Country guide · Spain · 7 min

Kilometraje as an autónomo in Spain: there is no 0,26 €/km for your own car

By Andrei Zamiralov · Updated 5 Oct 2026

Many pages on kilometraje for autónomos tell you to multiply your business kilometres by 0,26 €. That figure is what an employer may pay an employee tax-free. As an autónomo you deduct nothing per kilometre. What counts is the car's actual costs, and only as far as your territory's rules let the car count.

The short answer

The 0,26 €/km is not yours to claim. It is the amount an employer may pay an employee free of tax, under the Reglamento del IRPF art. 9.A.2.b), as revised by Orden HFP/792/2023.
An autónomo deducts no figure per kilometre at all. Under the common regime a car is indivisible: wholly business or not business (Reglamento del IRPF art. 22.3). What you claim is the car's actual costs, never kilometres × a rate.
The Basque Country and Navarre have their own income-tax law, and none of their four texts gives an autónomo a per-kilometre figure either. Each sends you to a share of the car's actual costs, with two euro caps a year.
A log of your trips is still worth keeping. It is evidence of how the car is used. A fuel invoice proves the fuel, not the trip.

Where the 0,26 €/km comes from

The Reglamento del IRPF, article 9.A.2.b), exempts what an employer pays for an employee's travel in their own car: 0,26 € per kilometre. Justified tolls and parking go on top, "siempre que se justifique la realidad del desplazamiento". The 0,26 comes from Orden HFP/792/2023, in force since 17 July 2023.

Every word of that rule is about an allowance an employer pays. It sets the limit up to which the payment is not the employee's income. It is not a deduction you take on your own return.

One more trap if you check the source yourself. The BOE's consolidated text of article 9 still prints 0,19 € in its body: «b) En otro caso, la cantidad que resulte de computar 0,19 euros por kilómetro recorrido…». The 0,26 sits beneath it only as a «Téngase en cuenta» note. The 0,19 is the figure that stood until 17 July 2023.

What the 0,26 covers for an employee is on kilometraje at 0,26 €/km; why the employer carries the burden of proof is on who must prove the journey.

Why "kilometres × 0,26" goes wrong for an autónomo

Say you drove 12 000 business kilometres in the year. The myth puts 12 000 × 0,26 € = 3 120 € on your return as an expense.

No rule gives that 3 120 € to an autónomo. The 0,26 €/km is an employer's instrument, so there is no per-kilometre expense to enter. A figure built that way is not one you can file.

What goes on the return instead is the car's actual costs, and only if the car counts as business at all. That is the next question.

What the IRPF looks at instead: is the car business or not?

Under the common regime, the question is not how many kilometres were business. It is whether the car belongs to the activity at all.

The Reglamento del IRPF, art. 22.3, treats an indivisible asset as wholly business or not business; it cannot be partly business. A car is indivisible. So a car you drive for both clients and the school run does not become 60 % business because 60 % of the kilometres were.

If the car does count as business, you deduct its actual costs. If it does not, the income tax gives you nothing for it.

The five exceptions in art. 22.4

Art. 22.4 lets an asset used privately only "en días u horas inhábiles durante los cuales se interrumpa el ejercicio de dicha actividad" stay wholly business. It then shuts cars out of that rule, "salvo los siguientes supuestos":

a) Los vehículos mixtos destinados al transporte de mercancías.
b) Los destinados a la prestación de servicios de transporte de viajeros mediante contraprestación.
c) Los destinados a la prestación de servicios de enseñanza de conductores o pilotos mediante contraprestación.
d) Los destinados a los desplazamientos profesionales de los representantes o agentes comerciales.
e) Los destinados a ser objeto de cesión de uso con habitualidad y onerosidad.

So five kinds of car stay wholly business despite private use outside working hours. They are a mixed goods vehicle, a taxi, a driving-school car, a commercial agent's car, and a car hired out habitually for a fee. That is all 22.4 does. It does not give any car a share for mixed use.

How VAT treats the same car under a different test is on IVA del coche para autónomos. The two taxes can give different answers for the same car.

The Basque Country and Navarre: their own rules

Under the Concierto Económico and the Convenio Económico, the three Basque provinces and Navarre legislate their own income tax. The common-territory rule above does not govern them, and none of the four texts gives an autónomo a figure per kilometre. Every one routes you to a share of the car's actual costs. Of the four, only Gipuzkoa keeps the "indivisible" rule.

Each foral rule caps that share twice a year. One cap is on the car's cost: amortisation, lease or cesión. The other is on everything else: fuel, insurance, repairs, parking and the like.

	Mixed-use car	Exclusive business use, proved	Instrument
Common territory	indivisible — nothing	wholly business, actual costs	RIRPF art. 22.3
Gipuzkoa	no 50 % branch — "En ningún caso serán susceptibles de afectación parcial elementos patrimoniales indivisibles"	car's cost ≤ 6 000 € · other costs ≤ 7 200 €	NF 3/2014 art. 26.2; art. 27 regla 5ª Dos as worded by NF 1/2025 (from 2025)
Bizkaia	where the car is notoriamente relevante y habitual: car's cost ≤ 3 000 € · other costs ≤ 3 600 €	car's cost ≤ 6 000 € · other costs ≤ 7 200 €	NF 13/2013 art. 27 regla 5ª Dos and Tres
Álava	same test: car's cost ≤ 3 000 € · other costs ≤ 3 600 €	car's cost ≤ 6 000 € · other costs ≤ 7 200 €	NF 33/2013 art. 27 regla 5ª Dos and Tres, as amended by NF 3/2025
Navarre	by default: car's cost ≤ 50 % × rate × 25 000 € · other costs ≤ 4 000 €	car's cost ≤ rate × 25 000 € · other costs ≤ 7 000 €	TR IRPF art. 37 → Reglamento art. 21.5 → LF 26/2016 art. 23.3

The Basque texts also express the car's-cost cap as the amortisation rate × 30 000 € (in Bizkaia and Álava, 50 % of that for a mixed-use car). For an electric car they raise it to 8 000 €, or rate × 40 000 €, with exclusive use. In Navarre the 4 000 € and 7 000 € cap the running costs only; the car's own cost is capped separately through the 25 000 € base.

The caps are per car and year, prorated for part of a year (in Navarre, per person and year if one person uses several cars). Some vehicles escape the caps altogether. They are the kinds in 22.4 (mixed goods vehicles, paid passenger transport, driving schools, commercial agents, cars hired out), plus surveillance and manufacturers' test cars.

So a Navarrese autónomo with a mixed-use car is not left with nothing. The law gives half the costs, within the caps. In Bizkaia and Álava a car that is notoriamente relevante y habitual in the business also earns 50 %, and proved exclusive use doubles the caps. In Gipuzkoa, as in the common territory, a mixed-use car gets nothing unless it is exclusively affected.

Employees in these territories have their own per-kilometre figures — 0,29 € in the three Basque provinces and 0,36 € in Navarre. Those, too, are what an employer may pay, not what an autónomo deducts. They are explained on kilometraje in Navarra and the Basque Country. Even for an employee, the drive from home to work is outside them: see kilometraje from home to work.

Why a trip log still matters

Spain prescribes no form for a mileage log. But without proof, the deduction is lost through the burden of proof in the Ley General Tributaria (LGT art. 105.1 and 106.4). A fuel invoice proves the fuel, not the trip. A missing record can also open estimación indirecta (art. 53.1.d, "aun por causa de fuerza mayor").

What a log can show depends on where you file:

Common territory and Gipuzkoa: whether the car really is used only for the business, or carries private trips too.
Bizkaia and Álava: that the business use is relevant and habitual — or exclusive, if you claim 100 % and the higher caps.
Navarre: exclusive use, if you claim 100 % rather than the default 50 %.

A log is evidence. The tax office weighs it; it does not decide the question for you.

How long to keep it

Spain's tax law names no fixed period. The duty runs with the four-year limitation on assessment (LGT art. 66.a), counted from the day after the filing deadline (art. 67.1). Art. 70.3 keeps the duty running while the records still support a year that can be checked. For a car, that reaches back to the start of its amortisation.

The 1 %-of-turnover penalty in art. 200.3 is for not keeping the books and registers tax law requires. A mileage log is not one of them; the cost of a missing log is the deduction you cannot prove.

Before you file

You have not entered business kilometres × 0,26 € (or 0,29 €, or 0,36 €) as an expense.
You know which territory's income tax applies to you: common, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Álava or Navarre.
Common territory or Gipuzkoa: you know whether the car is exclusively business. If it is not, the income tax gives nothing for it. The one exception is in the common territory: one of the five vehicles in art. 22.4, used privately only outside working hours.
Bizkaia, Álava or Navarre: you know which share of the actual costs applies. You also know both its caps: the one on the car's cost and the one on the other costs.
You have the car's cost invoices, and a record of the trips that shows how the car was used.
VAT is checked separately, on its own rule.

How DriveHub makes this easier

For an autónomo, the useful record is not a euro figure. It is an honest picture of how the car is used: which drives were business and which were private.

With location access set to Always, DriveHub records every drive in the background — and if it ever misses one, it tells you. DriveHub files most trips as Business or Personal by your places, past routes and working hours, and asks you about the rest under Need to check.

Reports shows business and personal kilometres for a month or a year, and the business share. That is the evidence of use the rules above turn on.

Set the car to Self-employed, my own car and the Spanish report calculates no amount per kilometre. It prints why instead: "Spain pays a rate per kilometre only to an employee reimbursed by an employer. Filing as self-employed, you deduct the car's costs the way your country's own rules allow instead — so no amount is calculated here. Change how you use this car in Settings if an employer reimburses you."

Where DriveHub stops: for the IRPF it does not total the car's costs, decide whether the car is business, or apply a foral share or cap. Those are questions for you and your asesor.

DriveHub is on the App Store for iPhone. The Spanish rules are on the Spain page. Setting up automatic tracking takes a few minutes, once.

This page states what the Reglamento del IRPF, the Ley General Tributaria and the foral income-tax laws say, citing the articles so you can check. It is not tax advice. It can't account for your circumstances. Where money is involved, ask your asesor — and bring the records.

Do it in DriveHub

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Country, official rates, your own rate and when a change applies.

The full rule for Spain, with the instruments it comes from: mileage log requirements in Spain.