West Virginia Mileage Reimbursement 2026: An Announced Rate

West Virginia's travel rules do not print a number. They say reimbursement is made at the prevailing rate per mile established by the Travel Management Office, and the office then posts the figure with the date it takes effect. The current one is 76 cents a mile from July 1, 2026, in force until the office announces the next.

That announcement landed on the same day as the federal increase and matched it, which makes the rule look automatic when it is not. An announcement is a decision, and a year without one keeps the old figure.

The state also keeps an older mileage notice live, answering 70 cents from January 1, 2025. Two figures from one government is the reason a claimant should read the effective date before the number.

One West Virginia statute does set a mileage rate, and it reaches a public employer rather than a private one. County boards must reimburse school personnel who use a personal vehicle in the course of employment, at one rate for every employee in that county.

What that rate must be is written as a band. It may be no less than the lesser of two numbers and no more than the greater of them: the federal standard mileage rate, and the rate the Department of Administration's travel rule authorizes. A county board therefore has room to choose and no room to fall outside the pair.

The rule contains no reference to the IRS or the federal travel figure, so a 2027 rate needs a new announcement from the Travel Management Office. Until it comes, 76 cents stands, and the same part of the rule that delegates the figure also excludes normal daily commuting mileage from what is paid.

That exclusion is worth knowing before counting a total. A trip that starts at home and ends at the usual workplace does not become reimbursable because the state rate is generous; the rule takes those miles out first.

The travel rules apply to state employees and officials traveling on official state business, and the statute that authorizes them instructs the Governor to promulgate rules for that travel. Neither reaches a private payroll, and no West Virginia statute obliges a business to reimburse an employee's business miles.

A private claim follows the employer's written policy. The announced state figure is the closest thing to a public benchmark, and it tells an employee what a state agency pays on the same road.

• Read the effective date on the announcement, not the first number a search returns.
• Take the commuting miles out before applying any rate.

The State Travel Management Office publishes these figures. State employees and officials traveling on official state business in a privately owned vehicle.

The rule defines the figure as the prevailing rate the Travel Management Office establishes, so it changes by announcement rather than by a formula tied to the federal rate.

An older mileage notice on the same state site still answers 70 cents from January 1, 2025, which is why the effective date belongs beside the figure.

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.