IRS Mileage Rate History: Every Rate From 2015 to 2026

Old mileage rates are not trivia. Amended returns, late filings, multi-year audits, reimbursement policies pegged to prior years, and record reviews all reach back into the table below — and the single most common mistake is applying this year’s rate to last year’s miles. Here is the complete IRS standard mileage rate history from 2015 through 2026, followed by the rules for using it.

The full table, 2015–2026

Rates in cents per mile:

Year	Business	Medical / Moving	Charity
2015	57.5	23	14
2016	54	19	14
2017	53.5	17	14
2018	54.5	18	14
2019	58	20	14
2020	57.5	17	14
2021	56	16	14
2022 (Jan–Jun)	58.5	18	14
2022 (Jul–Dec)	62.5	22	14
2023	65.5	22	14
2024	67	21	14
2025	70	21	14
2026 (Jan–Jun)	72.5	20.5	14
2026 (Jul–Dec)	76	23.5	14

Three patterns worth reading out of the table. The business rate is not a ratchet — it fell four times in this window (2016, 2017, 2020, 2021) as fuel prices and vehicle costs eased, then climbed steeply from 2021’s 56 cents to 2026’s 76. The charity rate never moves, because it is fixed by statute rather than set by the IRS cost study. And the mid-year split is no longer unique to 2022: fuel prices forced a July adjustment again in 2026, from 72.5 to 76 cents.

The current-year details — what the rate covers, when actual expenses beat it — live in the 2026 rate guide.

The one rule for using old rates

The trip date controls the rate. Not the filing date, not the refund date, not the year you got around to the paperwork.

• Amended returns. Amending 2024 to add missed business miles uses 67 cents, even if you file the amendment in 2026. With amendments generally open for three years from the original filing, the 2023–2025 rows of this table remain live numbers.
• Late and prior-year filings. A 2023 return filed today still values 2023 miles at 65.5 cents.
• The split years, 2022 and 2026. A trip’s month decides its half: 10,000 business miles spread evenly across 2022 is 5,000 × 58.5¢ + 5,000 × 62.5¢ = $6,050, not 10,000 × either rate. The same arithmetic applies to 2026 at 72.5 and 76 cents. Logs with per-trip dates handle this automatically; annual totals without dates cannot.

That last case is quietly the best argument in this article for per-trip records. A log that stores each trip with its date can be repriced against any rate table, any year, in one spreadsheet pass — which is exactly what an amendment or audit response requires. An annual “about 12,000 miles” cannot be repriced, defended, or split at July 1. The recordkeeping requirements and retention windows both assume the per-trip structure.

Why the rate moves the way it does

The IRS sets the business rate from an annual study of fixed and variable vehicle-operating costs — depreciation, fuel, insurance, maintenance. Depreciation is the largest component, which explains why the rate climbed through 2023–2026 even in months when pump prices fell: new-vehicle prices, financing, and insurance all rose faster than fuel retreated.

The medical/moving rate uses only the variable-cost slice of the study, so it tracks fuel more directly — visible in its 16-to-23.5-cent wander across the table while the business rate marched upward. The practical consequence for planning: the rate follows vehicle economics with a lag, and a December announcement is the only reliable signal for next year. Reimbursement policies that hard-code a number should reference “the current IRS rate” instead; policies that copied 62.5 cents in 2022 were 13.5 cents stale by mid-2026 — and a December-announced number went stale within the same year twice in five years.

Repricing history is easy when the log has dates

Every use of this table — amendments, late filings, audit responses, policy checks — comes down to multiplying dated miles by the right row. The multiplication is trivial; having dated miles is the hard part, three years after the fact.

MileTrack keeps the record in that shape by default: every drive is detected automatically, stored with its date and distance, classified as business, commute, or private, and exported as PDF, CSV, or XLSX. The CSV opens in a spreadsheet with one dated row per trip — repricing a prior year against this table is a lookup column, not a reconstruction. Free, no account, and trip history stays on your device, which is what makes it still available when the amendment window is closing. A sample export shows the dated one-row-per-trip layout this repricing depends on.

Related guides

• IRS Mileage Rate 2026: 72.5¢, Then 76¢ From July 1
• How Long Should I Keep Mileage Records? IRS and HMRC Answers
• Mileage Log Requirements for IRS: What to Record and How to Store It

Tax note: educational content only, not tax advice. Confirm rates against the IRS notice for the specific tax year before filing or amending.