Mileage claim rate increased by HMRC from 6th April 2026

What has changed?

If you use a car or van for work, the mileage rate you can claim tax relief on has increased for the first 10,000 miles travelled in a tax year - rising to 55p per mile from 45p. The change affects employees and directors travelling on business in a private vehicle, and also sole traders and partners travelling on business in their own vehicle.

The rate change will not affect miles travelled on a motorcycle or bicycle. The rate for miles travelled above 10,000 will also remain the same, staying at 25p per mile. Check out the Gov't pages here for yourself:

New rates for employees and directors.

New rates for sole traders and partners.

When does this change take effect?

In true British Government style this change has already happened (and it's down to Accounting professionals to action things after the fact!)

The great news - we can backdate claims to take effect from 6th April 2026.

What to do in FreeAgent

As usual FreeAgent has gone above and beyond and made the changes straightforward - the rate in FreeAgent has been updated so that any newly created mileage claims, and also any mileage claims your clients have already created but haven't yet re-billed on invoices and/or are not in a locked accounting period, will be automatically changed to use the new rate. We don't need to change these entries.

We'll be discussing this on our social channels shortly so if this blog has been inaccessible to you keep an eye out for a video explaining things in a different way :)