Motor vehicle: Logbook for company vehicles or vehicles leased to employees

A logbook is used to distinguish between business/professional and private journeys. It must be conducted promptly and in a closed form and fully reflect the journeys to be recorded, including the mileage reached at the end, in their continuous context. A collection of loose sheets is not permitted as a logbook.
For business/professional journeys, a logbook must contain at least the following information:

• Date and mileage at the beginning and end of each individual operational/professional journey
• Destination (in case of detours also the itinerary)
• Purpose of travel
• Names of the business partners visited

For private trips, mileage is sufficient; for journeys between home and (first) permanent establishment/first place of work, a short note in the logbook is sufficient.

If the correctness of the logbook is not recognised by the tax authorities, the use of the motor vehicle for private journeys and for journeys between home and (first) permanent establishment/first place of activity must in principle be assessed according to standard rates.

The keeping of an electronic logbook is also permitted. So you can easily record your business/professional and private trips on your PC. The prerequisite is that the same knowledge can be gained from the electronic logbook as from a manually kept logbook. When printing electronic records, subsequent changes to the recorded information must be technically excluded, or at least documented. Electronic logbooks are offered by various manufacturers.