Cost Per Mile Calculator

Fuel cost per mile is price per gallon divided by miles per gallon (MPG). At $3.65/gal and 28 MPG, fuel alone is about $0.13/mile. Add maintenance (tires, oil, repairs) per mile for a fuller ownership picture.

The IRS publishes an optional standard mileage rate for business use that bundles fuel, depreciation, insurance, and maintenance — useful as a benchmark, not a personal budget line item. This calculator uses your actual fuel and maintenance inputs instead.

Example: 32 MPG at $3.50/gal → $0.109/mile fuel. With $0.05/mile maintenance → $0.159/mile total. A 400-mile trip costs about $63.60 in this model — tolls and parking extra.

Cost per mile splits cleanly into variable and fixed costs, and only the variable half belongs in a trip decision. Fuel, tires, and wear-based servicing scale with distance; insurance, registration, and most of depreciation accrue whether the car moves or not. This tool models the variable side, which is the right number for “drive or fly” and reimbursement questions.

To build a defensible maintenance-per-mile figure, price the wear items over their service life rather than guessing. A $900 set of tires lasting 50,000 miles is 1.8 cents a mile; $80 oil changes every 7,500 miles add about 1.1 cents; brakes, filters, and fluids typically bring the total to somewhere between 5 and 10 cents on a modern car in good health.

The IRS standard mileage rate is a useful benchmark precisely because it is broader than this calculation: it bundles depreciation, insurance, and maintenance along with fuel into a single per-mile figure for business use. If your calculated variable cost is far below the federal rate, the difference is mostly the fixed costs this tool deliberately leaves out.

Fuel price and efficiency do not carry equal weight. At 32 MPG, a 50-cent rise in pump price adds about 1.6 cents a mile, whereas losing 4 MPG to a roof box or under-inflated tires adds roughly 1.5 cents at the same price — so how you drive and load the car rivals where you buy fuel.

For a fair comparison against an electric vehicle, convert both to cost per mile rather than comparing $/gallon with $/kWh. A car at 32 MPG and $3.50 a gallon costs about 11 cents a mile in fuel; an EV at 3.5 mi/kWh on a 14-cent home rate costs about 4 cents, before either car's maintenance is counted.