Travel and mileage costs for the self-employed in Germany: what you can deduct in 2026

Commuting or business travel: which trip is which?

For tax purposes there are two kinds of business trips. Trips between your home and your first place of business (erste Betriebsstätte) – the office, workshop, shop or a permanently rented coworking desk – can only be deducted with the commuting allowance (§ 4 Abs. 5 Satz 1 Nr. 6 EStG). All other trips made for business are business trips (Geschäftsreisen): to a client, a trade fair, a supplier, the bank or the tax advisor. The more favourable travel expense rules (Reisekosten) apply to them.

Important for solo self-employed people: a home office room or work corner is not a place of business for the purposes of the commuting allowance. If you work exclusively from home, every business trip starts at your home and is a business trip. If, on the other hand, you have an office, you calculate the trip there at €0.38 per kilometre of distance and the trip from the office to the client at €0.30 per kilometre driven.

Long projects with a single client are a special case: if you work permanently and regularly at a client’s premises, their location can count as your first place of business. Then only the commuting allowance applies to these trips – if in doubt on long-term projects, clarify this with your tax office (Finanzamt) or tax advisor.

Commuting allowance 2026: €0.38 from the first kilometre

With the Tax Amendment Act 2025 (Steueränderungsgesetz 2025) the commuting allowance was standardised: since 1 January 2026 there is €0.38 for every kilometre of the one-way distance, from the very first kilometre. Until 2025, €0.30 applied for the first 20 kilometres and €0.38 only from the 21st kilometre. The shortest road connection is used, only once per working day – the outward and return journey are both covered.

The allowance applies regardless of the means of transport: car, bicycle, bus or on foot. Without your own or a provided car it is capped at €4,500 per year. If your actual costs for bus and train are higher than the allowance, you may claim the actual ticket costs instead.

Example: your coworking desk is 12 km from your home, and you travel there on 180 days a year. In 2026 you deduct 12 × €0.38 × 180 = €820.80. Under the old 2025 calculation it would have been only 12 × €0.30 × 180 = €648.

Business trips: mileage allowance or actual costs

For business trips in a private vehicle you can claim a flat €0.30 per kilometre driven, i.e. there and back. For motorbikes, scooters, mopeds and other motorised vehicles it is €0.20 per kilometre. There is no kilometre rate for bicycles and e-bikes; here you can only deduct the actual proportional costs.

Instead of the flat rate you may also use an individual kilometre rate: total annual vehicle costs (depreciation, insurance, vehicle tax, fuel, garage, leasing) divided by the total kilometres. This pays off for expensive cars with low mileage, but requires all receipts and a record of kilometres.

If you use a vehicle more than 50 % for business, it must be treated as a business asset – then the rules for the company car and its private use apply, no longer the mileage allowance.

Meal allowances: flat rates in Germany and abroad

If you are away for a longer time on a business trip, you may claim meal allowances (Verpflegungsmehraufwand) – without receipts, regardless of what you actually ate. What counts is the time away from your home and first place of business. The actual restaurant bills are not deductible for this (exception: entertaining business partners, see business meal costs).

At the same location the allowances only apply for the first three months (three-month rule, Dreimonatsfrist); a break of at least four weeks restarts the period. If you are provided with meals, for example by the client or the event organiser, you reduce the daily allowance: by €5.60 (20 % of €28) for a breakfast and by €11.20 (40 %) for a lunch or dinner.

For trips abroad, separate allowances apply per country and in some cases per city, which the Federal Ministry of Finance publishes every year (for 2026 in the BMF letter of 5 December 2025). What counts is the place you last reach before midnight local time; for one-day trips, the last place of work.

Accommodation and incidental travel costs

As a self-employed person you deduct accommodation costs at the actual amount according to the hotel invoice; the flat rate of €20 only applies to tax-free reimbursements by employers. If breakfast is included in the room price and not shown separately, you deduct €5.60 per night from the accommodation costs – breakfast is covered by the meal allowance.

VAT (Umsatzsteuer) on hotel stays is 7 %, on breakfast and other services usually 19 %. If you are liable for VAT, you reclaim the tax shown as input VAT (Vorsteuer); make sure the invoice is in your name or your business’s name.

• Parking fees, car park at the station or airport.
• Tolls, vignettes and ferry costs.
• Luggage storage, travel insurance for the specific trip.
• Taxi and public transport at the destination.
• Entry to trade fairs and professional events, internet at the hotel.
• Phone costs on the road for business purposes.

Train, Deutschlandticket, e-bike and taxi

Train tickets for long-distance and local transport include 7 % VAT, domestic flights 19 %, and cross-border flights are VAT-exempt. Taxi rides in the local area (within the municipality or up to 50 km) are charged at 7 %, ride services and hire cars with driver usually at 19 %.

In 2026 the Deutschlandticket costs €63 per month. If you use it exclusively for business, it is fully deductible. If you also use it privately, only the business share is deductible – for example based on the trips you would otherwise have paid for with single tickets. For the trip to your place of business you can alternatively claim the commuting allowance if it is higher.

You can buy a bicycle or e-bike used for business as work equipment: up to €800 net as a low-value asset (GWG), above that over its useful life through depreciation (AfA). If it is a business asset and you also ride it privately, you pay tax on the private share.

Logbook and evidence for business trips

For the mileage allowance with your private car you do not need a logbook in the strict sense required for a company car. However, the tax office can ask you to prove every business trip. A simple list kept promptly is usually enough. Keep it together with tickets, hotel invoices and parking receipts – accounting vouchers for eight years, see GoBD and retention periods.

• Date, starting point and destination, client or occasion (e.g. “Workshop project X, company Y”).
• Kilometres driven (route planner printout or odometer reading).
• Departure and return time for the meal allowance.
• For trips to your place of business: number of days and one-way distance.

Worked example: one year of travel and mileage costs

Tobias is a freelance software developer without his own office. He works from home, drives to a client twelve times a year in his private car (one-way distance 45 km) and travels once by train for two days to a conference in Hamburg. Below you can see what he claims as business expenses in his EÜR.

With a marginal tax rate of 35 %, Tobias saves around €420 in income tax; as a business liable for VAT he also deducts the input VAT from the train ticket, hotel and conference ticket. If on 12 days he drove not 45 km but 3 km to a coworking desk he rents permanently, he would only get 3 × €0.38 = €1.14 per day for it.

Travel and mileage costs with KontoVexa

In KontoVexa you record a trip with your private vehicle without a receipt via “Private car trip”: you choose Business trip with the kilometres driven, or Drive to your office with the one-way distance and working days. KontoVexa calculates with the statutory rates on the date of the trip and books the amount as a business expense in the EÜR. You upload train tickets, hotel and taxi invoices as receipts and choose the right category with the correct tax rate, so that the input VAT ends up in the advance VAT return (Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldung). More on recording expenses.

Frequently asked questions