HMRC's approved mileage rate for cars and vans rose from 45p to 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, the first change since the 2011/12 tax year. It was announced on 21 May 2026 but applies to the whole of 2026/27, which means every business mile driven since 6 April counts at the new rate — including the ones already logged, invoiced or reimbursed at 45p. In a niche where hygienists, therapists, locums and associates routinely work across two or three sites in a week, that gap is worth finding before the year closes.
Article · 15 September 2026
For thirteen tax years, the rate HMRC lets you claim for business mileage in your own car or van sat still at 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p after that, while fuel, insurance and every other running cost climbed steadily around it. On 21 May 2026, HMRC announced the first change since the 2011/12 tax year: the rate for cars and vans rises to 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, with the 25p rate above that left unchanged. Motorcycles stay at 24p, bicycles at 20p, and the 5p-per-passenger addition for carrying a fellow employee is untouched.
The detail that matters is the effective date. The increase is not from the announcement — it applies to the whole of the 2026/27 tax year, backdated to 6 April 2026. Every business mile driven between April and the May announcement, and every mile logged since at the old rate out of habit, is worth more than whoever recorded it thought.
These are Approved Mileage Allowance Payment (AMAP) rates: the flat, tax-free amount an employer can reimburse per business mile in a personally owned vehicle, and the same figure a self-employed clinician uses under simplified expenses instead of claiming a share of actual running costs. The rate does not vary by fuel type — a personally owned electric or hybrid car claims the same 55p as a diesel one. The separate Advisory Electricity Rate that HMRC publishes applies only to company-owned electric cars, which is a different situation from almost every dental clinician claiming mileage.
A solicitor or an accountant mostly drives to one office. Dental hygienists and therapists working across two or three practices in a week, locums covering wherever the rota needs them, and associates splitting sessions between a main site and a satellite surgery generate business mileage as a routine feature of the job, not an exception to it. The rate they claim it at was frozen for longer than most of them have been qualified.
Put real numbers on it. A self-employed hygienist working across three practices logs 4,800 business miles in 2026/27 — all within the first 10,000-mile band. At the old 45p rate that is a £2,160 expense; at 55p it is £2,640, a £480 increase in allowable expenses for exactly the same driving. On profits taxed at basic rate, that £480 sits alongside 6% Class 4 National Insurance, so the extra expense is worth roughly £124.80 in tax and NIC actually saved — money that only turns up if the mileage log is updated to 55p before the return is prepared, not left at the rate the spreadsheet was built with in April.
A locum covering three practices a fortnight apart typically drives further. On 12,000 business miles a year, the first 10,000 at 55p and the remaining 2,000 at the unchanged 25p rate comes to £6,000, against £5,000 under the old rates — a £1,000 increase in allowable expenses. For a locum with profits above the £50,270 higher-rate threshold, where the marginal tax and NIC rate is 40% income tax plus 2% Class 4, that £1,000 is worth £420 in tax actually saved, purely from updating a mileage log that most locums keep in a phone app and rarely revisit until January.
Practice owners who reimburse an employed dental nurse, receptionist or hygienist for business travel — cover shifts between sites, a training course, a visit to another surgery — need to check two things. First, whether payroll or the expenses process was updated to 55p, or whether it is still quietly paying 45p because nobody revisited it after April. Second, what happens to anyone paid at the old rate between 6 April and whenever the update actually happened.
An employee reimbursed below the approved rate can claim Mileage Allowance Relief on the shortfall, via a P87 form or their own Self Assessment return, without the practice doing anything further. A dental nurse paid 45p for 600 business miles driven between April and the practice's July update received £270; the approved amount was £330; the £60 shortfall is not itself repaid by HMRC, but she gets tax relief on it, worth a few pounds rather than nothing. The tidier fix is for the practice to top up anyone paid at the old rate since April directly, which avoids every employee separately filing a claim for a difference the practice caused. Either way, doing nothing is the one option that leaves the practice's own payroll records understating an allowable business cost for the year.
None of this changes what counts as a business mile — travel to a regular, permanent place of work still is not one, whichever rate applies to it. What changed is only the value of the miles that were already business miles, and it changed for a whole tax year that is already five months old. For associates and hygienists claiming mileage alongside the wider list of allowable costs, our guide to dental associate expenses covers what else belongs on the same return. If you would like your 2026/27 mileage log checked against the new rate, or want to know whether your practice's payroll caught the change, get in touch — hygienists and therapists working across several sites in particular should also see our page for accountants for dental hygienists and therapists, and locums driving further afield may want our notes on how a locum dentist's tax actually works.
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If you're self-employed, yes — go back through your 2026/27 mileage records and reclaim at 55p for the first 10,000 miles, because that is the rate that applies to the whole tax year regardless of when you drove the miles. Your return is not due until January 2028, so there is no urgency about the paperwork, only about not forgetting to do it before the figures are finalised. If you're employed and reimbursed by a practice, the position is different: what you were paid does not retrospectively change, but you can claim Mileage Allowance Relief on the shortfall between what you received and 55p, either by asking the practice to top it up or by claiming the relief yourself via a P87 or your Self Assessment return.
No. HMRC applies the new 55p rate to the whole of the 2026/27 tax year, which runs from 6 April 2026, several weeks before the change was announced. A mile driven on 10 April 2026 is worth 55p in your records exactly the same as one driven in June. This is the detail that catches people out, because most mileage logs and invoicing templates were set up in April at the rate everyone assumed would stay the same, and nobody automatically revisits an entry made months earlier just because a later one used a different figure.
Your own. As a self-employed locum you are not reimbursed mileage by a practice the way an employee is — you claim your own business mileage as an expense against your own profits, using the AMAP rate (55p for the first 10,000 miles, 25p above that) if you use simplified expenses rather than claiming a share of your actual vehicle costs. The practices you work at have no role in that claim at all. What matters is keeping one combined log across every site you drove to for work, since the 10,000-mile threshold applies to your total business mileage for the year, not separately per practice.
Yes, at the same rate as a petrol or diesel car. The AMAP mileage rate HMRC sets for cars and vans — 55p for the first 10,000 business miles, 25p after that — does not vary by fuel type when the vehicle is owned personally, which covers almost every self-employed dental clinician claiming mileage. The rate that does differ by fuel type, the Advisory Electricity Rate, only applies to electric cars owned by a company and driven by an employee, which is a different arrangement — relevant if you run a practice company car scheme, not to a hygienist, therapist or associate claiming mileage in their own vehicle.
Travel to a temporary workplace or between sites for work counts; your regular commute to a permanent place of work does not, whatever rate applies to it. An associate who works four days a week at one practice and covers a Saturday session at a second surgery can claim mileage for the Saturday journey but not for the regular four days, because the main practice is a permanent workplace under HMRC's rules. A locum or a hygienist working nowhere for long enough to count as permanent can usually claim every site they drive to. The rate change makes getting this distinction right worth more than it used to, but it does not change where the line sits.
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