MilometryThe 24p and 20p rates for motorcycles and bicycles
Motorcycles and bicycles have their own approved mileage rates, and unlike the car rate they are not banded at 10,000 miles.
General information, not advice. Written as general information and correct as far as we know on 27 September 2026. Tax rules change, and how they apply depends on your own circumstances. This is not tax, legal or financial advice: check with an accountant, a tax adviser or HMRC before you rely on it.
The car rate is better known: 55p a mile for journeys from 6 April 2026. HMRC also publishes approved rates for motorcycles and bicycles, and they behave differently.
The rates
- Cars and vans: 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year, then 25p
- Motorcycles: 24p a mile, flat
- Bicycles: 20p a mile, flat
The important word is flat. The 10,000-mile threshold that drops car mileage to 25p does not apply to motorcycles or bicycles. Ride 15,000 business miles on a motorbike and every one of them is 24p.
These are the approved amounts an employer can pay an employee tax free. If you are self-employed and use simplified expenses, the 24p motorcycle rate applies too, but there is no bicycle rate in simplified expenses.
What the flat rate is worth at higher mileage
Because motorcycle and bicycle rates are not banded, the gap to the car narrows once you pass the threshold:
| Business miles | Car (banded) | Motorcycle (24p flat) | Bicycle (20p flat) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,000 | £1,100 | £480 | £400 |
| 10,000 | £5,500 | £2,400 | £2,000 |
| 20,000 | £8,000 (40.0p avg) | £4,800 | £4,000 |
| 30,000 | £10,500 (35.0p avg) | £7,200 | £6,000 |
The car rate is higher per mile at every level, but the gap narrows above 10,000 miles. All of these are approved amounts, meant to cover the cost of running the vehicle, not money to keep.
Why the bicycle rate gets ignored
Because it sounds trivial. It is worth doing the arithmetic before you decide that.
A four-mile round trip to a client twice a week is roughly 400 business miles a year. At 20p that is an approved amount of £80 for journeys that are easy not to record. If you are an employee whose employer pays nothing, that becomes tax relief on £80 (£16 for a basic-rate taxpayer). Not life-changing, but it costs you nothing to have counted it.
For employees who make local calls by bike, or anyone employed in a city where the bike genuinely is the sensible vehicle, the numbers get considerably more interesting.
The same rules still apply
None of this changes what counts as business travel. A cycle commute from home to a permanent workplace is ordinary commuting and is not claimable, exactly as it would be in a car. The journey has to be travel in the performance of your duties, or to a temporary workplace.
A Cycle to Work bike is provided by your employer, so the 20p rate for your own bike does not apply to it.
Recording them
The evidence HMRC expects is the same whatever you were riding: the date, where you went and came from, why it was business, and the distance. That is the awkward part on a bike, because there is no odometer to photograph and nobody wants to stop and write things down.
Milometry records the journey by GPS regardless of what you were on, so a bike trip logs itself the same way a drive does. Set the vehicle up with its own rate and the claim adds up correctly against the flat rate rather than the banded car one.
Sources
- Travel, mileage and fuel rates and allowances (HMRC)
- Claim tax relief for your job expenses: vehicles you use for work (HMRC)
- EIM31240: approved mileage allowance payments, the rates (HMRC manual)
- Simplified expenses: vehicles (HMRC)
- Ordinary commuting and private travel: 490 chapter 3 (HMRC)
- 490: Tax and National Insurance contributions for employee travel (HMRC)
General information for UK drivers and riders, not tax advice.
