Good news for anyone clocking up business miles. The Chancellor has just announced in Parliament that the approved mileage allowance for self-employed individuals is increasing to 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles — and crucially, the new rate is being backdated to April 2026.
That’s the first change to the headline rate since 2011, and it’s a meaningful uplift. If you’ve driven 2,000 business miles since April, that’s an extra £200 of allowable expense compared with the old 45p rate — straight off your taxable profit.
What this means for you
If you’re a Slimming World consultant, a sole trader, or running a small business, every mile you drive for work just got a little more valuable at tax time. The rate change applies to:
- Driving to a different (e.g. relief) group for observation, cover, or to generally visit on business purposes (i.e not as a member) where this would be for a period of less than 24 months.
- Driving to a team / district meeting
- Driving to Slimming World Head Office for training
- Driving into town specifically for the purpose of banking monies
You don’t need to do anything differently to claim the new rate — just keep logging your miles as you always have. Pulse will handle the maths!
How to log mileage in Pulse
We’ve made mileage tracking deliberately quick because we know nobody wants to spend their evening tapping in journeys. There’s two options for you:
On the Pulse desktop portal
Head to Mileage in the main menu. Add each journey with the date, miles travelled, and a short note about the purpose. That’s it — Pulse stores it ready for your reports and tax return.
On the mobile app
Open the app, tap Mileage, then either:
- Type the miles in directly — fastest if you already know the distance
- Use the smart route calculator — pop in your start and end postcodes and Pulse will work out the distance for you
Either way it lands in the same place as your desktop entries, so everything stays in one tidy log.
Updated reporting
Pulse v1.69 lands next week and brings every report up to the new 55p rate, including:
- Monthly, quarterly and annual reports
- MTD quarterly figures
- Self Assessment (SA103 / SA100) submission summaries
- Tax estimates and dashboard widgets
Because the new rate is backdated to April 2026, your existing mileage log will automatically recalculate at 55p — there’s nothing for you to re-enter. Open your reports after the update and you’ll see the higher figures reflected straight away.
A quick word on record-keeping
The rate has changed but the rules haven’t: HMRC still expects a digital record of each business journey under Making Tax Digital. Logging miles in Pulse as you go keeps you compliant and means you’re not scrabbling for memories come January.
Happy driving — and happy claiming!
