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MileageCalculatorIRD kilometre rate · NZ
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Your mileage claim, done the IRD way

2025–26 kilometre rates with the Tier 1 / Tier 2 apportionment handled properly — enter your business and total kilometres and get the exact claimable amount.

2025–26 IRD rates Tier split done correctly One click onto an invoice
km
km
You can claim
$6000.00
NZD · 2025–26 income year

SOURCE·IRD kilometre rates·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Tier 1—
Tier 2—
Business share—
Vehicle—

TIER 1 · FIRST 14,000 KM OF TOTAL TRAVEL · TIER 2 BEYOND

Next step Add this mileage to an invoice → As a line item, at the IRD rate you just used.
Bill the hours too →

What a 2025–26 kilometre claim is actually worth

If you use your own vehicle for business, Inland Revenue lets you claim a flat rate per business kilometre instead of tracking every fuel receipt, service bill and depreciation schedule. For a petrol vehicle in 2025–26 that is $1.20 per kilometre on the first 14,000 km of the vehicle's total annual travel, and 37c per kilometre beyond it — apportioned to your business-use share, not claimed in full.

The threshold sits on total kilometres, not business kilometres. That is the detail nearly everyone gets wrong, it is the reason this calculator asks for both numbers, and getting it backwards overstates the claim.

SOURCE·IRD kilometre rates·2025–2026 INCOME YEAR · CHECKED 29 JUL 2026·REVIEWED JUL 2026

How this is worked out

  1. Work out the vehicle's total kilometres for the income year — every trip, private and business. The tier threshold is measured on this number, not on your business travel.
  2. Work out the business-use proportion: business kilometres divided by total kilometres. A 90-day representative logbook, kept every three years, is what establishes it.
  3. Split the total at 14,000 km. The first 14,000 km sit in Tier 1, which bundles fixed costs — depreciation, insurance, registration — with running costs. Everything beyond sits in Tier 2, running costs only.
  4. Apply the business-use proportion to each tier separately, so you claim only the business share of the Tier 1 band and only the business share of the Tier 2 band.
  5. Multiply each tier's business kilometres by that tier's published rate for your vehicle type and add the two together. That total is the deductible claim for the 2025–2026 income year.
IRD kilometre rates — 2025–2026 income year
                    TIER 1        TIER 2
  Petrol            $1.20/km      $0.37/km
  Diesel            $1.30/km      $0.38/km
  Petrol hybrid     $0.90/km      $0.24/km
  Electric          $1.22/km      $0.23/km

  business%  = business km / total km
  tier 1 km  = min(total km, 14,000) x business%
  tier 2 km  = max(total km - 14,000, 0) x business%
  claim      = tier 1 km x tier 1 rate + tier 2 km x tier 2 rate

Source: Inland Revenue, Kilometre rates 2025–2026. Checked 29 JUL 2026.

Inland Revenue's published kilometre rates →

The 2025–26 IRD kilometre rates in full

Every rate this calculator uses, for the 2025–2026 income year.

IRD · 2025–26 · JUL 2026
Vehicle Tier 1 — first 14,000 km Tier 2 — beyond 14,000 km
Petrol$1.20/km$0.37/km
Diesel$1.30/km$0.38/km
Petrol hybrid$0.90/km$0.24/km
Electric$1.22/km$0.23/km

SOURCE·IRD kilometre rates·2025–2026 INCOME YEAR · CHECKED 29 JUL 2026·REVIEWED JUL 2026

What counts as business travel

Travel between jobs, to clients, to suppliers, and between your workplace and a second workplace all count. The commute from home to your regular workplace does not — it is private travel no matter what is in the boot. If you work from home as a genuine base of operations, travel from home to clients generally counts, which is one of the quiet advantages of a home office.

Keep a record as you go: date, destination, purpose, kilometres. A 90-day representative logbook every three years locks in your business-use percentage; without records IRD caps what you can claim. Ninety seconds a day is what the whole method costs.

GENERAL INFORMATION · NOT TAX ADVICE · CONFIRM WITH IRD OR YOUR ACCOUNTANT

Mileage questions, answered

What are the IRD kilometre rates for 2025–26?
Tier 1: $1.20/km for petrol, $1.30 for diesel, 90c for petrol hybrids and $1.22 for electric vehicles. Tier 2: 37c petrol, 38c diesel, 24c hybrid, 23c EV. Tier 1 applies to the business share of the vehicle's first 14,000 km of total annual travel; Tier 2 beyond that. These are Inland Revenue's published rates for the 2025–2026 income year, checked against ird.govt.nz on 29 July 2026. IRD sets new rates after the end of each income year, so check the published table if you are filing for a later year.
How do the two tiers actually work?
The 14,000 km threshold is measured on the vehicle's TOTAL travel for the year, not just business trips. Tier 1 — which includes fixed costs like depreciation, insurance and registration — applies to your business-use share of those first 14,000 km. Tier 2, covering running costs only, applies to the business share of everything beyond. This calculator does that apportionment for you.
Do I need a logbook?
You need a record of your business travel. A logbook kept for a representative 90-day period every three years establishes your business-use percentage; without any records, IRD limits the claim to 25% business use or 3,500 km at the kilometre rate, whichever is less for the method you use. A dated list of trips with distances and purpose is the minimum worth keeping.
Kilometre rate or actual costs — which is better?
The kilometre rate is dramatically simpler: no fuel receipts, no depreciation schedules. Actual costs can produce a larger deduction for expensive vehicles doing high business kilometres. The catch is that once you choose the kilometre rate for a vehicle you generally must keep using it for that vehicle, so the decision is worth a conversation with your accountant in year one.
Can I charge mileage to a client?
Yes, if your terms allow it — many contractors bill travel at the IRD rate as a disbursement line on the invoice. Use the 'Add this mileage to an invoice' button and the claim carries across as a properly described line item. Note that if you are GST registered and on-charging mileage as part of your service, GST generally applies to it like any other charge.
Does my employer have to use these rates?
Employers commonly reimburse employee vehicle use at the IRD kilometre rate because reimbursements at or below it are tax-free to the employee without further evidence. An employer can pay more with justification, or less. If you are the employee, this calculator tells you what the standard tax-free reimbursement looks like.
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Hnry tracks mileage and folds it into the tax it files for you →

Where these figures come from

Every number this tool uses, with the official source and the date it applies from. If a figure here is out of date, the source link is the one to trust.

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These tools are free and always will be. Built by Amit Sharma — an Auckland real-estate agent and marketer followed by 214K across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.