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What does an hour in this car actually cost me?

Your own figures: pence per mile, your break-even lesson price, and what an hour of your time really earns. Free, no sign-up, nothing leaves this browser.

Your figures

How you work

What you charge

Lesson length you sell

What the car costs you

Your monthly cost for the car, worked out from what you paid

Fuel

How the car is fuelled
pence a litre
pence a kWh

The diary

Your year

The car, itemised

a year
a year
a year
a year
a year
How you count tyres
a year
miles
years
How you hold the car

This is a way of spreading what the car will cost you, not a valuation of your car and not a tax figure.

pence a kWh
%

Business overheads

years
a year
a year
a year
a year
a year
a year
a year
a year

The diary in full

Where the mileage comes from
miles

What you charge, in full

%
VAT label for your results

What you want out

What kind of target

The two cost bases

What your fee covers

This calculator needs JavaScript. Everything below explains how the figures are worked out.

What a mile in this car costs you
What an hour of your time earns
One no-show a week, over the year
The price you would need
Your week: hours offered, hours booked, hours paid, and the hours your week really takes

The link carries your figures, and nothing else. It is never sent anywhere.

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This is guidance, not tax or financial advice. Whether a cost is allowable, and how your car is treated in your accounts, is a question for HMRC or your accountant, and it is worth confirming with them before you act on any of it.

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Where the money goes

Line£ a yearPer lesson hour

Each line in the right-hand column is rounded to the nearest penny, so the lines may not add up to the totals exactly. The pounds column does.

Your diary, in full

    Franchise and independent, side by side

    FigureFranchiseIndependent

    How fragile is this answer?

    VariationBreak-even lesson priceChange

    How these figures are worked out

    Three kinds of cost, not two

    Most calculators split your money into fixed and variable, then stop. A driving instructor's car doesn't behave like that.

    Some of it costs the same whether the car moves or not: the fee or the finance, the insurance, the tax, the registration, the dual controls spread over the years they'll serve. Some of it only happens when the wheels turn: fuel, tyres, the wear a private driver never sees. And some of it costs you hours rather than pounds, in the drive between pupils, the waiting, the admin and the long block a test appointment eats.

    We don't add those hours to your costs, because they have no price and adding them would count the fuel twice. They do something more useful. They go into the bottom of the sum, so the earnings figure is per hour of your life rather than per hour on the invoice.

    Litres in, miles per gallon out

    You buy fuel in litres and your car reports miles per gallon, so something has to convert between them. An imperial gallon is 4.54609 litres, the figure set out in Schedule 1 of the Weights and Measures Act 1985. We multiply your pence per litre by that, divide by the mpg you actually get, and show the result to a tenth of a penny.

    It matters more than it sounds. The American gallon is smaller, and a calculator that quietly reaches for that one makes your fuel look about a sixth cheaper than it really is.

    Your diary, in four numbers

    Write down four numbers: the hours you offer, the hours with a name against them, the hours you're actually paid for, and the hours your week really takes.

    The distance between the first and the second is availability nobody bought, and it isn't free: the fee and the finance run straight through it. Between the second and the third sit the cancellations and the no-shows. Between the third and the fourth sit the miles and the minutes nobody invoices. A pupil who drops to a lesson a fortnight while they wait for a test turns up here too, in the paid hours, and we don't have to guess how long the wait is to see it.

    We show the working for every figure. Open one and you can see which of your numbers went in, and in what units.

    Three stacked bands, one for each kind of cost: standing costs counted per year, running costs counted per mile, and time costs counted per hour.
    Standing costs run on the calendar, running costs run on the miles, and the third tier runs on your hours.

    Who this is for

    Registered approved driving instructors working for themselves, franchised or independent, and trainees teaching under the applicable trainee-licence scheme. In Northern Ireland, that trainee scheme does not allow you to set up or advertise a business on your own behalf. If you do your admin on a phone between lessons, this was built for that.

    Open it when the lesson price is going up and you've never worked out the floor it has to clear, or when the franchise fee has just risen, or a colleague has gone independent and says they're better off. It's just as useful when you're changing the car and the whole cost base resets, or when Self Assessment comes round and you want to know what the car actually cost.

    Accountants are welcome too: hand it an instructor's figures and it gives you the shape of the year, split into what runs on time and what runs on miles.

    Can driving instructors claim the mileage rate?

    Short answer: HMRC says its fixed-rate deduction does not cover dual-control driving instructor cars.

    Section 94D of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 permits a fixed deduction only for a relevant vehicle. HMRC's Business Income Manual, at BIM75005, explains the commercial-car exclusion and names dual-control driving instructor cars:

    The fixed rate deduction covers expenditure in respect of the acquisition, ownership, hire, leasing or use of cars (except cars designed for commercial use, for example black cabs or dual control driving instructor cars), motor cycles or goods vehicles used for the purposes of the trade.

    The capital-allowances exclusion is a separate rule. Section 94E excludes a vehicle if the person carrying on, or who has carried on, the trade has at any time claimed a Part 2 capital allowance on expenditure incurred to provide that vehicle. HMRC's Capital Allowances Manual, at CA23510, also lists cars used by a driving school and fitted with dual controls among vehicles not treated as cars for plant and machinery allowances. Those rules are vehicle- and trade-specific, and they do not establish how every instructor's accounts have been treated.

    So we do not compare the fixed rate with actual costs for a dual-control driving instructor car. We work out the actual running and standing costs you enter.

    If your position is unusual, or you are not sure how your car has been treated in your accounts, put the question to HMRC or to whoever does your return.

    HMRC Business Income Manual BIM75005 and Capital Allowances Manual CA23510, on sections 94D to 94G of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005.

    Driving instructor running costs: the questions that come up

    What does it actually cost to run a driving instructor's car?

    The full figure can be a lot higher than fuel alone. In our worked example, fuel and tyres come to 18.2p a mile and the fully costed vehicle figure is 40.2p. We ask for the finance or the fee, instructor insurance, tax, servicing, tyres and the dual controls as well as the fuel. Put your own numbers in and you get yours.

    How do I work out my cost per mile?

    Add up everything the car costs you in a year, divide by the miles you do in a year, and put it in pence. For fuel, multiply the pence per litre by 4.54609 and divide by your imperial mpg. Count lesson miles, the driving between pupils and the test-centre trips. We derive the annual figure from your diary and show it, so you can hold it against your odometer.

    Can driving instructors use the mileage rate?

    HMRC's manual says the fixed-rate deduction does not cover dual-control driving instructor cars. Separately, section 94E excludes a vehicle if the person carrying on, or who has carried on, the trade has at any time claimed the stated capital allowance for that vehicle. We quote HMRC's own sentence and explain both rules. Ask HMRC or your accountant about the facts specific to your vehicle and trade.

    What is a break-even lesson price?

    The price at which a lesson has covered its share of everything the business costs and left you nothing. It is not a price to charge. It is the floor under the price you charge, and the distance between the two is your wages. In our worked example the floor is a little over eight pounds an hour against a thirty-eight pound lesson, which sounds comfortable until you notice that the twenty-nine pounds in between has to cover every hour you spent driving between pupils, waiting at a test centre and doing your books.

    How much of my week am I actually paid for?

    Count the hours you make available, the hours with a pupil's name against them, the hours you were actually paid for, and then add the unbilled driving, waiting and admin. In our example, thirty-six hours offered turns into twenty-seven paid hours inside a working week of about thirty-six hours. The same number at both ends, measuring two different things.

    What does one no-show a week really cost?

    The lost lesson costs its contribution: the price, less the fuel and tyres you would have used. Any dead trip adds mileage cost on top. In our worked example, one no-show a week over 46 working weeks costs £1,615.93. We work the figure out from your numbers. What you do about it is a policy question, not arithmetic.

    Is a franchise cheaper than going independent?

    Nobody can answer that for you, and anyone who publishes a number is answering it for somebody else. The two models are not the same shape: a fee is a standing cost that runs whether you teach or not, while independence swaps one payment for a dozen and adds an unpriced job, finding your own pupils. We run your figures through both cost bases, mark the lines your fee already covers so nothing is counted twice, and tell you how many extra paid lesson hours a week the fee has to be worth. No franchise names, no fee tables, and no verdict.

    What can a self-employed driving instructor claim as expenses?

    We cannot settle that here, and we would rather say so than give you half an answer. What we can give you is the figures the question needs: what the car cost, split into the part that runs on time and the part that runs on miles, with the year's mileage derived from your diary and shown to you. Take that to whoever does your return. What is allowable, and how your vehicle is treated in your accounts, is theirs and HMRC's to settle.

    Working out driving instructor running costs from your own figures

    A fuel-only estimate misses the standing costs and the hours nobody paid for. Put every figure in one place and we can run the arithmetic on the price you charge, what the car costs, the fuel price and mpg you enter, and the four numbers that describe your diary: offered, booked, paid, worked.

    You get your fully costed pence per mile, the price a lesson has to clear before you earn anything, the price needed for the take-home you enter, and what an hour of your time earns once the unbilled time is counted. If that changes what you charge, telling your pupils is a separate job.

    We carry no area averages, no typical franchise fee, no assumed insurance premium and no suggested price. The prefilled non-money controls are editable starting points; every result uses the values shown in the form.

    Nothing leaves the browser, because we make no network request at all. Your figures go when you close the tab. To keep them, print the summary or copy the link, which carries your numbers in the address bar and nowhere else.

    Sources and last checked

    Last checked: 8 September 2026.

    The calculator uses one external conversion constant and a quoted HMRC sentence. It also uses jurisdiction-specific regulator labels and a four-year registration default. Other prefilled numbers are editable starting points, not market averages; results use the values shown in the controls.

    • The imperial gallon of 4.54609 litres: Schedule 1 of the Weights and Measures Act 1985. The US-gallon comparison uses NIST Handbook 130 (2026), section 2.6.1.
    • The fixed-rate mileage deduction and dual-control instructor cars: HMRC's Business Income Manual at BIM75005 and Capital Allowances Manual at CA23510, on sections 94D to 94G of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005.
    • Who runs the register: GOV.UK for the DVSA in Great Britain, nidirect for the DVA in Northern Ireland.
    • The four-year registration cycle: Road Traffic Act 1988 sections 126 and 127 for Great Britain, and Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 2007 articles 55 and 56 for Northern Ireland.

    We carry no rate table, no franchise fee, no regional average and no suggested price, so there is nothing else here that could go out of date without you noticing. Tax rules do move: if your position is unusual, put it to HMRC or to whoever does your return.

    Where the next pupils come from

    You've just worked out what your diary is actually worth. The break-even you're looking at only holds if it stays full.

    We list driving schools in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. When we match you with a pupil, we don't charge you for their details. The pupil pays you directly, and we take no referral fee. That's the whole of the pitch.

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