Nebraska Mileage Reimbursement 2026: A Rate by Memorandum

The January memorandum set the personal-vehicle figure at 72.5 cents a mile from January 1, 2026, and named three more in the same paragraph: 70.5 cents for a motorcycle, $1.78 a mile for a privately owned aircraft, and 20.5 cents for moving and relocation mileage.

The July memorandum followed the federal mid-year increase. It printed the two personal-vehicle rates side by side, 72.5 cents for January 1 through June 30 and 76 cents as of July 1, and did the same for moving mileage, which moved to 23.5 cents.

That second memorandum is also the reason a Nebraska figure needs its date. An employee who finds only the January document pays the first-half rate for a July trip.

Section 81-1176 does not name a rate. It says reimbursement is computed on the rate the Department of Administrative Services establishes, and it lets that department set different rates depending on whose convenience the trip served.

The subsection that follows is the unusual one. Any future adjustment to the rate applies to every provision of law that refers to the section for computing mileage, so one memorandum moves the figure wherever the statute is used, without a second legislative act.

Nebraska is unusual among state travel rules in putting the deadline in law rather than in a manual. A state officer or employee must present the claim to the Director of Administrative Services not later than 60 days after the last day the expenses were incurred.

That window binds state claims. A private claim follows the employer's policy, and no Nebraska statute supplies one.

Nothing in section 81-1176 refers to the IRS or to the federal travel figure, so a 2027 Nebraska rate needs a new memorandum from the Department of Administrative Services. The department has tracked the IRS figure in practice, which is not the same as a rule that follows it.

An employee planning a January 2027 trip therefore has the mechanism and not the number. The department issues the figure, and it issues it at the start of the year.

The state rate binds state travel. For a private employer, the wage statute defines what is owed as compensation for work done, and an expense is not part of that definition, so no statutory duty to reimburse mileage exists.

A private claim follows the employer's written policy, and the state memorandum is the closest public benchmark for what a Nebraska agency pays on the same road.

• Check the memorandum date, not only the figure, because 2026 carried two.
• Ask whether the policy names a different rate for a trip taken for the employee's convenience.

The Department of Administrative Services publishes these figures. State officers and employees traveling on state business in a personal vehicle.

The figures come from the department's annual memorandum, and 2026 needed two because the federal rate moved in July.

The same memorandum also sets rates for a motorcycle, a privately owned aircraft and moving mileage, so a single document covers four kinds of travel.

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.