Alaska Mileage Reimbursement 2026: Four Classes of Vehicle

Most states publish one mileage figure and leave the rest to context. Alaska publishes a table, and the class of vehicle picks the column. The automobile figure follows the IRS rate. The airplane figure follows the federal aircraft rate, and motorcycles, snowmobiles and boats have a line of their own.

The fourth column is the one that changed shape in 2026. Until December 31, 2025 a traveler flying a private aircraft could choose a dry rate of 1.04 dollars a mile and invoice the fuel separately, with the reimbursement calculated at 15 miles to the gallon. That option ended with the year: from January 1, 2026 the aircraft figure is the only one, and it covers the fuel.

The Division of Finance states the rule its schedule follows: the state uses the IRS rate for automobiles and the federal travel rates for the other classes, and its implementation dates may lag slightly. A lag is not a rounding detail. It means the federal announcement and the Alaska table can disagree for a while, and the schedule is what a state traveler is paid.

The practical instruction is to price the trip from the schedule's own effective date. A trip driven in the gap between a federal change and the state's revision is paid the figure the schedule carried on the day of the drive, not the figure the IRS had already announced.

Nothing in the rate table reaches a private payroll. It is a schedule for state travel, and Alaska has no statute that obliges a private employer to reimburse mileage. The written policy decides the figure, and where that policy follows the federal rate the trip prices at 72.5 cents per mile through June 30, 2026 and 76 cents per mile from July 1.

• Ask the employer which figure the policy uses, because Alaska's own schedule will not answer it.
• Keep the travel date on every line: the state table and the federal rate both moved during 2026, and not on the same day.
• Treat the aircraft and motorcycle lines as state travel only; a private policy sets its own figure for both.

The Alaska Division of Finance publishes these figures. State employees and others traveling for the state in a privately owned vehicle, and the agencies that reimburse them. The schedule is for state travel.

The four lines are one schedule and not four programs: the class of vehicle decides which one a traveler is paid under.

The Division of Finance says the automobile figure comes from the IRS and the rest from the federal travel rates, and that Alaska's implementation dates may lag. The schedule's own effective date settles which figure a trip gets.

The IRS moved the business standard mileage rate mid-year, so a 2026 trip prices by its date. This is the benchmark an employer's rate method usually follows.

The IRS has not published a standard mileage rate for 2027. Until it does, two things decide what a trip pays: the year you drove it and the date within that year. A 2026 trip pays 72.5 cents per mile through June 30 and 76 cents per mile from July 1. Miles driven from January 1, 2027 will use whatever figure the IRS publishes next.

The next year's rate has arrived in December in each of the last nine years, between December 14 and December 31. An announcement is not always the last word. The IRS raised the 2026 figure on July 1, halfway through the year, so a 2027 claim may need two rate periods.

A state that publishes a rate for its own travelers follows its own calendar, so it can publish the next period before the IRS does. A private employer's rate changes when its own policy changes, or when the benchmark that policy follows moves. It does not change because the calendar year turns.