If you use your own car for business, part of that cost is deductible. The tricky part is not whether you can claim it. It is proving it, and knowing which rate applies.
If you drive your own car for work, SARS allows you to deduct part of that cost. The mechanism for doing it simply is called the deemed rate. Here is the plain-English version of how it works, what it covers, and what you need to keep on record.
SARS publishes a rate per kilometre every year. Instead of you having to add up every rand you spent on fuel, services, tyres and insurance, then work out what portion of that was for business, SARS lets you multiply your business kilometres by a single published rate instead.
That is the "deemed" part: SARS deems your cost per kilometre to be this figure, whether or not it matches your actual spending exactly. It is a simplification that works in your favour if your car is reasonably efficient, because you do not need receipts for every fuel stop or service.
The deemed rate only applies to actual business travel. Your regular commute between home and wherever you normally work does not count. SARS treats that as private travel regardless of how far it is.
A rate per kilometre is only useful if you can show how many business kilometres you drove. SARS requires a logbook. Without one, a claim can be disallowed entirely, even if every trip was genuinely for business.
That last point matters more than most people realise. SARS wants your business kilometres shown as a proportion of your total kilometres for the year, not just as a standalone number. An opening and closing odometer reading for the full year makes that calculation possible.
Without a logbook, the mileage deduction can be disallowed in full during a SARS audit or verification, regardless of how many business trips you made. The logbook is the deduction.
The deemed rate is the simpler of two methods SARS allows. The alternative is claiming your actual costs: real fuel receipts, real maintenance invoices, insurance and licence costs, apportioned by the percentage of your driving that was for business.
Actual costs can produce a bigger deduction if you drove a high-cost vehicle or covered very high business mileage. But for most sole proprietors and freelancers without a bookkeeper managing this full time, the deemed rate is the more realistic option to maintain accurately across a full year.
Whichever method you use, the deduction still depends entirely on your logbook. No logbook, no claim, regardless of which rate you were hoping to apply.
Business mileage is not a separate form or a special category. It becomes part of your total deductible business expenses for the year, reducing your taxable income the same way any other legitimate business cost does. The work is in the logging, done consistently through the year. The maths at filing time is just multiplication.
If you log trips as they happen, with the date, destination and distance, by the time filing season arrives you have an accurate number ready to drop into your return. If you leave it until October, you are reconstructing from memory, bank statements and a calendar, and any gaps in that reconstruction are gaps in your claim.
MyExpense tracks business mileage against the current SARS deemed rate automatically, so your logbook is ready when you need it.
This article explains how the SARS deemed rate generally works and is not personalised tax advice. Rates change annually. Your specific situation, including whether the deemed-rate or actual-cost method suits you better, may vary. Confirm the right approach for your circumstances with a registered tax practitioner.