Tracking Inspection-Business Mileage: A Deduction Guide for Inspectors and Notaries

Last updated: July 1, 2026

If you run an inspection or mobile-notary business, your vehicle is one of your biggest expenses — and the home inspector mileage deduction is one of the biggest levers you have to recover it. The rules aren't hard, but they are unforgiving about records. Here's what counts, what to log, and how to keep it all audit-ready.

Two ways to deduct: standard rate or actual expenses

Self-employed inspectors and notaries can deduct vehicle costs one of two ways. The standard mileage method multiplies your business miles by the IRS standard mileage rate (set each year — check the current figure at IRS.gov). The actual-expense method deducts the business-use share of what the vehicle really costs: fuel, insurance, repairs, depreciation, and so on. The standard rate is far simpler and is what most solo operators use, but the better choice depends on your vehicle and how much you drive. One wrinkle worth knowing: if you want the option of using the standard rate on a car, you generally must use it in the first year that car is used for business. Talk to your tax professional about your specific situation.

Which drives are business miles

• Between jobs — inspection to inspection, signing to signing: business, full stop.
• Business errands — supply runs, equipment calibration or repair drop-offs, continuing-education classes, bank deposits for the business: business.
• Home to first job / last job to home — this hinges on whether you have a qualifying home office as your principal place of business. If you do, those legs are generally deductible; if you don't, they may be nondeductible commuting. Given how many inspector miles are exactly these legs, this question alone is worth a conversation with your tax pro.
• Personal segments — the gym detour between appointments isn't business. Log around it rather than pretending it didn't happen.

The four fields of a compliant log

For every business drive, the IRS expects date, destination, business purpose, and miles driven. For an inspector, "purpose" is easy — tie it to the job: "full inspection, 412 Maple" or "loan signing, refinance." Two additions make the log much stronger:

1. Year-end odometer readings. Photograph your odometer on January 1 and December 31 so you can show business miles as a percentage of total miles.
2. Contemporaneous entries. Log at the time of the drive, not at tax time. Records made "at or near" the event carry real evidentiary weight; a spreadsheet reconstructed in April carries almost none.

Let the schedule generate the log

The inspectors who capture every mile don't have more willpower — they have a system where the day's plan and the day's log are the same artifact. If tomorrow's jobs are already sequenced into a route, then every address, every leg, and every distance is known before you turn the key; recording reality is a small correction, not a memory exercise. Software can take even that step away: Terravai, for instance, logs mileage automatically for each leg of your planned route at the rate you choose, and exports it with your expenses to QuickBooks Online in one tap. And a tighter route helps twice — fewer wasted miles to drive, and a cleaner log to keep. If your sequencing could use work, start with our route planning guide for inspectors and mobile notaries.

Keep it, and keep it long enough

Your mileage log is a tax record: keep it with the year's return, generally for at least three years. Store it somewhere durable — a cloud export beats a glovebox notebook that can be lost with the truck. And review the log weekly while the drives are fresh; five minutes on Friday catches the missing trip that Sunday-in-April never will. Handled this way, the home inspector mileage deduction stops being a scramble and becomes what it should be: arithmetic on records you already have. For more on running a solo inspection business from the road, see our inspections page.