The SARS travel logbook, explained: what you must record to claim your mileage
A practical guide for South African drivers and employers · Updated August 2026
If you receive a travel allowance, or use your own vehicle for work, SARS lets you claim back the cost of your business kilometres — but only if you can prove them. The proof is a travel logbook, and every year thousands of claims are reduced or rejected because the logbook was incomplete, reconstructed from memory, or missing entirely.
What SARS requires in a logbook
For every business trip, your logbook must record:
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Your odometer reading at the start and at the end
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The kilometres travelled
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The reason for the trip and where you went (e.g. "client meeting — Sandton")
You also need your vehicle's opening odometer reading on 1 March (the start of the tax year) and the closing reading at the end of February. Private trips don't need detail, but the totals must reconcile: opening reading + business km + private km = closing reading.
The rate: what a business kilometre is worth
If you don't claim actual costs, SARS publishes a prescribed rate per kilometre each tax year (R4.64/km is the widely used figure for recent years — always confirm the current rate on sars.gov.za). Multiply your logged business kilometres by the rate and that's the value of your claim. On 8,000 business km a year, that's over R37,000 — money you lose if your logbook can't support it.
Why paper logbooks fail
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Entries get skipped on busy days and reconstructed months later — a pattern SARS auditors recognise instantly
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Odometer readings that don't reconcile with the year totals
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No supporting evidence (fuel slips, toll receipts) when actual-cost claims are audited
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The book lives in the cubbyhole of the very vehicle that gets sold, stolen or written off
What a compliant digital logbook looks like
InTrackLog was built around exactly the SARS checklist above. Trips are recorded with GPS or entered with odometer readings, each one classified business or personal. Fuel, toll, service and tyre expenses are logged in Rand with photographed receipts attached. At tax time you export a monthly or annual report as PDF or CSV — dates, readings, distances, destinations and totals, already reconciled.
For employers, teams take it further: drivers submit their month's business kilometres as a claim, and the manager sees the actual trips and receipt images behind the number before approving reimbursement at the SARS or a custom rate — an audit trail for both sides.
This guide is general information, not tax advice. Rates and rules change — confirm current requirements with SARS or your tax practitioner.