Most business owners are unintentionally leaving money on the table when it comes to travel claims. On the flip side, some are claiming a bit too aggressively without the paperwork to back it up.
Both approaches end up costing you. One triggers painful SARS penalties during an audit, while the other means you’re paying more tax than you legally owe.
Let’s break down exactly how the rules work so you can claim with absolute confidence.
What SARS Actually Says: The Business vs. Personal Divide
The core rule from SARS is incredibly straightforward: business travel is deductible; personal travel is not. It doesn’t matter what kind of vehicle you drive, who owns it, or how sleek it looks—the tax law only cares about the purpose of the trip.
While the rule sounds simple on paper, the execution gets messy for entrepreneurs who use a single vehicle for both work and life.
What you can legally claim:
- Visits to clients, prospects, and supplier meetings.
- Travel to active job sites, workshops, or project locations.
- Running operational errands (e.g., picking up inventory or going to the bank).
- Any trip with a clear business objective, provided it is meticulously documented.
What you absolutely cannot claim:
- Your daily commute: Driving from home to your regular, primary place of work is strictly classified as private travel by SARS.
- School runs, grocery shopping, or weekend family trips.
- Any travel where you cannot prove a direct business purpose.
The Real Problem: The “Ballpark Estimate” Trap
Here is a scenario our team at Limitless Accounting encounters every single filing season.
A business owner spends their year driving all over Gauteng—frequent client pitches in Sandton, supplier drop-offs in Pretoria, and site visits in Midrand. At the end of the tax year, they sit down, look back at the calendar, estimate they drove “roughly 15,000 km,” and hand that number to their accountant.
No logbook. No specific dates. No recorded destinations. Just a gut-feel estimate.
When SARS selects that return for a routine audit, the entire travel claim gets thrown out. It’s not because the business owner didn’t actually do the driving; it’s because they can’t prove it. By the time SARS adds back the disallowed deduction, tacks on interest, and issues an understatement penalty, the bill can easily wipe out the value of the original claim.
Conversely, we also meet business owners who have never claimed a single cent simply because they thought the paperwork wasn’t worth the hassle. That is thousands of Rands in legitimate tax relief vanished—not because SARS blocked it, but because nobody claimed it.
Your Action Plan: Choose Your Method and Log It
To safely maximize your deductions, you need to follow the official playbook.
1. The Logbook is Non-Negotiable
SARS does not accept ballpark figures or estimated odometer readings. To claim a single kilometre, your logbook must record five data points for every single business trip:
- The date of travel.
- The exact starting point and destination.
- The specific business purpose of the trip.
- The exact kilometres travelled.
- Your vehicle’s opening and closing odometer readings for the tax year (spanning 1 March to 28 February). This establishes the exact ratio of your business use versus private use.
💡 Expert Tip: If a physical logbook sitting in your cubbyhole sounds like an administrative nightmare, use a digital mileage tracking app. It runs in the background via GPS and lets you swipe right for business trips and left for personal ones.
2. Choose Your Calculation Method
When it comes to calculating your actual tax deduction, you have two choices:
| Calculation Method | How It Works | Best For |
| The Simplified Method (Reimbursive) | You multiply your total business kilometres by the SARS-prescribed rate. For the 2027 tax year, this rate is R4.95 per kilometre. | Low-maintenance tracking. It is low-risk, highly efficient, and ideal for lower-value or fuel-efficient vehicles. |
| The Actual Cost Method | You track every cent spent on the vehicle—fuel, maintenance, insurance, licensing, interest, and depreciation—and claim the exact percentage that represents your business usage. | Higher-value vehicles or cars with high maintenance and financing costs, where your real expenses outpace the flat SARS rate. |
3. Don’t Forget the Overnight Subsistence Allowance
If your business requires you or your employees to travel away from home overnight within South Africa, SARS allows for a tax-free subsistence allowance to cover meals and incidental costs.
For the 2027 tax year, the rates are:
- R595 per day if the allowance is meant to cover both meals and incidental costs.
- R184 per day for incidental costs only (useful if the company is paying for the hotel and meals directly, but wants to cover small out-of-pocket items like parking or coffees).
The Mindset Shift: The Logbook Is the Money
Many entrepreneurs view keeping a logbook as annoying admin to put off until tomorrow. They fully intend to start one, but the daily rush of running an SME gets in the way.
It helps to flip that perspective completely.
The logbook isn’t just paperwork; it is the literal financial asset that validates your claim. Without it, the claim simply does not exist in the eyes of SARS—no matter how many thousands of kilometres you actually drove or how legitimate the trips were. Spending five seconds logging a trip on an app is the only thing standing between keeping your hard-earned money or handing it over to the taxman.
The legal deductions are right there waiting for your business. You just have to prove you earned them.
Limitless Takeaways
Limitless Takeaways- Draw a hard line: Business trips are deductible. Your daily drive to the office is personal and strictly non-deductible.
- No logbook, no deduction: Switch to a tracking app if a paper logbook drives you crazy.
- Know the numbers: The flat rate is R4.95 per km, and the overnight domestic subsistence allowance is R595 per day for the 2027 tax year.
- Be proactive: Don’t wait for a frantic tax season crunch. Check your vehicle tracking records quarterly so your records are always audit-ready.
Disclaimer: This post is for general educational info only. Because vehicle structures, allowances, and company setups can vary wildly, drop us a line or chat with your accountant to make sure your travel claims are optimized and compliant.