Mileage Rates in Europe 2026: 26 Countries vs UK AMAP

Since leaving the EU, UK businesses that send employees across the Channel face a more fragmented landscape than ever. Each European country sets its own mileage reimbursement rate, its own rules on what qualifies as business travel, and its own stance on commuting deductions. If your workforce drives in more than one jurisdiction, you need to know how these rates compare — both to justify your reimbursement policy and to keep your cross-border claims defensible.

This guide sets out the 2026 mileage rates for 26 European countries alongside the UK, explains where they diverge, and highlights the practical traps that catch UK businesses operating on the continent.

How the UK compares: AMAP in European context

The UK’s Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAP) rate is 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p per mile thereafter. Converting to kilometres for a fair comparison with continental rates, the first-10,000 band works out at roughly 34p/km, about €0.40/km, and the band above 10,000 miles at roughly 15.5p/km, about €0.18/km. (Both conversions use 1.609 km to the mile and a rate near €1.16 to the pound; the euro figure moves with the exchange rate, the pence figure does not.)

The April 2026 rise from 45p to 55p moved the UK up this table but not to the top of it. At about €0.40/km the first band now sits above the European median and above Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, while Iceland (≈ €1.02/km in its top band), Switzerland (≈ €0.79/km), Finland (€0.55/km), Denmark (≈ €0.53/km) and Austria, Croatia and Estonia (€0.50/km each) remain ahead. The picture changes sharply once you cross 10,000 miles: at about €0.18/km the second band is among the lowest in Europe, which is what makes the UK unusual — a competitive rate and a poor one in the same tax year, separated by a threshold no continental scheme has.

Most European countries apply a single flat rate per kilometre regardless of annual volume. That simplicity has a practical advantage: continental employees and their employers never need to track a cumulative threshold.

For a full breakdown of UK-specific AMAP rules, thresholds, and claim workflows, see HMRC Mileage Rates 2026: 55p and 25p AMAP Rates Explained.

Full comparison table: 2026 rates

The table below lists 26 European countries plus the UK, in descending order of euro value. Where a country uses a non-euro currency, the conversion uses the European Central Bank reference rates of 18 September 2026 for illustration only — official claims are always filed in local currency.

Country	Rate	Currency	EUR equivalent	Rate model	Commute treatment
United Kingdom	55p/25p per mile	GBP	≈ €0.40/€0.18 per km	Two-tier (10k mile threshold)	Not deductible
Iceland	ISK 142/km (top band)	ISK	≈ €1.02, falling to ≈ €0.60	Degressive bands, applied to the whole year	Not deductible
Ireland	20.56c–90.63c/km	EUR	€0.21–€0.91	Engine cc × annual distance	Not deductible
Switzerland	CHF 0.75/km	CHF	≈ €0.79	Flat per-km (federal; cantons vary)	Deductible, capped at CHF 3,000 federally
France	≈€0.37–€0.70/km	EUR	varies	Scale on fiscal HP + annual km, +20% for EVs	Deductible up to 40 km each way (frais réels)
Finland	€0.55/km	EUR	€0.55	Flat per-km	Deductible, but on the cheapest available mode
Denmark	DKK 3.94/2.28 per km	DKK	≈ €0.53/€0.31	Two-tier (20k km threshold, per employer)	DKK 3.17/km from 25 to 120 km
Austria	€0.50/km	EUR	€0.50	Flat per-km, max 30,000 km/yr	Separate commuter allowance (Pendlerpauschale)
Croatia	€0.50/km	EUR	€0.50	Flat per-km	Public-transport ticket price only
Estonia	€0.50/km	EUR	€0.50	Flat per-km, max €550/month	Only where public transport is unusable
Belgium	€0.4761/km	EUR	€0.4761	Indexed (annual regime, from 1 Jul 2026)	€500/year tax-free
Slovenia	€0.43/km	EUR	€0.43	Flat per-km	€0.21/km, minimum €140/month
Portugal	€0.40/km	EUR	€0.40	Flat per-km	Not deductible
Malta	€0.35/km	EUR	€0.35	Flat per-km (tax-free maximum)	Not deductible
Norway	NOK 3.50/km	NOK	≈ €0.32	Flat per-km	NOK 1.90/km above a NOK 12,000 floor
Slovakia	€0.313/km + fuel	EUR	≈ €0.31 + fuel	Base rate + fuel cost reimbursement	Not deductible
Germany	€0.30/km	EUR	€0.30	Flat per-km (Dienstreisepauschale)	Separate commuter flat (€0.38/km since 2026)
Luxembourg	€0.30/km	EUR	€0.30	Flat per-km (civil-service rate)	Distance units, €99 each, max €2,574/yr
Poland	PLN 1.15/km	PLN	≈ €0.26	By engine size (over 900cc)	Not deductible
Spain	€0.26/km	EUR	€0.26	Flat per-km	Not deductible
Netherlands	€0.25/km	EUR	€0.25	Flat per-km (tax-free reimbursement)	Tax-free at the same €0.25/km
Cyprus	€0.25/km	EUR	€0.25	Flat per-km (tax-free maximum)	Not deductible
Czech Republic	CZK 5.90/km + fuel	CZK	≈ €0.24 + fuel	Base rate + fuel cost reimbursement	Not deductible
Sweden	SEK 2.50/km (25 kr/mil)	SEK	≈ €0.22	Flat per-km	SEK 2.50/km above a SEK 15,000 floor
Greece	€0.20/km (public sector only)	EUR	€0.20	No private-sector rate	Not deductible
Hungary	HUF 15/km + fuel norm	HUF	≈ €0.04 + fuel	Standardised cost + fuel	30 Ft/km tax-free, 18 Ft/km mandatory
Italy	Per ACI tables	EUR	varies by model	Per-vehicle model (ACI cost tables)	Not deductible

Notes on the table: euro equivalents use the European Central Bank reference rates of 18 September 2026 and move with the exchange rate — the local-currency figures do not. France and Italy use vehicle-specific models, so a single rate per kilometre does not capture what employees can claim. Ireland operates a matrix of engine-capacity columns and distance bands. Switzerland’s federally recognised rate rose from CHF 0.70 to CHF 0.75 for the 2026 tax year; cantons set their own figures. The Czech, Slovak and Hungarian rows understate what a driver actually receives, because a fuel reimbursement is paid on top of the base amount.

Regional breakdown

Nordics: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland

The Nordics are not a bloc on this measure, and treating them as one is the usual mistake. Iceland, Finland and Denmark occupy three of the top six places in the table. Norway, at about €0.32/km, sits below Germany and Luxembourg, and Sweden’s SEK 2.50/km — roughly €0.22 — is among the lowest figures in Europe. What Norway and Sweden have instead is a second layer: a separate commuting deduction that the high-rate countries mostly do not offer.

Iceland is the highest-paying jurisdiction in Europe and the one most often left out of comparisons. Skatturinn’s 2026 scale runs from ISK 142/km down to ISK 83/km — roughly €1.02 to €0.60. The structure is unusual and worth understanding before you model it: the bands are degressive and not marginal, so the band your total annual mileage lands in prices every kilometre of the year, not just the ones past the threshold. A separate scheme, the akstursgjald under state employment agreements, pays ISK 150/135/120 per km from 1 June 2026.

Finland leads the eurozone with a straightforward €0.55/km flat rate — no thresholds, no vehicle-model tables. It is the simplest high-rate system in Europe, and it moves in both directions: 2025 was €0.59.

Denmark uses a two-tier model conceptually similar to the UK’s AMAP structure: DKK 3.94/km for the first 20,000 km per year, dropping to DKK 2.28/km above that. The threshold is more generous than the UK’s 10,000-mile mark (approximately 16,000 km), and it is counted per employer rather than per person, so Danish employees reach the lower band less often than UK ones.

Norway and Sweden deserve special attention because their systems blend per-kilometre reimbursement with separate tax deductions. In Norway, the employer can reimburse at NOK 3.50/km tax-free — the state’s own rate is NOK 5.30, and the NOK 1.80 difference is taxable — while employees separately claim NOK 1.90/km for commuting above a NOK 12,000 floor. Sweden’s rate is published per mil, the Swedish ten-kilometre unit: 25 kr/mil, which is SEK 2.50/km. Getting that unit wrong by a factor of ten is the single most common error in European rate tables.

DACH region: Germany, Austria, Switzerland

These three countries illustrate three quite different approaches sitting side by side.

Germany applies €0.30/km for business travel (Dienstreisepauschale), which is straightforward. The separate commuter allowance was simplified in 2026: a flat €0.38/km of one-way commute distance from the first kilometer, replacing the old two-tier scale. This is a tax deduction, not a reimbursement — a distinction that matters for cross-border payroll, and it now curiously values a commuting kilometre above a business one.

Austria sets a generous €0.50/km flat rate (amtliches Kilometergeld) that covers all vehicle costs, tax-free for up to 30,000 km a year. Separately, employees claim the Pendlerpauschale based on distance and public transport availability, plus the Pendlereuro — which tripled in 2026, from €2 to €6 per one-way kilometre per year. A 27 km commute is now worth €162 a year in Pendlereuro alone, against €54 in 2025. The combined benefit makes Austria one of the most driver-friendly tax regimes in Europe.

Switzerland is the outlier. The federally recognised deduction rose from 70 to 75 centimes for the 2026 tax year — roughly €0.79/km, second only to Iceland. It is derived from the TCS annual kilometre price for a reference vehicle, so it tracks real running costs rather than sitting frozen. Commuting is deductible but capped at CHF 3,000 a year for direct federal tax, and cantons set their own limits on top. The system is decentralised in a way that has no UK equivalent.

Benelux: Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg

Belgium is notable for indexing its mileage rate — and for running two indexation mechanisms at once, which is the part most comparisons miss. Under the annual regime the rate is €0.4761/km from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, up from €0.4449. Under the quarterly regime it was €0.4440 for the third quarter of 2026, and between April and June it was replaced by monthly energy-shock amounts of €0.4571, €0.4841 and €0.5055. An employer picks one regime and stays with it for the period, so “the Belgian rate” is not a single number. This automatic adjustment is the opposite of the UK experience, where AMAP stood still from 2011 until April 2026.

The Netherlands raised its tax-free reimbursement from €0.23 to €0.25 in May 2026, backdated to 1 January. The distinctive feature is that this rate also covers commuting — Dutch employers can reimburse home-to-work travel at the full €0.25/km without it being treated as taxable income. For UK businesses with Dutch operations, this is a significant difference from UK rules, where ordinary commuting is never claimable. One planning caveat: the increase is a temporary energy-shock measure that expires on 1 January 2027.

Luxembourg sets a modest €0.30/km, unchanged and unindexed since 2015, and it is a civil-service rate that the tax authority adopts as the private-sector ceiling rather than a rate set for employers directly. It must not be applied to commuting, which is relieved instead through distance units worth €99 each — the first four ignored, the deduction capped at €2,574 a year.

Mediterranean: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, Malta, Greece

Mediterranean countries generally apply simpler, lower flat rates, and two of them publish ceilings rather than rates. Spain sets €0.26/km as the IRPF-exempt locomotion figure. Malta allows up to €0.35/km tax-free under the Fringe Benefits Rules, and Cyprus up to €0.25/km under its tax department’s benefits-in-kind guidance. In both cases the figure is a maximum with conditions attached, not a published rate: exceed it, or fail to keep the log, and the entire reimbursement becomes a taxable fringe benefit rather than just the excess.

Greece is the genuine gap. There is no statutory per-km rate for private-sector employees at all — only documented actual travel costs are tax-free. The €0.20/km that circulates in comparison tables is the civil-service rate, fixed in law from 1 January 2024, and it does not reach private employers.

Portugal sits at €0.40/km. The often-quoted €0.36 was the austerity-era reduction that ran from 2011 to 2023; it was repealed by the 2024 budget, restoring the original figure from 1 January 2024.

Italy is the exception. Rather than a flat rate, Italy uses cost tables published annually by the Automobile Club d’Italia (ACI). The reimbursement depends on the specific vehicle make, model, and engine type, with rates varying significantly between a small city car and a large saloon. For UK businesses with Italian operations, this means mileage reimbursement requires knowing exactly which vehicle each employee drives — a level of granularity that AMAP does not demand.

Cyprus does operate a tiered scale, but not the one usually attributed to it: the tiers belong to the civil-service travel allowance, and they turn on annual mileage bands and fuel type, never on engine capacity. No band in it reaches 42 cents.

Eastern Europe: Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary

Eastern European rates vary more than you might expect, and three of them are routinely misreported. Croatia (€0.50/km, in force since 2 January 2024), Estonia (€0.50/km) and Slovenia (€0.43/km) all sit at the higher end — rates that rival the Nordics.

Estonia is the one to update in your policy documents. It doubled its business rate from €0.30 to €0.50 on 1 January 2025 and raised the monthly ceiling from €335 to €550 per employer. The catch is documentary rather than numeric: without a sõidupäevik logbook, the whole payment is treated as wage income. Its commuting treatment is narrower than usually described — tax-free only where public transport cannot reasonably be used, the employee is disabled, the employer runs an eight-seat-plus vehicle, or home is at least 50 km from work.

Poland pays PLN 1.15/km for engines over 900cc, which covers essentially the whole car fleet. The PLN 0.89 figure that appears in most tables is the small-engine band and understates the normal rate by about 23%.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia both pay a base amount plus fuel, so their headline figures understate the total. Czech base is CZK 5.90/km in 2026 — not the CZK 5.60 that applied in 2024 — with official fuel prices on top, and the diesel price jumped from CZK 34.10 to CZK 44.50 per litre on 1 June 2026. Slovakia’s base rate is €0.313/km from 1 January 2026, and it is paid in addition to the fuel component, not instead of it.

Hungary has the lowest nominal figure in Europe at HUF 15/km, but that is only the standardised cost element: fuel is reimbursed on top, from a statutory consumption norm at the tax authority’s published price. Commuting runs on a separate scale — up to 30 Ft/km tax-free, with 18 Ft/km mandatory where public transport is unavailable.

Commuting: where the rules diverge

For UK businesses, the rule is simple: ordinary commuting to a permanent workplace is not deductible and cannot be reimbursed tax-free under AMAP. This aligns with most European countries — Spain, Italy, France, Poland, and many others take the same position.

But several countries break from this pattern:

• Netherlands — employers can reimburse commuting at €0.25/km tax-free, the same rate as business travel. No distinction is drawn between the two for reimbursement purposes.
• Norway — commuting is deductible at NOK 1.90/km above a floor of NOK 12,000 a year, capped at NOK 120,000. The floor is a money amount, not a distance, and it fell sharply for 2026 while the rate rose — so anyone working from an older table will understate the deduction.
• Austria — the Pendlerpauschale provides a tax-free commuter allowance based on distance and whether public transport is reasonably available.
• Germany — the Entfernungspauschale (distance allowance) allows a deduction for commuting at a flat €0.38/km from the first kilometre (since the 2026 reform), regardless of transport mode.
• Sweden — commuting costs are deductible above a floor of SEK 15,000 for the 2026 income year (SEK 11,000 applied to 2025), and only if the car saves at least two hours a day against public transport and the trip is at least 5 km each way.
• Switzerland — commuting is deductible up to CHF 3,000 a year for direct federal tax, with cantons setting their own, often higher, limits.
• Denmark — the first 24 km of the one-way commute are worth nothing, then DKK 3.17/km from 25 to 120 km and DKK 1.59/km beyond. A law passed on 30 June 2026 raised these retroactively for the whole of the 2026 income year.
• France — commuting is deductible under frais réels up to 40 km each way without further justification, which makes France unusually generous by continental standards.
• Estonia — employer-paid commuting is tax-free only in defined cases: public transport cannot reasonably be used, the employee is disabled, the employer provides a vehicle with eight or more seats, or home is at least 50 km from the workplace. Where it applies and the employee drives their own car, it runs through the same €0.50/km and €550/month limits as business travel.

If you employ people across multiple countries, your reimbursement policy needs to account for these differences. Applying UK commuting rules uniformly across European operations will either short-change employees in countries with commuting allowances or create compliance gaps.

Countries with complex models the UK does not have

Three European countries use mileage rate structures that differ fundamentally from the UK’s simple per-mile approach.

France calculates its mileage allowance (barème kilométrique) based on the vehicle’s fiscal horsepower (chevaux fiscaux) and total annual kilometres driven. Effective rates run from roughly €0.37/km to about €0.70/km, and electric vehicles get a 20% uplift that can take the top of the range near €0.84. A much lower range — around €0.09 to €0.21 — belongs to the separate frais de carburant scale, which covers fuel only and should not be quoted as the mileage rate. Employees must elect frais réels (actual expense deduction) on their tax return rather than the standard flat deduction — an active choice that has no UK equivalent.

Italy bases reimbursement on ACI cost-per-kilometre tables that are specific to each vehicle model and engine variant. An employee driving a Fiat 500 claims a different rate from one driving an Alfa Romeo Giulia. Employers must reference the correct table entry, making mileage administration significantly more involved than in the UK.

Ireland uses engine capacity bands: rates differ depending on whether the vehicle is 0–1,200 cc, 1,201–1,500 cc, or over 1,500 cc, with four annual-distance bands on top. The full range runs from 20.56 cents to 90.63 cents per kilometre, and it is not monotonic — the second distance band, 1,501 to 5,500 km, pays the most, and the rate falls steeply above it. Electric vehicles are rated in the middle engine column. The structure means two employees driving the same route in different cars receive different reimbursements — a concept AMAP deliberately avoids by using a single flat rate for all cars.

Cross-border tips for UK businesses

If your employees drive for business across European borders, keep these practical points in mind:

Record trips per country. Your mileage log should capture which country each journey took place in. If a single trip crosses borders — say, driving from Calais to Brussels — record the segments separately where possible. This matters because different jurisdictions may require records in different formats, and auditors will want to see country-level breakdowns.

Apply the correct rate per jurisdiction. For UK tax purposes, AMAP rates apply to all business journeys in your own vehicle regardless of where you drive. But if you are reimbursing employees under local employment contracts in European countries, the local rate applies. Running two parallel rate structures — AMAP for UK-contracted staff and local rates for locally contracted staff — is common for businesses operating cross-border.

Account for currency differences. Reimbursements to UK employees should be in sterling, using a defensible exchange rate. HMRC accepts rates from reputable sources — the Bank of England spot rate on the date of travel, or HMRC’s own published exchange rates, are both reasonable choices. Document which rate source you use and apply it consistently.

Keep fuel receipts for complex jurisdictions. In countries like the Czech Republic and Slovakia where fuel costs are reimbursed separately on top of a base rate, employees need to retain fuel receipts. This is not required under AMAP, so UK-based staff may not be accustomed to keeping them.

Review more often than annually. European mileage rates change more frequently than AMAP, and 2026 has been exceptional: Belgium moved five times, the Netherlands raised its rate in May with retroactive effect to January, Denmark raised its commuter deduction by a law passed at the end of June and backdated to the start of the year, Switzerland moved for the tax year, and Austria tripled its Pendlereuro. Several of those changes were retroactive, which means a payment processed correctly in March can turn out to have been wrong by July. A once-a-year review will not catch that; a quarterly check on the countries you actually operate in will.

Track every jurisdiction in one place

Managing mileage across multiple European countries does not need to mean multiple spreadsheets and manual currency conversions. A mileage tracking tool that captures GPS data, classifies trips by purpose, and tags the country automatically removes much of the administrative overhead.

MileTrack records journeys in the background, lets you mark them business or private, and produces export-ready reports with the fields tax authorities expect — including country-level breakdowns for cross-border operations. See how the UK mileage tracker works, or get it free on the App Store.

Tax note: this article is educational and reflects rates re-verified on 18 September 2026. Mileage rules vary by country and change periodically. Always confirm current rates with the relevant tax authority or a qualified tax adviser before filing claims.