CRA Vehicle Logbook Requirements: What the Log Must Contain

A vehicle logbook is not the paperwork that sits beside your vehicle deduction. It is the deduction. The receipts prove what the vehicle cost you. The logbook is the only thing that proves what share of that cost was business, and without it a reviewer is not looking at a claim that needs adjusting, they are looking at a claim with no support at all.

The CRA's own words for what it wants: an accurate logbook of business travel maintained for the entire year, showing for each business trip the destination, the reason for the trip and the distance covered. That is a short sentence hiding six separate obligations. Here they are, one at a time.

The four fields, on every business trip

For each business trip, log:

Field	What it means in practice
Date	The day of the trip.
Destination	Where you went. A name and an address, not "client site".
Purpose	Why. "Quote for kitchen reno, 41 Bathurst" beats "work".
Kilometres	The distance driven for that trip.

All four, every trip. Three out of four is the most common shape of a weak log, and the missing one is almost always the purpose, because it is the only field an automatic tracker cannot fill in for you. A GPS trace that knows you drove 34 km to an address at 9:12am has captured the date, the destination and the distance and none of the reason, and the reason is the field that separates a business trip from a personal one.

The two odometer readings that anchor the year

Record the odometer of each vehicle at the start and at the end of the fiscal period.

These two numbers are not bookkeeping decoration, they are the denominator. Business use is:

business kilometres ÷ total kilometres

Your trip log gives you the numerator. The odometer difference gives you the denominator. Nothing else does, and this is where a surprising number of otherwise careful logs go wrong: people sum their logged business trips, call that "total", and produce a business-use percentage of 100%. Personal driving does not have to be logged trip by trip. It does have to be inside the total, and the only way it gets there is the odometer.

Photograph the odometer on January 1 and December 31, or on your fiscal year end if it is not December. A timestamped photo takes four seconds and is the cheapest piece of evidence in the entire file.

When the vehicle changes mid-year

If you change motor vehicles during the fiscal period, record the dates of the changes and the odometer reading when you buy, sell, or trade the vehicle.

This is the requirement most often discovered too late, because it is invisible until the year you actually swap cars. A trade-in in August with no odometer reading captured leaves you with two part-year vehicles and no defensible total kilometres for either.

One record per vehicle

If you use more than one motor vehicle for the business, keep a separate record for each, showing the total and business kilometres for that vehicle, and the cost to run and maintain that vehicle. Each vehicle's expenses are calculated separately.

A single blended log across two vehicles cannot be unwound later. The percentages are different, the costs are different, and depending on cost the capital cost allowance treatment may be different too. Split them at the point of entry or you will be reconstructing.

The reconciliation the log has to survive

At year end the numbers should close on themselves. This is worth doing deliberately once, because it is the same check a reviewer performs.

Line	Where it comes from
Closing odometer	Photo, December 31 or fiscal year end
Opening odometer	Photo, January 1 or fiscal year start
Total kilometres	Closing minus opening
Business kilometres	Sum of the logged business trips
Business use	Business ÷ total
Personal kilometres	Total minus business, and it should look plausible

That last row is the one to read honestly. If it says you drove 900 personal kilometres in a year and you own one car and no transit pass, the percentage above it is not going to hold, whatever the log says.

What "maintained for the entire year" is doing

The CRA calls the year-long log the best evidence. That phrase implies a ranking, and the ranking is real: a log kept as you drive sits at the top, and a log assembled in March from calendar entries and credit card statements sits somewhere below it.

Lower down that ranking is not the same as nothing. The CRA's guidance on a failed sample projection refers to determining business use from an actual record of travel or alternative records, so reconstruction from other evidence is contemplated rather than banned. But it is a fallback with a worse success rate, it costs you hours you did not budget, and it never produces the destination and purpose fields as well as writing them down at the time did.

The digital form is fine. There is no requirement that this be paper, and nothing about an app-kept log is weaker, provided it carries all four fields, the odometer anchors, and one record per vehicle, and provided you can still produce it in six years.

The shorter version, after the first year

You do not have to keep a full log every year forever. One complete twelve-month logbook establishes a base year, and later years can run on a three-month sample projected forward by a formula.

The rule has a test attached to it, and the test is widely stated with the wrong reference point, which is why it has its own guide with the arithmetic worked twice. The short version: the projected figure is compared against your base year's annual business use, not against the sample.

How long all of it has to survive

Records and supporting documents are kept six years from the end of the tax year they relate to.

The base-year logbook is the exception, and it is a big one. The full twelve-month log has to be kept six years from the end of the tax year for which it was last used to establish business use. Lean on a base year for five years of sample logbooks and the clock has not even started until the fifth year ends. A decade is a normal answer.

One log, three different readers

The same record does different work depending on how you file, which is worth knowing because the log you keep should satisfy the strictest reader you might become.

• Self-employed or a partner. The log produces a business-use percentage, and the percentage is applied to actual vehicle costs on your T2125. The mileage calculator runs that arithmetic against the per-kilometre figure most people arrive expecting, and shows which one fits the situation you describe.
• An employee with a signed T2200. Same percentage, same actual costs, on a T777 instead. The CRA's instruction to employees is the same one it gives the self-employed: keep a record of both the total kilometres driven and the kilometres driven to earn employment income. Note that home to work and back is personal driving.
• A corporation paying a per-kilometre allowance, including one paying its owner. This reader wants the kilometres, not a percentage, because the payment is per kilometre. The corporation also has to actually obtain the records from the person it pays, not merely know they exist. See paying yourself a per-kilometre allowance.

Six ways a log that looks fine still fails

1. Total kilometres taken from the log instead of the odometer. Produces an impossible business-use percentage and reads as carelessness across the whole file.
2. Destination without purpose. The single most common gap, and the field that carries the argument.
3. A log that starts in March. The gap is visible and it invites a question about the rest.
4. One log, two vehicles. Cannot be separated afterwards, and the CRA asks for each vehicle's expenses calculated separately.
5. No odometer reading at a mid-year vehicle change. Leaves both part-years without a denominator.
6. A sample year with no base year. The three-month shortcut is only available once a complete twelve-month log exists.

A minimal template

If you are starting from nothing, this is the whole thing. One row per business trip, one sheet per vehicle, two odometer photos a year.

Date	Destination	Purpose	Km
2026-03-04	Alpine Supply, 2210 Kingsway, Vancouver	Pick up materials, Lawson job	18
2026-03-06	41 Bathurst St, Vancouver	Site visit and quote	34

Header of the sheet: vehicle, make and model, opening odometer and date, closing odometer and date.

FAQ

What has to be in a CRA vehicle logbook? For each business trip: the date, the destination, the purpose, and the number of kilometres driven. Plus the odometer reading of each vehicle at the start and end of the fiscal period, the dates and odometer readings for any vehicle bought, sold or traded during the period, and a separate record for each vehicle if you use more than one.

Do I have to log personal trips? Not trip by trip. But personal kilometres have to be inside your total, and the total comes from the odometer readings at the start and end of the year, not from adding up your logged business trips. Getting the total from the log is the most common way a business-use percentage ends up indefensible.

Is a spreadsheet or an app acceptable, or does it have to be paper? Either is acceptable. The CRA specifies the information, not the medium. A digital log has to carry the same four fields per trip, the odometer anchors, and one record per vehicle, and you have to still be able to produce it years later.

Is driving from home to work business driving? No, ordinary travel between home and a regular place of work is personal. Self-employed people whose home is the base of their business operations are in a different position, because trips from home to a client are then business travel rather than commuting. Having an office or shop elsewhere normally means home is not the base; commuting vs business driving works through the test.

How long do I keep the logbook? Six years from the end of the tax year it relates to. A base-year logbook used to support later sample years is kept six years from the end of the last tax year in which it was used, which can put the real retention period at a decade.

What happens if I have no logbook at all? Your vehicle claim has no support. That is not automatically a denial, since the CRA contemplates alternative records, but you are then arguing from credit card statements and a calendar rather than from evidence, and the burden is yours.

Sources

1. CRA, Motor vehicle records, the full logbook fields, the odometer requirement, vehicle changes, the per-vehicle rule, the simplified logbook, and retention.
2. CRA, Line 22900, Other employment expenses, the record-keeping and conditions for employees claiming motor vehicle expenses on a T777.
3. CRA Guide T4002, Self-employed Business, Professional, Commission, Farming, and Fishing Income, motor vehicle expenses on the T2125.