Louisiana Mileage Reimbursement 2026: A Rate From the Federal Schedule

Louisiana's travel guide does not print a figure to revise. Personal vehicle mileage is reimbursed at the published GSA rate, and the state's own travel index links the personal-vehicle rate straight to the government rate schedule.

The result for 2026 is 76 cents per mile on or after July 1 and 72.5 cents per mile before it, because the federal figure moved on July 1. A claimant reads the rate off the GSA schedule for the date of the trip, which is what the guide tells a state traveler to do.

One copy of the rule has not kept up. The Louisiana Administrative Code still carries a version of this rule that caps mileage at 54 cents a mile, which is where that older figure comes from and why it still circulates.

The current travel guide replaced that number with the GSA reference, so the codified text is a stale copy rather than a separate rule. A claim priced at 54 cents is priced against a document the State no longer follows.

Louisiana is the only state in this group whose mileage rule reaches a private employer, and it reaches a narrow case: medical travel under the workers' compensation statute. The employer is liable for mileage reasonably and necessarily traveled to obtain medical services, and when the employee uses a personal vehicle the statute sets the rate at the same per-mile figure the State pays its own employees for personal-vehicle use.

Because that duty is defined through the state rate, it inherits the GSA reference. The workers' compensation rate moves with the federal figure, not with a separate schedule in the statute.

A 2027 Louisiana figure needs no new state instrument, because the guide points at the published GSA rate. When that schedule moves, the state rate is the new figure.

One condition matters. The guide adopts the GSA rate, not the IRS rate, so the two would part company if the federal government ever set them on different dates. In 2026 they moved together on July 1.

Outside workers' compensation medical travel, no Louisiana statute requires a private employer to reimburse business mileage. The travel guide governs state officers and employees, and a private claim follows the employer's written policy.

The state figure is still the most useful benchmark, because a policy that tracks the federal rate pays what the State pays on the same date for the same trip.

• Price a workers' compensation trip at the state rate rather than at the employer's own policy figure.
• Keep the treatment dates: the medical-travel rate follows the date of the trip, not the date of the injury.

The Louisiana Division of Administration publishes these figures. State officers and employees traveling on official state business in a personally owned vehicle.

The guide defines the rate as the published GSA rate rather than naming an amount, so the figures move with the federal schedule and need no Louisiana revision.

The codified administrative code still prints an older figure; the current travel guide replaced it, and the guide is the document a claim is paid against.

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.