HMRC Mileage Log Template: Simple Format for Claim-Ready Records

A mileage log template for UK claims needs to optimise for one thing: evidence quality. If you cannot explain each business journey to a stranger six months from now, the template is not doing its job.

HMRC does not mandate a specific format. You can use a spreadsheet, a notebook, or an app. What matters is that your records are consistent, complete, and easy to retrieve. This guide covers the fields to include, shows a worked example with different journey types, and flags the mistakes that most commonly trigger problems.

Required fields for a UK mileage log

At minimum, every entry needs:

Column	What to record
Date	The date of travel (not the date you entered it)
Start location	Where the journey began — enough detail to identify the place
End location	Where the journey ended
Business purpose	A specific reason for the trip
Miles	Distance for this journey
Vehicle	Which vehicle you used

Optional but recommended extras:

• Client or project reference
• Temporary workplace flag
• Passengers carried (relevant for the 5p per mile supplement)
• Reimbursement status (if your employer pays mileage)

Example mileage log

Here is a template with six entries showing different journey types you might record across a typical working month:

Date	Start Location	End Location	Purpose	Miles	Vehicle
03/02/2026	Home, Bristol	Barker & Co, Bath	Quarterly accounts review meeting	14.2	Ford Focus
05/02/2026	Main office, Bristol	Davies Supplies, Chippenham	Collect materials for Henderson project	23.8	Ford Focus
10/02/2026	Home, Bristol	West of England Training Centre, Exeter	ACCA CPD workshop (full day)	82.4	Ford Focus
14/02/2026	Home, Bristol	Ashton Gate temp site, Bristol	Weekly inspection at temporary workplace	4.6	Ford Focus
19/02/2026	Home, Bristol → Marshall Ltd, Swindon → Reeves & Co, Marlborough	Multiple client visits (see notes)	Portfolio review at Marshall; contract signing at Reeves	98.3	Ford Focus
19/02/2026	Reeves & Co, Marlborough	Home, Bristol	Return from final client visit	47.1	Ford Focus

A few things to notice in this example:

• Client visit (row 1): Specific client name and meeting purpose — not just “meeting.”
• Supplier pickup (row 2): Shows a business reason for the trip, with the project referenced.
• Training course (row 3): Training at a venue away from your normal workplace qualifies as business travel. Include the course name or type.
• Temporary workplace (row 4): If you are working at a site for a limited period, that journey is business travel — flag it as a temporary workplace.
• Multiple stops (row 5): When a journey has several business stops, list the route and break out the purpose for each stop. If there were personal stops in the chain (petrol station is fine; gym is not), split the entry so personal miles are excluded.
• Return journey (row 6): Record the return leg as a separate entry. It is still business travel if the outbound leg was.

Monthly workbook structure

Use one workbook per tax year, with one tab per month.

At the top of each monthly tab, include:

• Business miles subtotal for that month.
• Cumulative annual business miles — so you can see when you approach the 10,000-mile AMAP threshold.
• AMAP calculation — miles × rate for that month. Remember: 45p for the first 10,000 annual miles, 25p after that.

At year-end, a summary tab should pull together the monthly totals and show the threshold split clearly.

What makes a good log entry

A strong log entry passes the “stranger test” — someone with no knowledge of your business could read it and understand what the journey was, why it was business-related, and where it went.

Five qualities of a good entry:

1. Specific destination. “Client office” is weak. “Harper Engineering, Unit 4, Swindon Business Park” is strong.
2. Clear purpose. “Work” tells HMRC nothing. “Final inspection of completed electrical installation” tells them everything.
3. Accurate mileage. Use your car’s odometer, a mapping tool, or GPS tracking. Rough estimates invite scrutiny.
4. Recorded promptly. Entries made on the day of travel (or within a few days) carry more weight than entries reconstructed weeks later.
5. Consistent format. Every entry follows the same structure. Gaps, format changes, or missing fields make the whole log look unreliable.

Common mistakes to avoid

Vague purpose descriptions

“Business,” “client,” and “meeting” are the three most common purpose entries — and they are all too vague. HMRC expects enough detail to confirm the journey was genuinely for business. Add who you visited, where, and why.

Mixing commuting with business travel

Travel to your permanent workplace is ordinary commuting and is not claimable. If you work from home three days a week and drive to a regular office the other two, those office trips are commuting — even if you also do business while you are there.

Temporary workplaces are different. If you are sent to a client site for a three-month project, travel to that site qualifies as business mileage. The GOV.UK guidance on travel expenses explains the distinction.

Not tracking cumulative annual miles

The AMAP threshold at 10,000 miles means your per-mile rate drops from 45p to 25p. If you do not track cumulative miles, you will either overclaim (applying 45p to everything) or underclaim (applying 25p too early). Both are problems — one triggers HMRC attention, the other costs you money.

Round-number entries

A log full of journeys that are exactly 10, 15, or 20 miles looks estimated rather than measured. Real journeys have irregular distances — 14.2 miles, 23.8 miles, 7.6 miles. If every entry is a round number, HMRC may question the accuracy of the entire log.

Year-end bulk entry

Filling in twelve months of journeys in January is the fastest way to produce a weak log. Distances are guessed, purposes are vague, and the entries lack the specificity that contemporaneous records have. Weekly updates take five minutes; annual reconstruction takes hours and produces worse results.

Forgetting return journeys

If you drive to a client and back, that is two journey entries, not one. Some people record the outbound trip but forget the return, losing half their claimable miles.

No vehicle column

If you use more than one vehicle for business — perhaps a car for long trips and a bicycle for local client visits — you need to record which vehicle you used for each journey. AMAP rates differ by vehicle type: 45p per mile for cars and vans, 24p for motorcycles, 20p for bicycles. Without a vehicle column, you cannot calculate your claim correctly at year-end.

Record retention and your template

HMRC requires you to keep business records for at least five years after the 31 January Self Assessment filing deadline for the relevant tax year. For the 2025/26 tax year, that means retaining your mileage log until at least 31 January 2032.

Store your monthly exports (PDF summaries and CSV raw data) in a folder structure that you can access long-term. Cloud storage is convenient, but keep a local backup too — services change, accounts expire, and you do not want to lose five years of records because a subscription lapsed. The GOV.UK self-employed records page confirms the retention rules.

Template plus app workflow

A mileage tracking app and a template work well together:

1. Auto-capture journeys — the app records GPS data, distance, and times.
2. Weekly classification — spend five minutes categorising trips as business, commute, or personal. Add purpose notes.
3. Monthly export and archive — pull summary and raw data from the app into your monthly folder.
4. Template cross-check — reconcile the app’s figures against your template totals to catch any discrepancies.

This keeps your Self Assessment workflow clean and gives you two independent sources of evidence.

Related UK guides

• HMRC Mileage Rates 2026: Practical AMAP Guide for UK Claims
• Mileage Claim HMRC: Self-Employed Workflow That Survives Review
• HMRC Mileage Logbook Rules: Recordkeeping Checklist for 2026

Month-close checklist

Before closing each month:

• No uncategorised journeys remain.
• Purpose notes are specific for any edge-case trips.
• Monthly summary and raw export are saved to the archive folder.
• Cumulative annual business miles are updated.
• Threshold split is recalculated if you crossed 10,000 miles that month.

A practical mileage log template is one you maintain all year — not one you build from scratch in January.

MileTrack captures journeys automatically, classifies them as business, commute, or private, and exports claim-ready reports with all the fields HMRC expects. See the current UK product page at miletrack.app/en-gb.

Tax note: educational content only, not tax advice.