Mileage is one of the most under-claimed deductions for short-term rental hosts. Every drive to the property for cleaning, maintenance, supply runs, guest check-ins, or management tasks is a deductible business expense. For hosts who visit their properties regularly, this can add up to thousands of dollars per year.

But the IRS has specific requirements for mileage deductions, and failing to meet them can mean losing the entire deduction in an audit. Here's exactly what you need to know.

Two methods: standard mileage rate vs. actual expenses

The IRS gives you two options for deducting vehicle expenses related to your STR business.

Standard mileage rate

For 2026, the IRS standard mileage rate is 70 cents per mile. You multiply your total qualifying business miles by this rate to get your deduction. This method is simpler — you don't need to track gas, insurance, repairs, or depreciation separately. You just need an accurate mileage log.

For most STR hosts, the standard rate is the better choice. It's easier to document and often produces a comparable or larger deduction than actual expenses, especially if you drive a fuel-efficient vehicle.

Actual expenses

Under the actual expense method, you deduct the business-use percentage of all vehicle costs: gas, oil changes, tires, insurance, registration, depreciation, lease payments, parking, and tolls. You calculate the business percentage by dividing your business miles by total miles driven for the year.

This method can produce a larger deduction if you drive an expensive vehicle or have high maintenance costs, but it requires significantly more record-keeping. You need receipts and records for every vehicle expense, plus a mileage log to establish your business-use percentage.

Important: If you want to use the standard mileage rate, you must choose it in the first year you use the vehicle for business. If you start with actual expenses, you can switch to the standard rate later — but not the other way around.

What trips qualify as business mileage

Not every drive related to your STR is deductible. The IRS considers a trip to be business mileage when the primary purpose is a legitimate business activity.

Qualifying trips

  • Driving to the property for cleaning, maintenance, inspections, or guest check-ins
  • Supply runs — trips to stores for cleaning supplies, linens, toiletries, replacement items, or furniture
  • Contractor and vendor meetings — driving to meet with cleaners, handypeople, photographers, or other service providers
  • Banking and administrative errands — going to the bank, post office, or office supply store for business purposes
  • Trips between properties — if you manage multiple STRs, driving from one to another during a work session
  • Driving to your CPA or attorney for business-related meetings

Non-qualifying trips

  • Personal errands combined with business — if you stop at the grocery store for personal items on the way to the property, you need to separate the business portion. The drive to the property counts, the detour does not.
  • Commuting from home to a regular office — if you have a separate W-2 job, your commute to that job is never deductible, even if you stop at the property on the way.
  • Trips with no business purpose — driving past the property to "check on it" without performing any work is not a business trip.

A useful test: if you can articulate a specific business task you accomplished at the destination, the trip likely qualifies. If the best you can say is "I wanted to see how things looked," it probably doesn't.

IRS log requirements

The IRS requires what they call "adequate records" under IRC Section 274(d). For mileage, this means a log that includes four elements for every trip:

1. Date

The exact date of the trip. Not "the week of January 15th" — the specific day.

2. Destination

Where you drove. "123 Lakeview Drive" or "Home Depot on Main Street" — specific enough to verify.

3. Business purpose

What you did and why it was business-related. "Restocked cleaning supplies and replaced broken towel rack in guest bathroom" is strong. "Property visit" is weak. Be specific enough that an auditor can understand the business necessity without asking follow-up questions.

4. Miles driven

The distance of the trip. Odometer readings (start and end) are the gold standard, but GPS-based tracking is widely accepted and often more practical. The IRS wants accuracy, not a specific measurement method.

Common mileage tracking mistakes

Estimating instead of logging

The single most common mistake: not keeping a log at all, then estimating annual mileage at tax time. "I drove to the property about three times a week, and it's 12 miles away, so that's roughly 3,700 miles." The IRS will not accept this. They want a log, not arithmetic.

Logging round trips as one-way

If you drive 15 miles to the property and 15 miles back, that's 30 miles. It sounds obvious, but hosts frequently under-report by forgetting to count the return trip.

Missing multi-stop trips

A single outing might include a stop at the hardware store, then the property, then the laundromat. The entire trip is deductible as long as each stop has a business purpose. But you need to log it as a single trip with multiple destinations and purposes, not just "drove to property."

Not separating personal and business use

If you use one vehicle for both personal and business driving, you must track both to establish the business-use percentage. Under the actual expense method, this is essential. Under the standard mileage rate, you only deduct business miles — but you should still be prepared to show the IRS that your claimed business miles are reasonable relative to your total driving.

Waiting too long to record

Just like work hours, the IRS gives more weight to contemporaneous mileage records than to reconstructed ones. A trip logged on the day it happened is stronger than one logged from memory two months later. An entry with a GPS-verified distance is stronger than one with an estimated round number.

Why a digital log beats a paper one

You can absolutely keep a mileage log in a notebook or on a printed form. The IRS doesn't require any specific format. But paper logs have practical problems:

  • They're easy to lose or damage.
  • They can't automatically calculate distances.
  • They don't timestamp when the entry was created (a key factor in proving the log is contemporaneous).
  • They're tedious to total at year-end.
  • They're harder to share with your CPA.

A digital mileage log — whether in a spreadsheet, a GPS-based app, or a purpose-built tool like Valzotra — solves all of these. Valzotra lets you log trips with the business purpose, associates them with a specific property, and timestamps the entry so your records are verifiably contemporaneous. At tax time, you export the log rather than manually counting notebook entries.

The math that motivates

Let's put real numbers on this. Say you own one STR property 10 miles from your home and you visit it four times per week for turnovers, maintenance, and supply runs.

  • Round trip: 20 miles
  • Weekly: 80 miles
  • Annual: 4,160 miles
  • Deduction at $0.70/mile: $2,912

Add in supply runs, contractor meetings, and trips to a second property, and you could easily be looking at $4,000 to $6,000 in annual mileage deductions. That's real tax savings — but only if you have the log to prove it.

Start today

The best time to start tracking mileage was January 1st. The second best time is today. Every unlogged trip is a lost deduction. Pick a method — app, spreadsheet, or dedicated tool — and commit to logging every business trip as it happens. The few seconds it takes to record each trip will save you hours of reconstruction and potentially thousands of dollars at tax time.