When Each Country Publishes Its Next Mileage Rate

The table splits into three groups. Germany and Ireland have their next figure already, for different reasons. Five countries have announced when their next rate arrives. South Africa and the Netherlands set the figure through the year's Budget or tax plan, so the figure comes from legislation rather than an agency notice.

The published column is the rate a claim uses today, not the rate for the year the next release will cover. That distinction matters in December and January, when payroll can hold a new year before it holds a new rate.

Germany sets the rate in the statute. The business rate is 30 cents per kilometre and the commuting rate is 38 cents, both in § 9 EStG. On 1 January 2026 the commuting rate became 38 cents for every kilometre, replacing 30 cents for the first 20 kilometres and 38 cents beyond. The Steueränderungsgesetz 2025 removed the expiry date from that rise, so the statute now states 38 cents with no end date. The 2026 table therefore sets the 2027 figure too, and the German page lists the same amounts for both years.

Ireland's table is not annual. Revenue announced the civil service rates in force since 1 September 2022 as a three-year fix, and its table was still unchanged on 17 October 2026. The Irish page quotes the same four distance bands for each of three engine sizes, so Revenue applies the same bands to a 2027 claim as to a 2023 one and no circular has to arrive before January.

A mileage rate belongs to a tax year. Five of the nine countries here use the calendar year. South Africa's year starts on 1 March, New Zealand's on 1 April, the UK's on 6 April and Australia's on 1 July. Each agency sets a figure for its own year. The IRS publishes a 2027 rate in December, SARS in February, the ATO in June, and Inland Revenue after the year has closed.

The method behind the figure also changes the date. The IRS waits for an annual study of what it costs to run a car and writes the notice from the result. HMRC treats the approved rate as a policy decision, so the figure can stay unchanged for fifteen years and then change in one step. Inland Revenue works from the costs a year produced, which is why it cannot publish until the year is over. Germany sets its rate in the statute and Ireland's comes from a civil-service circular, so neither has a release date to wait for.

In each of the last nine years, the IRS released the next year's rates between 14 and 31 December. The 2026 rates came on 29 December 2025, three days before the first pay run of the year. The 2027 tracker reports the same status until the IRS publishes the next notice.

The IRS can revise a December rate before the year ends, and it has done so five times since 2005, in 2026, 2022, 2011, 2008 and 2005, each time citing fuel prices. The 2026 year ended up with two business rates, 72.5 cents for January to June and 76 cents from 1 July. The rate history lists both 2026 rates, alongside every year since 2019.

For a 2027 budget, that record supports two rate periods rather than one. A single annual figure assumes the December notice lasts the year, and in five of the years since 2005 it did not.

Finance Canada has announced the automobile rates in December for most recent years, but not all of them. The 2025 limits came on 30 December 2024. The 2026 limits came on 14 January 2026, two weeks after the year they covered had begun, so a claim paid in the first days of January could only be priced correctly after the fact.

The 2026 split is 73 cents for the first 5,000 kilometres and 67 cents after that for provinces, with territories at 77 and 71, as the 2026 rate page sets out. The same release also sets the leasing, capital cost and benefit rates, which is the part an employer misses when it watches only the per-kilometre figure. The 2027 tracker follows the whole release.

HMRC sets the approved rate as a policy decision, and the timing follows from that. Cars and vans stayed at 45p for fifteen tax years. On 21 May 2026 the government raised the rate for the first 10,000 miles to 55p and applied it from 6 April 2026, six weeks before the announcement, so employers that had paid 45p for April and May had to top up the difference. The 2026-27 rate page lists the figures in force: 55p for the first 10,000 business miles, 25p after that, 24p for motorcycles and 20p for bicycles.

HMRC has not published a 2027-28 figure. It normally puts a tax year's rates in its employer guidance before 6 April, but the 2026 change shows that the announcement date and the start date can be different days. A policy that names the approved rate instead of a number handles both the delay and the backdating. The 2027-28 tracker records what is known so far.

Australia sets the next income year's rate in June. The 2026-27 determination was made on 23 June 2026 and took effect on 1 July 2026, which leaves about a week between the determination and the first trips it covers. The rate is 91 cents per kilometre for up to 5,000 work kilometres per car, from 88 cents the year before. The 2026-27 page sets out the cap and the conditions.

New Zealand publishes after the year ends. Inland Revenue sets a year's kilometre rates once it is over, using that year's costs, and the last two sets appeared in late May 2025 and early June 2026. The rates for the income year that began on 1 April 2026 will therefore arrive around May 2027.

Until then, the latest published figures are the 2025-26 rates: 120 cents for the first 14,000 kilometres in a petrol car and 37 cents after that, with diesel at 130 then 38, petrol hybrid at 90 then 24, and electric vehicles at 122 then 23. New Zealand is the only country here where a taxpayer can drive a full year before the rate for it exists, which is why a claim there should record kilometres and vehicle type as the trips happen.

South Africa's year of assessment runs from 1 March to the end of February, and SARS publishes a new table in the Budget each February for the year that starts on 1 March. The current figure is R4.95 per kilometre under the simplified rate, for the first 8,000 business kilometres. The 2027-28 table arrives with the February 2027 Budget, which is later than the IRS window and earlier than the ATO's June instrument.

The Netherlands sets a ceiling for the calendar year. The 2026 ceiling is €0.25 per kilometre, raised from €0.23 and backdated to 1 January 2026. That rise came in the Belastingplan 2027, the annual tax plan that can change the ceiling after the year has begun. The Netherlands has not published a 2027 ceiling, so an employer may have to wait until the next plan sets one.

• Record the date of every trip. The rate follows the day of travel, so the date decides both the year and the period a claim belongs to.
• Split the log at the boundary. December 2026 and January 2027 are separate periods in the five calendar-year countries; South Africa splits at 1 March, New Zealand at 1 April, the UK at 6 April and Australia at 1 July.
• Check whether the next rate is already set. Germany and Ireland need no January update, so a policy there can name the 2027 rate now.
• Name the published rate in the policy, not a figure. A clause that points to the rate published for the date of travel updates itself; a clause that says 76 cents does not. The policy template includes the first kind.
• Leave the amount blank on a claim that cannot be priced yet. A mileage log that records distance and category can be priced later, at whichever figure is published.
• Load the new rate before the first pay run of the year. In the United States and Canada that means December or early January; in South Africa, February for the 1 March start; in the UK, before 6 April; in Australia, before 1 July; in New Zealand, whenever Inland Revenue sets the previous year's rates. The Netherlands may set its rate after 1 January, as it did for 2026, so plan to correct the early months.

Each country publishes in a different place, and a rate finder that lists every rule with its source saves checking nine sites. The IRS puts the figure in a news release and the weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin, Finance Canada in a Department of Finance release, HMRC in the travel and fuel allowances guidance, the ATO in a legislative instrument, Inland Revenue in an operational statement, SARS in its February Budget table, and the Netherlands in the annual tax plan. Germany's figure is in § 9 EStG and Ireland's in a Revenue circular, so a new rate needs a new law or a new circular.