Claiming Car Travel

If you use your car for work you are entitled to claim the expenses that relate to the business costs of using your car to do your job. There are a number of methods you can use to claim the car expenses. You must own the car to claim under any of these methods and the record keeping requirement is detailed for each method.

Method 1 – Cents per kilometer

Method 2 – 12% of original value

Method 3 – One-third of actual expenses

Method 4 – Logbook

if you make two or more journeys in a row on the same day, you can record them as a single journey

NB: From the 2015/16 income year, methods 2 and 3 (the ‘12% of original value’ and ‘one-third of actual expenses’ methods have been abolished and a single cents per kilometer rate (66 cents) has been introduced for method 1 (the ‘cents per kilometer’ method), irrespective of your car’s engine capacity.

Important Note: If your car is provided by your employer, or as part of your salary package you cannot claim any of the car costs, whatsoever.

What you cannot claim
You cannot claim the cost of normal trips between home and work because that travel is private even if: