MilesheetFrance has no single mileage rate, it has a table
The barème kilométrique varies by the car's fiscal horsepower and by how far you have driven. There is no one number, and quoting one is how a French claim goes wrong.
Update, April 2026: the UK approved rate for cars and vans rose from 45p to 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles. The 25p rate above that, and the 5p passenger payment, are unchanged. This post describes the position as it stood when it was written.
Ask what France pays per kilometre and you will get a number from somebody. The number will be wrong, or at best right for one car and one annual distance.
The barème is a grid, not a rate
France's barème kilométrique is a table with two axes.
Down one side, fiscal horsepower. French cars carry an administrative power rating, the puissance fiscale, which appears on the registration document. The scale runs from three CV or fewer up to seven CV and above. A larger rating means a higher rate per kilometre, on the reasoning that a more powerful car costs more to run.
Across the other, annual distance. The table bands by how far you have driven for work in the year, and the rate per kilometre falls as the distance rises, in the same spirit as Britain's 10,000 mile step but with more gradations.
So the rate that applies to your journey depends on your car and on your running total. Two colleagues driving the same route on the same day, in different cars, are entitled to different amounts.
Electric vehicles get an uplift on the resulting figure, which is a deliberate incentive rather than a costing exercise.
Why this defeats a single headline number
Britain can say "45p" because Britain has decided that one figure covers an average car. France has declined to make that simplification, so any sentence beginning "the French rate is" is either quoting one cell of the grid or inventing an average nobody uses.
This is why Milesheet does not ship a French scheme with a rate in it. There is no rate to ship. The app asks a French driver to enter the figure from their own row of the table, because that is the only figure that is theirs.
The alternative would be to pick a middle cell and print it. It would look confident and it would be wrong for almost everybody.
What the barème is meant to cover
The rate is inclusive. It is intended to cover depreciation, repairs, tyres, fuel and insurance. That is worth knowing because it settles a recurring argument: you do not claim the barème and then also claim your insurance premium.
Tolls and parking sit outside it and are claimed separately, on evidence. France is a heavily tolled country, and for a driver doing long motorway runs the tolls can rival the mileage in a month.
Against the British system
| France | UK | |
|---|---|---|
| Business rate | A table, by fiscal horsepower and distance | 45p per mile, then 25p |
| Depends on your car | Yes | No |
| Bands by annual distance | Yes, several | Yes, one step at 10,000 |
| Electric uplift | Yes | No separate rate |
| Tolls and parking | Claimed separately | Claimed separately |
| Covers running costs | Yes | Yes |
The record is the same either way
Whatever the rate, the evidence expected of a French driver is what it is everywhere: the date, the destination, the business reason and the distance, written down at the time rather than reconstructed in the spring.
The table decides what a kilometre is worth. Only the log decides how many kilometres there were.
Sources
- Frais de transport (impots.gouv.fr)
- Travel, mileage and fuel rates and allowances (HMRC), for the British comparison
General information for drivers in France and the UK, not tax advice. The barème is revised: take your figure from the official table for the year you are claiming.
