Travel Time Billing Calculator NZ
This travel time billing calculator works out what your travel to and from client sites should add to your invoices, and how much that is worth over a year. Time on the road is time you cannot spend on billable work, and a car that does the driving costs money to run, so if you are a contractor, consultant or tradesperson who visits clients, it is worth agreeing a way of recovering both. One way is to bill travel time at a share of the normal hourly rate, and to charge mileage at a set rate per kilometre on top. Both the share and the rate per kilometre are commercial choices that you agree with each client, not figures set by anyone else. You enter the hours each return trip takes, the number of trips in a month, your hourly rate, the share of that rate you charge for travel, the kilometres each return trip covers and your rate per kilometre. The calculator gives you the travel time and mileage charged a month, the total for a year and the hours you spend travelling. The default of $1.20 per km matches Inland Revenue's 2025-2026 tier one rate for a petrol vehicle, which is a useful guide to what running a car costs, but what you charge is up to you and your client.
From the same team as Calculate.co.nz
Your Timesheets at jobtracker.co.nz logs your hours on a week grid or a timer that keeps counting when your phone locks, free on every plan. Career and Timesheets turns those hours into projects and rates, fixed fees and retainers, numbered invoices with GST only when you are registered, expenses and mileage, and the tax to set aside, from $4.99 a month billed yearly.
Log your hours freeThe share of the rate and the rate per kilometre are your own commercial choices. The $1.20 default is Inland Revenue's 2025-2026 tier one rate for a petrol vehicle, a guide to vehicle running costs and not a rate any client is obliged to pay.
How it works
Travel time charged is the hours each return trip takes, multiplied by the trips in a month, your hourly rate and the share of the rate you bill for travel. Mileage is the kilometres each return trip covers, multiplied by the trips and your rate per kilometre. The two added together are the travel charged in a month, and the year is twelve of those months. Hours travelling is the hours a trip times the trips, which is the time the travel charge is recovering. If you bill travel at your full rate, set the share to 100%; if you do not charge for travel time at all, set it to 0 and the calculator shows mileage alone.
Worked example
A consultant drives to a client site 8 times a month. Each return trip takes 1.5 hours and covers 60 km. Billing travel time at 50% of a $120 hourly rate gives 12 hours at $60, which is $720.00. Mileage at $1.20 a km on 480 km is $576.00. Travel adds $1,296.00 to the month's invoices, or $15,552 over twelve months.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Hours travelling: 1.5 hours x 8 trips | 12 hours |
| Travel time: 12 hours x $120 x 50% | $720.00 |
| Kilometres: 60 km x 8 trips | 480 km |
| Mileage: 480 km x $1.20 | $576.00 |
| Travel charged a month | $1,296.00 |
| Travel charged a year, 12 months | $15,552 |
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