Country guide · Slovenia

Slovenia's document is issued before you drive — and most sole traders cannot claim the 0,43 € at all

The order comes first

The operative Slovenian document is the potni nalog — a travel order issued by the employer before the journey. Not a record of what happened; a permission for what is about to.

That inverts what a mileage app is for. A logbook is written afterwards, from what the car did. A potni nalog is written beforehand, from what was authorised — and the reimbursement is documented by the order together with the receipts.

What it shows

Under the Uredba o davčni obravnavi povračil stroškov in drugih dohodkov iz delovnega razmerja, the potni nalog has to show:

• The employer's approval of the specific mode of transport
• That the employee's own vehicle is being used
• The number of kilometres driven

The figure it prices them at is 0,43 €/km — Uredba 5. člen (3), raised from 0,37 by Ur. l. RS 87/2022: "V primeru, da delojemalec uporablja lastno prevozno sredstvo, se povračilo stroškov prevoza na službenem potovanju ne všteva v davčno osnovo do višine 0,43 eura za vsak prevožen kilometer."

A separate and smaller figure covers the commute: 0,21 €/km with a €140 monthly floor that is exempt even where the computation falls below it. And the same article contains a penalty rather than an allowance — a company car plus employer-provided fuel makes the commute reimbursement fully taxable.

A sole trader gets 0,43 € by cross-reference, and FURS says nothing about it

There is no self-employed rule. ZDoh-2 57. člen sends a sole trader to the employee ceiling — "Stroški, ki se nanašajo izključno na zavezanca…se priznajo pod pogoji in do višin, ki jih na podlagi 44. člena tega zakona za delojemalce določi vlada" — and the Uredba reciprocates in 1. člen (2).

That chain is the whole authority. Kilometrina, potni nalog and 57. člen each occur zero times in both of FURS's current publications for the self-employed. The figure is reachable; it is simply not published on the side of the reader who most wants it.

The reason most sole traders cannot use it anyway

A normiranec — the taxpayer who elected normirani odhodki, the flat statutory percentage of revenue — has a tax base of revenue less that percentage and no line for anything else. FURS's own Brošura o dohodku iz dejavnosti sets it out that way.

So kilometrina cannot be added on top. The 0,43 € is claimable only by a filer deducting actual expenses. If you elected the flat percentage, the figure is not yours, and the fact that the brochure explaining that contains no occurrence of the word kilometrina is why it takes so long to find out.

The 18 % / 30 % formula is labour law, not tax law

A formula in wide circulation computes kilometrina as 18 % or 30 % of the price of 95-octane petrol. It comes from the Aneks h KPND (Ur. l. RS 88/2021) and applies to the public sector. It is an employment entitlement, not a tax ceiling.

The consequence is concrete: a Slovenian public employee's contractual entitlement routinely exceeds the Uredba's tax-free 0,43 €, and the excess is taxable pay. Two numbers, one trip, and they are answering different questions.

On the payer's side there is no cap at all — ZDDPO-2 35. člen (5) recognises kilometrina "v obračunanem znesku", so a company may pay and deduct more than 0,43. The Uredba caps only what stays out of the employee's tax base.

Ten years, counted from the tax falling due

The retention rule names no number. ZDavP-2 32. člen keeps the 31. člen documentation "do poteka absolutnega zastaralnega roka pravice do izterjave davka", and that absolute period sits two articles away at 126. člen sedmi odstavek: ten years from the day the limitation first began to run, the relative period being five.

The clock is the tax falling due, not any year-end — so interpolating from a neighbour gets it wrong twice, once on the number and once on the start. Same rule for an employer and for an s.p., since 32. člen points at 31. člen and that covers both.

And the sanction is not only the lost deduction: 397. člen fines a sole trader €1 200 to €15 000 for the 32. člen breach on its own.

What failure costs

The reimbursement enters the tax base.

Why an app rather than a notebook

The missing piece in Slovenia is a prior authorisation, and no app can supply a permission. What an app supplies is the figures that go on it, and the record behind them if anyone asks what the authorised journey actually was.

DriveHub records each drive in the background with both endpoints, the distance and the times, and asks afterwards which were business. The report prints the date, the route, the kilometres and your own wording for the purpose, at the rate in force for the trip's own date — so a journey from before the 0,37 to 0,43 change is still priced at the figure that applied to it.

What it will not do is tell you the 0,43 € is yours. If you are a normiranec, it is not, and that is a question about which regime you elected rather than about the driving.

This page states what the Uredba and ZDoh-2 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 računovodja — and bring the naloge.