 back; at 40 percent higher rate you get £640. HMRC pays this as a tax refund or a tax code adjustment, not as a direct payment of the shortfall.

Three rules that catch people out:

• You cannot claim MAR on commuting. Only on business miles that qualify under HMRC's definition.
• If your employer pays more than AMAP, the excess is taxable. Your employer should already be running that through PAYE, but if not, the excess is your liability to declare.
• You need a mileage log. Without it, HMRC will usually not accept a MAR claim. The log must show date, start, destination, purpose, and miles, per journey. We come back to records below.

Records you must keep, and for how long

HMRC's expectation for an AMAP or MAR claim is a contemporaneous mileage log covering every business journey with date, start and destination, purpose, and miles. Fuel receipts are not enough on their own, and a round-number estimate at year end is the fastest way to have a claim disallowed. Keep the log for at least 22 months after the end of the tax year for employees (HMRC's normal self-assessment enquiry window) and at least six years for sole traders and limited companies.

The practical minimum log per journey:

• Date of the journey.
• Start postcode or address.
• Destination postcode or address.
• Reason for the journey (customer name, job reference, meeting).
• Miles driven.
• Vehicle used (if more than one personal vehicle is on the claim).

HMRC does not prescribe the format. A paper notebook is legally acceptable; a spreadsheet is acceptable; an automatic GPS mileage app with a "business" toggle is acceptable. What HMRC does not accept is a round-number estimate at the end of the year based on remembered trips. If you are running mileage across a small fleet, a centralised mileage record is a minimum compliance position; we covered this as one of the core pillars in Fleet Compliance for Small Businesses: A Complete UK Guide.

The most common AMAP mistakes UK small businesses make

Five patterns account for most of the AMAP errors that HMRC picks up in small business reviews:

1. Treating commuting as business mileage. Home to permanent office is commuting and is not claimable. Home to a client site is business. Home to a temporary workplace is business, but only up to the 24-month rule.

2. Missing the 10,000-mile drop. Paying 45p per mile all the way to 15,000 miles. The excess above 10,000 should be 25p; the extra 20p × 5,000 miles × tax and NIC is a four-figure error on one driver.

3. Paying AMAP on a company car. The correct rate for fuel on a company car is the Advisory Fuel Rate at the time of the journey, not AMAP. HMRC unwinds this at review.

4. Paying AMAP and reimbursing fuel receipts. Double-dipping. The 45p rate already includes fuel. Fuel receipts reimbursed on top of AMAP are taxable as earnings.

5. No mileage log. An annual total with no underlying detail will not survive an HMRC look. Even a single enquiry letter is enough to turn an £800 refund into an £800 assessment.

A quick version of the mileage-and-expense records a small fleet should keep live is covered in The 14 Vehicle Expense Categories Every UK Fleet Should Track.

The bottom line

AMAP is simple on paper (45p then 25p for cars and vans) and easy to misapply in practice. The money is in the detail: the 10,000-mile cliff, the 5p passenger payment most employers do not pay, the hard line between AMAP and Advisory Fuel Rates, and the mileage log that decides whether any of it is claimable at all. Get the log right, get the rate right for the right vehicle class, and claim Mileage Allowance Relief if your employer pays less than the approved rate. The rate has been frozen since 2011; the rules have not.

For a UK small business running its own fleet on personal vehicles, the single biggest improvement is to stop collecting mileage at year end and start logging each journey on the day. That one change is usually worth a four-figure difference at the HMRC reconciliation.

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Sources: GOV.UK: Rates and allowances, travel mileage and fuel allowances · GOV.UK: Travel mileage and fuel rates and allowances · GOV.UK: Business travel mileage, rules for tax · GOV.UK: Business travel mileage, passenger payments · GOV.UK: Advisory fuel rates · House of Commons Library: Mileage Allowance Payments briefing