Country guide · France

The barème kilométrique is a formula on the year, not a rate per kilometre

France publishes no mileage rate. It publishes a formula that takes the year's distance and the car's fiscal horsepower — which changes what you have to keep, and what you do not.

A formula, not a rate

Most countries answer "how much per kilometre?" with a number. France answers it with a table. CGI annexe IV art. 6 B sets the barème kilométrique: for each fiscal-horsepower row, three formulas, and the one that applies is chosen by the year's business distance d:

• Up to 5,000 km: d × a
• From 5,001 to 20,000 km: (d × a) + b
• Beyond 20,000 km: d × a

For a 5 CV petrol car that reads d × 0.636, then (d × 0.357) + €1,395, then d × 0.427. The fixed part b of the middle band runs from €1,065 in the lowest row to €1,515 in the highest, and it only exists for the year as a whole. Price trips one by one at a single figure and it never appears; and which band you are in is not known until the year's distance is. So a single trip carries no amount — the year does.

Three details decide which row is yours:

• The horsepower is the fiscal one — the CV shown on the carte grise.
• It stops at seven. The horsepower is "retenue dans la limite maximale de sept chevaux": 7 CV and anything above it share one row.
• A 100 % electric car gets 20 % more on every figure in the table.

The figures have not moved since the arrêté du 27 mars 2023; the same table serves income 2022 through 2025, and economie.gouv.fr confirmed on 13 April 2026 that "Le barème kilométrique pris en compte pour la déclaration des frais réels n'est pas revalorisé en 2026." One thing to keep apart: the separate fuel-only scale (BOI-BAREME-000003) did change, to a version of 18/02/2026 for 2025. It is a different scheme, and a figure from one is not a figure for the other.

Who may use it

• An employee who opts for frais réels (CGI art. 83, 3°).
• A BNC filer who opts for the barème for the year — and then for every vehicle, whether the car is recorded among the fixed assets or kept in private assets (BOI-BNC-BASE-40-60-40-20 §§ 110, 410, 420).

The one exclusion is narrow: a leased or crédit-bail car whose rentals are already deducted (§ 420). A BIC sole trader is in a different position altogether and gets only the fuel scale, with an annexe naming the vehicle, its registration, and its total and business kilometres (BOI-BIC-DECLA-30-20-20 § 360).

One barème per car, never pooled

Two cars are two calculations. The employee guidance is explicit — "Il ne doit donc pas être fait masse des kilomètres parcourus par l'ensemble des véhicules" (BOI-RSA-BASE-30-50-30-20 § 440) — and the BNC guidance says the barème is applied "de façon séparée à chacun des véhicules, en fonction de chaque puissance fiscale" (BOI-BNC-BASE-40-60-40-20 § 140).

It matters because the bands are not linear. Adding two cars' kilometres together can move the total into a band neither car is in, and apply one car's horsepower to the other's distance.

The justificatifs are totals, not a trip log

What BOFiP asks you to be able to show is aggregate: "la distance journalière parcourue, le nombre de jours ou de postes de travail où le déplacement a été nécessaire" (§ 230), plus "la fréquence, l'importance et la durée" of the trips (§ 440), and the car's own documents.

No French rule requires a per-trip odometer reading, a per-trip purpose, the person visited, or passenger names.

The purpose is still worth keeping. It is what carries the "nature professionnelle des déplacements" (§ 540). A distance with no reason attached answers "how far", not "why".

Commuting counts here

Most of the countries in this Journal treat the drive to work as private. In France, home-to-work travel is "inhérent à la fonction": one return trip a day, and the first 40 km each way are deductible as of right. Beyond that you need a justified reason and a note explicative on the return — without one, the claim is cut to 80 km × the number of days (CGI art. 83, 3°; BOI-RSA-BASE-30-50-30-20 §§ 10, 155–160).

What the barème already covers

The barème already includes the following, so none of it is claimed a second time: depreciation, repairs and maintenance, tyres, fuel or electricity, battery rental, insurance.

On top of it, with receipts: tolls, garage and parking, and the interest on a loan for the car, pro-rated to business use (§ 410).

A company car is a different question

A véhicule de fonction is not a barème case. It is an avantage en nature, and the employer picks how to value it for the year:

• The forfait — 15 % of the purchase price, or 20 % where the employer pays the fuel, for a car made available on or after 1 February 2025 (arrêté du 25 février 2025; 9 % and 12 % before that).
• The réel — "A × nombre de km parcourus à titre privé / total de km parcourus".

Only the réel needs a kilometre record, and BOSS names the proof: "les carnets de bord, de visite ou de rendez-vous". Either way there is no per-kilometre figure for the driver to claim.

Where an employer pays indemnités kilométriques for your own car, the ceiling is the same tax barème (arrêté du 4 septembre 2025, which replaced the arrêté du 20 décembre 2002), and BOSS asks the employer to be able to show "l'existence de déplacements professionnels et du nombre exact de kilomètres parcourus".

Six years, and the calendar year

The tax year is the calendar year (CGI art. 12). Income 2025 was declared in 2026: online between 21 May and 4 June depending on the département, on paper by 19 May.

Keep the records six years — LPF art. L102 B, which also says that a document created electronically is kept electronically. The administration can reassess income tax until the end of year N+3 (LPF art. L169), and ten years for a hidden activity.

Why an app rather than a notebook

Nothing above requires software, and France prescribes no field for each trip. What goes wrong here is not a missing column — it is the arithmetic around the log: kilometres from two cars added together, a year's distance that lands in the wrong band, commuting legs over the limit claimed as if they were not.

DriveHub asks for each car's fiscal horsepower and works out the barème per car, over the calendar year, then adds the cars together — never the kilometres. A personal trip between a place you have marked Home and one marked Work is counted as commuting, at up to 40 km a leg, keeping each day's two longest legs, and DriveHub states what those two limits left out rather than dropping it silently. Claiming that part is your own note explicative to write.

The motorcycle and moped barèmes and the fuel-only scale are separate schemes, and DriveHub does not apply them.

This page states what the texts themselves say, and names the article so you can check. It is not tax advice. It can't account for your circumstances. Where money is involved, ask your expert-comptable — and bring the records.