The IRS gives you two different ways to deduct the cost of using your car for rideshare driving, and they work completely differently. Picking the right one matters, and once you've picked, switching later isn't always straightforward. This is general information, not tax advice for your specific situation. Talk to a tax professional before deciding which method to use.
The standard mileage rate
This is the simpler of the two. You track the miles you drive for rideshare and multiply them by a flat rate the IRS sets each year to represent the average cost of operating a vehicle, gas, maintenance, depreciation, and everything else rolled into one number. DriveLens estimates deductions this way by default, using the current year's rate (for example, $0.725 per mile for 2026).
The appeal is simplicity: one number, one log of your business miles, done. You don't need to track receipts for gas, oil changes, tires, or repairs individually.
The actual expense method
This method has you track and deduct the real cost of operating your vehicle: gas, insurance, maintenance, repairs, depreciation, and more, then apply your business-use percentage (rideshare miles divided by total miles) to the total. If your actual costs are high, a high-mileage year with a major repair, for instance, this can produce a bigger deduction than the standard rate would.
The trade-off is the record-keeping. You need receipts for essentially everything you spend on the car, not just a mileage log, and you need to calculate depreciation, which gets complicated.
You can't always switch freely
If you use the standard mileage rate in the first year you use a vehicle for business, you can generally switch to actual expenses in a later year. But if you start with actual expenses (specifically, if you use a depreciation method that isn't compatible with the standard rate), you may be locked out of the standard mileage rate for that vehicle going forward. This is one of the more common ways drivers accidentally box themselves into the harder method, so it's worth deciding deliberately in year one rather than defaulting into it.
Which one should you use?
For most rideshare drivers, the standard mileage rate is the more practical choice: it's simpler to track, simpler to defend if you're ever asked about it, and the difference in deduction size is often smaller than the extra record-keeping is worth. Actual expenses tend to make more sense for drivers with unusually high vehicle costs relative to their mileage, or those already tracking every expense in detail for other reasons.
Either way, the deduction is only as good as your records. DriveLens logs your mileage automatically during every shift regardless of which method you use, which covers the one thing both methods require: proof of how many miles you actually drove for rideshare.