How much should you charge per kilometre when sharing a car with people close to you?

Your neighbour borrows your car twice a week, your brother takes it on holiday, your flatmate uses it to get to work. Sooner or later someone asks: “how much do I owe you?” There is no single answer, but there is no arbitrary one either. Here are the official benchmarks and the real costs in four countries, along with the line you must not cross to stay within cost sharing.

Read this first. This article is general information, not individual tax or insurance advice. The figures were verified in August 2026 against the sources listed at the end, but official rates change every year and insurance conditions differ from one policy to the next. When in doubt, your tax authority or your insurer is the one to ask.

Three different numbers, easily confused

Search for “how much to charge per kilometre” and you will find figures that are wildly far apart. That is normal: they answer different questions.

The official tax rate exists to reimburse or deduct the business use of a private vehicle. It is designed for an employee or a self-employed person, not for two people close to each other sharing a car. Its value: it is a public figure, accepted by the tax authorities, that nobody can hold against you.

The full real cost per kilometre is calculated by national motoring clubs (TCS in Switzerland, ADAC in Germany, ANWB in the Netherlands) and by car budget studies. It adds up everything: depreciation, insurance, road tax, servicing, tyres, fuel, repairs. This is what the car actually costs its owner.

The fair rate between people close to each other is what you are looking for. It should cover a fair share of the real cost, without ever producing a profit for the owner. That last condition matters most, and it comes back in every country below.

The legal boundary is the same in all four countries covered here: as long as you share real costs with no margin, there is in principle no taxable income, and standard car insurance keeps applying. As soon as there is a profit, or a regular activity that looks like renting, it becomes income to declare, and private insurance cover often stops.

Switzerland: 74 centimes per kilometre in 2026

The TCS publishes the per-kilometre cost of a typical passenger car every year. In its press release of 6 January 2026, it set the figure at CHF 0.74 per kilometre, down 2 centimes (2.6 %) on 2025.

The figure is based on a reference vehicle costing CHF 45,000 (up from CHF 44,400 the year before) driven 15,000 km a year. Fixed costs come to CHF 6,977 a year (down from CHF 7,077) and variable costs to CHF 4,135 a year (down from CHF 4,315), or a little over CHF 11,100 in total. The decrease comes from energy: fuel is down to CHF 1.71 per litre (from CHF 1.84) for a reference consumption of 5 litres per 100 km, and electricity is down 9 % to 28 centimes per kilowatt-hour for 18 kWh per 100 km. Comprehensive insurance premiums, on the other hand, rose sharply, by roughly 14 %.

That total splits into two useful benchmarks:

• about 28 centimes per kilometre are variable costs, generated by each trip actually driven;
• about 46 centimes per kilometre are fixed costs, which the owner pays even when the car does not move.

The tax authorities accept up to 75 centimes

From 1 January 2026, the federal deduction for using a private vehicle to commute rises from CHF 0.70 to CHF 0.75 per kilometre, as does the flat rate an employer may pay. The method is what is new: this deduction is now based on the per-kilometre price published every year by the TCS for the standard car. The tax ceiling and the real cost are therefore now aligned, to within a centime.

When it becomes taxable income

Switzerland has no published doctrine as explicit as the French carpooling rule. The general principle applies: reimbursing a share of actual costs produces no profit and is not income. If, on the other hand, the owner regularly collects more than their costs, the difference is income from renting out movable property, and potentially taxable. The prudent anchor is therefore to stay at the level of the real TCS cost and to charge no margin at all.

Insurance

In Switzerland, insurance follows the vehicle and not the driver: occasionally lending a car to someone close to you is in principle covered by the keeper’s liability and comprehensive policies. Three things to watch:

• regularity. Regular use by the same person must be reported to the insurer as a regular or secondary driver. At Zurich, cover under the “driving third-party vehicles” clause stops beyond 25 days per calendar year. Some insurers already treat two loans a month as regular use.
• no-claims bonus and excess. After an at-fault claim, it is the keeper whose no-claims bonus is downgraded. The excess can be charged back to the driver, and third-party driver insurance, taken out alongside private liability cover, lets the driver cover it.
• payment. Handing over the vehicle in exchange for money falls outside insured private use and can void cover.

Before lending your car regularly, it is worth asking your insurer in writing what your policy actually covers. Our article on car sharing and insurance in Switzerland goes through the Swiss rules in detail: casco, vehicle liability, third-party driver cover, deductible and bonus.

France: the tax mileage scale as a ceiling

The mileage scale (“barème kilométrique”) is the official per-kilometre rate published by the French tax authority to value the use of a private vehicle: employees deducting actual costs and employers paying mileage allowances both rely on it. The full table is published in the official tax bulletin (BOI-BAREME-000001), and impots.gouv.fr offers an official calculator.

The 2026 scale, applying to 2025 income, is identical to previous years: it comes from the order of 27 March 2023 and has not been revalued since, with the tax authority pointing to falling fuel prices to justify the freeze. It covers fuel, depreciation, repairs, servicing, tyres and insurance.

For sharing between people close to each other, the first band of the scale, the one for low annual mileage, gives the highest and clearest benchmark:

Tax horsepower	Rate up to 5,000 km a year
3 CV and under	EUR 0.529 per kilometre
4 CV	EUR 0.606 per kilometre
5 CV	EUR 0.636 per kilometre
6 CV	EUR 0.665 per kilometre
7 CV and over	EUR 0.697 per kilometre

Fully electric vehicles get a 20 % uplift on these amounts; plug-in hybrids are excluded. Above 5,000 km a year, the scale applies lower rates, detailed in the same bulletin.

The real cost: EUR 416 a month

Roole Data, the data observatory of the French motorists’ club Roole (the commercial brand of Identicar), publishes a yearly study of French car budgets. Its 10 October 2025 edition puts the average at EUR 416 a month, or roughly EUR 5,000 a year. The monthly breakdown: EUR 167 of purchase or financing, EUR 100 of fuel, EUR 45 of insurance, EUR 44 of residential parking, EUR 44 of servicing and EUR 16 of tolls.

The striking finding lies elsewhere: EUR 257 a month, close to two thirds of the budget, is owed even when the car does not move. That is the core argument for sharing. On a basis of 12,000 km a year, those EUR 416 a month work out at roughly 42 cents per kilometre all in, of which only about fifteen cents relate strictly to use.

What the tax authorities say

No French tax rule deals specifically with lending your car to someone close to you against reimbursement of costs. The only car-related cost sharing the authorities have quantified in black and white is carpooling, and that is the only reason it appears here: it is the closest case to yours in which the mileage scale officially plays the role of a ceiling. The tax doctrine and the service-public.fr fact sheet set three cumulative conditions for money received from passengers to remain non-taxable: the trip is made for the driver’s own purposes, the price asked does not exceed the mileage scale divided by the number of travellers, and the driver keeps a share of the costs.

That doctrine covers sharing a single trip, not handing over the wheel to someone who drives alone, so it does not transfer directly. At the other end of the spectrum the position is clear: peer-to-peer car rental through a platform is taxable from the first euro, as business income, under the micro-BIC regime with a flat 50 % allowance (minimum EUR 305) as long as annual receipts stay at or below EUR 83,600 over the 2026-2028 period. The tax authority adds that the activity becomes professional once it is carried out repeatedly within a calendar year.

The dividing line is therefore profit: if the person close to you reimburses a share of real costs and you gain nothing, you remain in cost sharing. If you collect more than your costs, it is rental income.

Insurance

Occasional lending is generally accepted by standard policies, since insurance follows the vehicle. Do check your policy clauses, though: exclusive driving (lending prohibited), lending restricted to family, exclusion of young drivers, higher excess when lending. A regular driver must be declared as a secondary driver, and after an at-fault accident it is the owner who takes the penalty. Here too, renting for money is not covered by a private car policy.

Germany: 30 cents as a prudent benchmark

Germany has two separate flat rates, and the lesser known one is the relevant one here.

The Entfernungspauschale, the commuting allowance, has been reformed: since 1 January 2026 it is EUR 0.38 per kilometre of distance from the very first kilometre, the old tiered system having been scrapped (until the end of 2025, EUR 0.30 for the first 20 km, then EUR 0.38 beyond). The cap remains EUR 4,500 a year for those who do not commute by private car. Note that it is calculated on the home-to-work distance, not on kilometres actually driven. The ADAC explains both flat rates on its Pendlerpauschale page.

The Kilometerpauschale for business trips in a private vehicle stays at EUR 0.30 per kilometre actually driven in 2026 (EUR 0.20 for a two-wheeler). This is the closest thing to a “per kilometre driven” logic, and therefore the most defensible benchmark for sharing between people close to each other.

The real cost

The ADAC calculates full costs for close to 1,200 models on a basis of 5 years and 75,000 kilometres. For compact and mid-size cars, published figures put the full cost in a range of roughly EUR 0.40 to 0.58 per kilometre, everything included: depreciation, fuel, insurance, road tax, servicing, tyres. The dominant item is depreciation, often 40 to 50 % of the total for a new car.

Free loan or rental: the EUR 256 threshold

German law draws a sharp line between Verleih, lending for free, and Vermietung, renting for money. Free lending between people close to each other generates no taxable income. Private renting, on the other hand, falls under “sonstige Einkünfte” within the meaning of section 22 no. 3 of the EStG.

The threshold to know is EUR 256 a year. It is a Freigrenze, not an allowance: below EUR 256 of net annual receipts, nothing is taxable; from EUR 256 up, the whole amount becomes taxable and must be declared in the SO annex, with actual costs deductible. The threshold applies to all your private rentals over the year, not per vehicle. Beyond a regular and organised practice, the risk becomes reclassification as a commercial activity, with the obligations that follow.

Insurance

As in Switzerland, liability and comprehensive cover attach to the vehicle: lending for free to someone close to you is covered by the keeper’s policy. An at-fault claim means a downgraded no-claims bonus and the comprehensive excess. The critical point is the same: as soon as money changes hands it is a rental, which must be declared and insured separately. Private liability insurance excludes motoring altogether through its “Benzinklausel”.

The Netherlands: 25 cents tax-free, and a much higher real cost

The 2026 tax plan initially set the tax-free mileage allowance at EUR 0.23, as in 2025. The government finally raised it to EUR 0.25 per kilometre, through a decision published in spring 2026 but backdated to 1 January 2026. It is the lowest tax-free ceiling of the four countries covered. Several websites, including the ANWB’s, still showed EUR 0.23 months after the increase: always check the date of the page you are reading.

The real cost according to Nibud and the ANWB

Nibud publishes monthly costs based on ANWB data from June 2025, assuming ten years of ownership and fuel at EUR 1.97 per litre:

Category	Monthly cost	Annual mileage	Full cost per km	Variable share per km
Mini class	EUR 356	8,500 km	EUR 0.50	EUR 0.22
Compact class	EUR 419	9,000 km	EUR 0.56	EUR 0.24
Small mid-size	EUR 554.50	11,000 km	EUR 0.61	EUR 0.24
Mid-size	EUR 703.50	11,000 km	EUR 0.80	EUR 0.31

The gap with the tax-free ceiling is striking: at EUR 0.25 per kilometre, a Dutch owner does not even cover half their full cost.

No official scale for sharing between people close to each other

The Netherlands has no imposed scale for sharing between individuals. The recommended principle, notably from Milieu Centraal, is to share only real costs, with no profit, splitting fixed costs (purchase, servicing, insurance, road tax) according to each person’s use. The EUR 0.25 to 0.35 per kilometre figure sometimes quoted for “at cost” car sharing is Belgian in origin and is not a Dutch rule.

On tax, sporadic sharing with no associated service belongs to wealth (Box 3) and the receipts are not taxed as such. More structured renting, with active involvement by the owner, falls under “resultaat uit overige werkzaamheden” and becomes taxable, with costs deductible. Since 2023, the DAC7 directive has required platforms to report owners’ income to the tax authorities.

Insurance

Insurance follows the number plate, not the driver: lending your car to someone close to you who holds a valid licence is covered. The rule among Dutch insurers is unanimous and explicit: as soon as money is charged it is a rental, and standard car insurance no longer applies. There is an important and useful nuance, though: several insurers state that a simple mileage allowance covering fuel and wear remains acceptable. That is exactly the zone in which sharing between people close to each other should stay. A regular driver must be declared here too.

The four countries side by side

Country	Official ceiling per kilometre	Real cost benchmark	Sources	Year
Switzerland	CHF 0.75 (federal deduction and employer flat rate)	CHF 0.74 per km	Federal Department of Finance, TCS	2026
France	Mileage scale: EUR 0.529 to 0.697 depending on horsepower	EUR 416 a month, about 42 cents per km over 12,000 km	DGFiP, Roole Data	2026 (scale), 2025 (cost)
Germany	EUR 0.30 (business trip), EUR 0.38 (commuting)	EUR 0.40 to 0.58 per km (compact and mid-size)	EStG, ADAC	2026 (tax), 2025-2026 (ADAC)
Netherlands	EUR 0.25 (tax-free allowance, backdated to 1 January 2026)	EUR 0.50 to 0.80 per km depending on category	Belastingdienst, Nibud and ANWB	2026 (tax), 2025 (cost)

Three findings run through all four countries. Sharing real costs without profit is not taxable income, whereas renting with a margin is. Insurance follows the vehicle everywhere, so free lending is covered, but charging money voids standard cover. Finally, in Germany and the Netherlands the full real cost clearly exceeds the tax-free ceiling, Switzerland has just aligned the two, and France stands apart: its scale is set high enough to cover the full cost of an average car, which is exactly what makes it a comfortable ceiling.

The differences lie elsewhere. France is the only one of the four to publish a quantified doctrine on cost sharing. Germany is the only one to set a clear threshold where taxation kicks in. The Netherlands has the lowest tax-free ceiling, far below the real cost. And Switzerland now indexes its tax ceiling on the real cost published by the TCS.

Which rate to choose for your situation

If the person uses the car occasionally, a few trips a month, charge the variable share: the fuel and wear their kilometres directly generate. That is about 28 centimes per kilometre in Switzerland, about fifteen cents in France on the Roole basis, and 22 to 31 cents in the Netherlands depending on the vehicle category. In Germany, the EUR 0.30 business-trip rate plays that role as a simple benchmark: it generally covers the variable share while staying well below the full cost. The owner absorbs the fixed costs, which they would pay anyway.

If the person uses the car heavily, several times a week or for a significant share of annual mileage, the variable share is no longer enough: the owner ends up funding insurance, road tax and depreciation alone on a car they only half use. Move towards the full cost instead: CHF 0.74 in Switzerland, the mileage scale in France, EUR 0.40 to 0.58 in Germany, EUR 0.50 to 0.80 in the Netherlands depending on category.

If you would rather not pick a rate at all, there is another approach: add up every real expense on the vehicle over the year and split it among the members of the circle in proportion to the kilometres each has driven. You then need no scale at all, only a reliable record of kilometres and expenses. That is the principle behind cost sharing in Co-oto.

Four safeguards

Never make a profit. This is the rule that governs everything else: the tax nature of the money you receive and the validity of your insurance. Charging at or below the real cost keeps you safe on both fronts.

Keep a written record. A message is enough, as long as it states the period, how the reimbursement was calculated and the fact that this is cost sharing. A record of kilometres and expenses beats memory, and it heads off most misunderstandings between people who know each other.

Watch the thresholds. In Germany, staying under EUR 256 of net annual receipts removes the tax question entirely. In France, do not turn lending into regular renting. In Switzerland and the Netherlands, do not collect more than your costs.

Tell your insurer. Check the exclusive-driving clause and the one on young drivers. Declare any regular driver as a secondary driver. And avoid both the word and the practice of “renting”: standard cover ends where payment begins.

One signal should alert you: once the person becomes a regular user, several times a week, it is time to declare them to the insurer and to move to full-cost sharing rather than a token contribution.

How Co-oto handles the calculation

Co-oto is built for exactly this case: several people who trust each other, one vehicle, no appetite for a spreadsheet. We compare the two approaches side by side in Co-oto or a spreadsheet plus Splitwise and Tricount. The app records each driver’s kilometres and the vehicle’s running expenses, then produces a statement splitting those expenses among the members of the circle. You choose how the split works; the app does the arithmetic and keeps the written record.

No commission is taken and nothing passes through the app. The owner fronts the big bills and centralises reimbursements, each driver settles only their share of actual use, and you pay each other however you like, by bank transfer, a mobile payment app or cash. Co-oto keeps the accounts but never touches your money. By design, you therefore stay within cost sharing.

For the full picture, see how it works and the trip logbook, which documents the kilometres the whole calculation rests on.

Sources and method

Every figure in this article was verified in August 2026.

Switzerland: TCS press release of 6 January 2026 on per-kilometre costs; Federal Department of Finance press release of 11 September 2025 on adapting direct federal tax scales; ordinance on professional expenses (SR 642.118.1); conditions of the “driving third-party vehicles” cover, Zurich Switzerland.

France: order of 27 March 2023 setting the mileage scale, article 83-3° of the CGI, BOFiP BOI-BAREME-000001 and official calculator; cost-sharing doctrine, BOFiP BOI-IR-BASE-10-10-10-10 and service-public.fr fact sheet on carpooling income; impots.gouv.fr guidance on renting out a car or other movable property, updated 16 June 2026; Roole Data study on the French car budget, 10 October 2025.

Germany: section 9 (1) sentence 3 no. 4 of the EStG as amended by the Steueränderungsgesetz 2025; section 22 no. 3 of the EStG for the EUR 256 Freigrenze; Pendlerpauschale 2026, ADAC; full motoring costs, ADAC.

Netherlands: Belastingdienst decision on raising the tax-free mileage allowance; monthly motoring costs, Nibud, ANWB data June 2025; sharing or renting a car, Milieu Centraal; lending your car and insurance, FBTO.

Caveats. Official scales and motoring-club costs are dated, sourced facts. Applying the French carpooling doctrine to lending a vehicle to someone who drives alone, and the exact Swiss tax treatment of compensation received for lending, remain matters of interpretation in the absence of specific published doctrine. The German range of 40 to 58 cents per kilometre comes from figures reproducing ADAC calculations rather than from a direct publication. Finally, every real cost quoted here is an average: it varies a great deal with the vehicle, its age, its powertrain, annual mileage and region.

Going further

• Car-sharing, rental, ridesharing: what’s the difference?
• Private car sharing: the tools that prevent misunderstandings
• The trip logbook as a tracking tool

A reminder: this article is an information guide, not tax or insurance advice. Every situation is different; when in doubt, ask your tax authority or your insurer.