Know Your True Take-Home Pay.

In the United States, the IRS generally allows self-employed rideshare and delivery drivers to deduct mileage for the entire period they are logged into the app and available to accept work, not only the miles driven with a passenger or delivery in the vehicle — this is often called "online mileage." Purely personal commuting to your first login location is typically not deductible. In Canada, the CRA applies a similar principle: kilometres driven for the purpose of earning business income, including time spent waiting for a fare while logged into a platform, can generally count toward your business-use percentage. Because platform tracking varies, keep your own mileage log (start/end odometer, dates, and app-online status) and confirm treatment of waiting-time miles with a qualified tax preparer.

Most US tax professionals suggest independent contractors reserve approximately 25% to 30% of net (post-expense) profit to cover federal self-employment tax (15.3% on net earnings, subject to the Social Security wage base) plus federal and state income tax, then pay it quarterly using IRS Form 1040-ES. Canadian self-employed drivers typically reserve a comparable share for combined federal and provincial income tax plus CPP contributions, remitted through CRA instalment payments if net tax owing exceeds the CRA threshold in the current and either of the two prior years. These are general planning ranges, not personalized tax advice — actual liability depends on your total income, deductions, province or state, and filing status, so verify your figure with a tax professional or the official IRS/CRA calculators.

It depends on your vehicle costs. The standard mileage method (a flat rate per mile or kilometre) is simpler and tends to favor drivers with newer, fuel-efficient, lower-maintenance vehicles, since it bundles depreciation, fuel, insurance, and repairs into one rate. The actual expense method can produce a larger deduction for drivers with high fuel consumption, expensive repairs, financing interest, or steep depreciation, but it requires detailed receipts and, in the US, restricts your ability to switch methods in later years for that vehicle. Many drivers run both calculations for their specific numbers each tax year and choose whichever produces the larger deduction, then confirm the choice with a tax professional before filing.

Yes. Selecting the Global region gives you a currency picker covering more than 150 world currencies plus a metric or imperial units toggle, so the fuel, distance, and payout fields always match how you actually track your numbers. RealWage doesn't have researched tax-rate or standard-mileage-deduction data for every country the way it does for the IRS and CRA, so outside the US and Canada the tax reserve, mileage-allowance rate, and vehicle maintenance rate all start at zero and are yours to fill in — enter your own local self-employment tax rate and per-distance rates if you want the reserve estimate to reflect your country's rules, or leave them blank to see your take-home pay after vehicle costs alone.