Arizona Mileage Reimbursement 2026: 67 Cents, Then 76

ARS 38-623 gives the Department of Administration the job of setting reimbursement rates for state travel by motor vehicle and by airplane, and says how to set them: the department considers the amounts the Internal Revenue Service accepts for income tax purposes without further documentation.

The same subsection then withholds the effect. No increase or decrease from the current rate takes effect until the Joint Legislative Budget Committee approves it. The IRS needs no such approval, so the two schedules move on different calendars, and a traveler is paid the state figure on the state's timetable.

The state rate held at 67 cents for most of the year and changed in October, so a 2026 claim splits at the date the manual names rather than at the federal boundary of July 1. A trip driven on October 18 is priced at 67 cents and a trip driven on October 19 at 76.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee's agenda for September 30, 2026 lists the Department of Administration's travel rate adjustments for consideration. The General Accounting Office then published them: its notice for the manual update effective October 19, 2026 says the new maximum reimbursement rates for lodging and mileage are published there.

The same step explains the figure nobody has touched. A privately owned aircraft still pays 99.5 cents a mile under a date of November 15, 2006, because each figure the manual carries needs its own approval, and no committee has changed that one since.

ARS 38-623 governs travel by state officers and employees. It creates no duty for a private employer and sets no rate that binds one, so the policy the employer wrote decides what a business mile pays. Where that policy follows the federal figure, the trip prices at 72.5 cents per mile through June 30, 2026 and 76 cents per mile from July 1, and the state figure reached the same number on October 19, by its own route.

• Read the employer's policy for the rate, and the state manual only for what the state pays.
• Keep the travel date, because a rate that waits for approval can change outside the federal calendar.
• Leave fuel receipts out of a claim paid per mile, since the figure already covers the running costs.

The Arizona General Accounting Office publishes these figures. State officers and employees traveling in a personal vehicle, with a separate figure for a privately owned aircraft. The manual carries out ARS 38-623, which governs state travel and not a private payroll.

Each figure carries the date the department set it, and that date is the one to check against the travel date rather than the date of the claim.

The federal figures for the same year are 72.5 cents per mile through June 30, 2026 and 76 cents per mile from July 1, so a private policy that follows the IRS pays the July figure while the state paid 67 cents until October.

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.