Private trip or business trip. Where is the line?

A business trip is a trip made for the employer’s purposes, such as a client visit, a meeting outside the regular workplace or training. Trips between home and the regular workplace are commute and count as private, even if they are made with a company car. That is the central distinction the mileage log must show.

Commute is not business

The most surprising thing for many company car drivers is that the way to and from work is private. Skatteverket counts it as part of your normal commute, regardless of whether the car is a company car. Three office days per week and two from home does not change it: trips to the office are commute.

What is actually business

Business trips are trips you make to do work for the employer. Concretely:

• Visits to clients, suppliers or partners
• Meetings outside the regular workplace
• Courses and training
• Representation and conferences
• Inspection visits or work assignments at another location

The common thread is that the trip is necessary for the work and not part of your ordinary commute to the workplace.

Edge cases that cause trouble

Some cases are hard to classify. A home meeting with a client is business because the destination is a business matter. A home meeting with a colleague is typically private unless it is formally scheduled work. Lunch with a client where you pay is representation, that is, business. Lunch with a colleague is private.

“Does a trip to a temporary work site at the other end of the country count as business?”

If you temporarily work at another location without moving your regular workplace there, the trip can count as business. It depends on whether the workplace counts as a temporary work site under Skatteverket’s rules.

Picking up and dropping off children

Picking up children at preschool or school is private. If you pass a client in the same run and stop briefly for a meeting, the trip should be split: home to client is business, client to preschool is mixed (we recommend private), preschool to home is private.

Detours and breaks

A business trip interrupted by a private errand splits in two. If the detour is short, say one or two kilometers, Skatteverket usually accepts that the trip in its entirety counts as business. If the detour is longer the trip must be split and only the actual business part counts as business.

What a good rule looks like

In an automatic mileage log you set rules that match reality. Examples:

• Monday to Friday between 07 and 09 from home zone to office zone: commute, private
• Monday to Friday between 09 and 17 from office zone to a client zone: business
• Saturday and Sunday: private, regardless of route
• Trips that start and end inside the same client zone: business

With the right rules around 90 percent of trips classify automatically and you only have the ambiguous ones to review manually.

What MPH DriveLog does

DriveLog is built on the rule engine. You set conditions once and forget about them. When a rule matches, the trip classifies right away. When no rule matches, the trip sits in the list so you can classify it manually on Sunday evening. Ten minutes a week.

For deeper reading see Mileage log according to the Swedish Tax Agency and Do you need a mileage log for a company car.