If you are a sole-trader plumber, electrician, carpenter or similar with one van, Revenue wants actual motor expenses × business-use % — not the civil service cent-per-km tables. That percentage comes from a year-round km log (business / commute / private), plus receipts for fuel, tax, insurance, CVRT, services and tyres. CVRT is annual from year 1 — a missed cert is a day off the road and can void commercial insurance. A van on the goods rate cannot do the school run. In October, send one tax-year PDF + cost list, not a reconstruction. Running costs and EV maths live in our van-for-business guide; tax bands and test fees live in van tax & CVRT. This page is the records system.
Who this is for
The person we keep meeting: a tradesperson who owns the van, drives it to sites most weekdays, maybe parks it at home, and hands a shoebox to the accountant when Form 11 season starts. Typical profile:
- One van — Transit Custom, Trafic, Vivaro, Berlingo-class, or similar — not a 10-van fleet
- Form 11 — self-employed or partnership, not PAYE-only
- Sites, not a commute to an office — the van is how the trade happens
- Receipts in the door pocket — fuel, a tyre, last year's CVRT, if they survived the rain
If you run three to ten vans with someone else doing the admin, use the SME fleet guide. If you are an employee claiming cents per kilometre from an employer, use the mileage rates and business mileage logbook guides. If you drive a company car and care about BIK bands, that is a different tax job — Company Car BIK Ireland.
The #1 mistake — claiming civil service rates
Revenue is explicit. The civil service motor-travel rates (the 3 engine bands × 4 cumulative distance bands) apply to employees and company directors. They do not apply to sole traders or partners who file a Form 11. Using those rates on a self-employed return is the wrong system — and a common one, because every UK/US mileage app and half the Facebook groups talk as if “mileage claims” are one thing.
What you do instead is the actual-cost method:
- Add up the real motor costs for the tax year (fuel, insurance, motor tax, CVRT, servicing, tyres, repairs, business tolls and parking, finance interest where allowed, capital allowances on the van).
- Split total kilometres into business and private (commute is usually not business — see below).
- Claim business km ÷ total km of those costs.
An 80% business-use van with €7,200 of eligible costs is a €5,760 deduction. A 50% van with the same costs is €3,600. The log is the difference — not a nicer PDF template. Full rate tables for the people who canuse them are in the 2026 mileage rates guide.
Business vs commute vs Saturday
Tag every trip as one of three things. Get this wrong and the percentage is fiction.
| Tag | Typical tradesperson example | On the Form 11? |
|---|---|---|
| Business | Yard or home → client site, site → site, merchant collection, supplier, genuine job-related training | Yes — counts toward the business-use % |
| Commute | Home → a regular workshop or yard you attend most days as your normal workplace | Usually no — same rule as any other commute |
| Private | School run, weekly shop, match, holiday, lending the van to a family member | No — and on a goods-rate van this use is also a tax-rate problem |
Most site-based tradespeople do not have a “normal workplace” in the office sense. Home → first job, then job → job, then last job → home is often all businessif those legs are for the trade. The moment you swing by SuperValu or collect a child, that leg is private. Do not “round it to business” because it was nearly on the way. That is exactly what a Revenue query tests.
The 30-second daily habit
The log only works if it is contemporaneous— written the day you drive, not rebuilt from Google Calendar in October. For each working day:
- Date
- From / to — townland or site name is enough if the address is obvious to you
- Purpose — “bathroom first fix, 14 Main St” beats “work”
- Kilometres — typed, from odometer start/end, or from a mapped driving route
- Tag — business, commute, or private
Opening odometer on 1 January (or the day you bought the van) and closing odometer on 31 December let you reconcile the year. If the tagged trips do not add up to the odometer movement, something was not logged.
Thirty seconds after the last drop-off beats three evenings of reconstruction. GPS auto-trackers sound easier and then spend your Sunday recoding the Tesco detour. Manual logging is the honest record.
Receipts that actually matter
The km log sets the percentage. The receipts set the euro amount that percentage applies to. Photograph or file:
- Fuel — every fill, or a fuel-card statement
- Motor tax and a copy of the RF111A if you are on the goods rate
- Commercial insurance schedule and cert
- CVRT invoice and certificate, every year
- Service, tyres, brakes, glass, AdBlue, repairs
- Business tolls and parking
- Purchase invoice / finance — needed for capital allowances (typically 12.5% straight-line over 8 years on a commercial van)
Fines, speeding FCNs and clamping are not deductible. Keep them out of the pack so the accountant does not have to strip them.
CVRT — a day off the road, not a reminder you can skip
Light commercial vans (N1) do CVRT from the first anniversary, then every year — not NCT from year 4. The fee is about €141 including VAT for a full LGV test (from January 2025). That is not the expensive part.
Drive without a valid cert and you risk a fixed-charge notice, penalty points, a blocked tax renewal, and — the one that hurts a one-van trade — an insurer treating the policy as breached. A crash while out of test can leave the claim with you. Our SME fleet guide puts a missed day at €400+ for a plumber on typical site rates. The test is cheaper than the Tuesday you cannot leave the yard.
Put the due date in a reminder the day the cert is issued. Book the next test before the current one expires. Full bands, RF111A process and fail items are in the van tax & CVRT guide.
Goods-rate van + personal use
The cheap motor-tax band (€333–€420 for most trade vans, €120 electric) needs an RF111A goods-only declaration, witnessed at a Garda station, for vans at or under 3,500 kg. That declaration means the van is used solely for carrying goods in the course of the trade.
The school run, the big shop, and “sure it's only down the road” are how people lose the goods rate. If the van is honestly mixed-use, tax it at the private rate and claim the business proportion of actual costs. Do not run goods-rate tax and a 30% private km log at the same time — those two stories cannot both be true.
Worked Form 11 example
Illustrative only — your accountant applies the real figures. Diesel medium van, calendar year 2026:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Opening odometer 1 Jan | 84,200 km |
| Closing odometer 31 Dec | 109,200 km |
| Total km | 25,000 km |
| Tagged business | 20,000 km (80%) |
| Tagged private (and any commute) | 5,000 km (20%) |
| Fuel, tax, insurance, CVRT, service, tyres, repairs | €7,200 |
| Claimable motor expenses (80%) | €5,760 |
| Capital allowances (example 12.5% of a written-down van) | as your accountant computes, then × 80% if private use applies |
Without the log, that 80% is a guess. With a log that does not match the odometer, it is a problem. The payback on keeping the record is not the €72 Pro subscription — it is the difference between 80% and “call it half” when you cannot prove the year.
The October pack
Self-assessment season is October (paper) and usually mid-November if you file through ROS. Your accountant does not want to become a data-entry clerk. Send:
- Tax-year km summary — 1 January to 31 December, totals for business / commute / private, and the business-use %
- Trip listing — the same period, so they can sample-check a week if they want
- Cost list with receipts — fuel, tax, insurance, CVRT, services, tyres, repairs, tolls, parking
- Opening and closing odometer
- Purchase / finance file if allowances or a new van are in play
One print-ready PDF and a CSV is the format Irish accountants already take into a Form 11. That is the job odo.ie Pro is built for — not BIK bands, not civil service rate tables.
Limited company vs sole trader
Incorporate and the tax job can change. A director reimbursed by their own company may be on civil service rates. A company-owned van with private use can trigger van BIK at a flat 8% of OMV. You still need a km log; the form it feeds is different. This guide stays with the Form 11 sole trader. If you are mid-switch, ask the accountant which system you are on this tax year before you copy a Facebook spreadsheet.
Van plus a family car
Common setup: van for the trade, a second car for the household. Do not blend the logs. The van's business-use % is not a family-car problem. If the car never goes to a site, it stays off the motor schedule. If you occasionally take the car because the van is in for CVRT, log those few trips on the car.
Reminders still matter on both — NCT or CVRT, tax, insurance. Solo is one vehicle free. Family is three vehicles for a household. Pro is ten vehicles plus the tax-year logbook export. A one-van trade with a family car is usually Family for the extra slot, or Pro if you want the October PDF.
Keep the van legal, and hand the accountant a pack in October.
odo.ie Pro is the records layer for a one-van trade: Business / Commute / Private on every trip, receipts on the fuel and service lines, CVRT / tax / insurance reminders, and a tax-year PDF plus accountant CSV. Not BIK. Not civil service rates. €8/month or €6/month billed yearly. Solo stays free for one vehicle if you only need reminders.