DriveHub

Using your own car for work in Finland — what you can claim, and what you have to write down

Three regimes, and you are in exactly one of them

Almost everything written about Finnish mileage claims quietly assumes one situation and then states its rules as if they were the rules. There are three, they ask for different records, and picking the wrong one is how a claim gets refused after the fact rather than at the time.

• You are an employee, driving your own car for work. Your employer reimburses you and the payment is tax-free if it is properly evidenced. The governing text is Ennakkoperintäasetus (1124/1996) 17 §, and — this catches people — it prescribes a matkalasku, a travel invoice, not a logbook.
• You have a company car as a benefit. Here the ajopäiväkirja really does bite, and it wants the odometer at the start and end of every drive plus the year's total kilometres.
• You are self-employed — a toiminimi. Neither of the above describes you, which is why so much of the advice aimed at Finns does not fit. Verohallinto's guidance for liikkeen- ja ammatinharjoittajat sets out its own list.

What each one asks you to record

• Employee, own car. Per trip: the purpose
• the destination
• the route where it is needed
• the means of travel
• the start and end time
• the distance

Company-car benefit. The odometer at the start and end of each drive, and the total kilometres for the year.

Self-employed. Verohallinto's guidance asks for the start and end time of the drive, the start and end place, the route where needed, the distance and the purpose — and, separately and mandatorily, "autolla verovuonna ajettu kokonaiskilometrimäärä": the total kilometres driven with the car during the tax year, business and private together. The additional deduction "edellyttää ajopäiväkirjaa tai muuta luotettavaa selvitystä" — a logbook or other reliable evidence.

That last requirement is the one people miss. It is not about your work trips; it is about the whole car, all year, including the driving that has nothing to do with the business.

The rate

Verohallinto sets the tax-exempt kilometre allowance annually. For 2026 the own-car figure is 0.55 € per kilometre, and for an employer-provided car where the employee pays for the fuel themselves it is 0.11 € per kilometre — a different figure for a different situation, from the same decision.

What it costs to get it wrong

Reimbursement paid without a compliant matkalasku is not tax-free — it is taxable salary. For the self-employed, an inadequate record means a partial refusal of the deduction, and a tax increase on top of it.

Why an app rather than a notebook

Nothing above requires software; a paper book carrying the same fields is fine. What software changes is the failure mode. The fields that get missed are never the distance — they are the ones you can only write down at the time and cannot reconstruct in March: the exact start time, where you actually set off from, the route you took because the main road was closed.

DriveHub records each drive in the background and asks you afterwards which ones were for work. It keeps the start and end times, both endpoints and the route, and it tracks the year's total kilometres — the number the self-employed regime asks for and the one nobody remembers to keep.

This page states what Verohallinto's own rules and guidance say, with the instruments named so you can check them. It is not tax advice, and it does not know your situation. Where the money matters, ask your accountant — and bring the records.