Can a pastor deduct mileage, meals, and cell phone costs the church does not reimburse?

There are two answers, because ministers are taxed two different ways at once. For income tax the answer is no. For self-employment (SECA) tax the answer is usually yes, and that second answer is the one most pastors have never heard.

For income tax, unreimbursed employee expenses stopped being deductible for tax years after 2017. That rule was temporary at first and was made permanent by the 2025 tax law. IRS Publication 517 spells it out in its worked example: the minister in the example "is no longer able to deduct the $3,500 incurred for employee expenses related to his ministerial salary since miscellaneous itemized deductions aren't allowed for tax years beginning after 2017." If you receive a W-2 from your church, your mileage, meals, and phone bill do nothing for your income tax.

For SECA the rule is different, because for Social Security purposes a minister is self-employed even with a W-2. The Schedule SE instructions say that unreimbursed business expenses incurred as a church employee "are not deductible as an itemized deduction for income tax purposes. However, when figuring SE tax, subtract on line 2 the allowable expenses from your self-employment earnings and attach an explanation." SECA runs at 15.3% on 92.35% of net earnings, so each dollar of documented ministry expense saves roughly 14 cents of SECA. A pastor who drives 3,000 ministry miles a year and pays for a phone the church does not cover can be leaving a few hundred dollars on the table every year.

That is also why these records belong on the same worksheet as your housing allowance. Your allowance is added back into your SECA base, as covered in the question about Social Security and Medicare tax. Unreimbursed expenses come off that same base. One adds, the other subtracts, and both are figured on Schedule SE.

Three things change the answer:

• If your Form 4361 was approved, you owe no SECA on ministerial earnings, so there is no SECA deduction to take. The records would only matter for reimbursement.
• Income you earn outside your church job, such as honoraria for weddings, funerals, or guest speaking, is reported on Schedule C. Expenses tied to that income are deductible there for income tax as well as SECA.
• On Schedule C, Publication 517 requires you to treat part of your expenses as nondeductible because part of your ministry income (the housing allowance) was tax free. The nondeductible share is your tax-free housing allowance divided by all your ministry income, taxable and tax free. Publication 517 adds that you "reduce your otherwise deductible expenses only in figuring your income tax, not your SE tax," so the full expense still counts for SECA.

What typically counts, and what the IRS expects you to write down, is the same as for any self-employed person, and Publication 463 is the rulebook:

• Mileage between the church and hospital visits, home visits, meetings, and conferences. Driving from your home to the church is commuting and does not count. The log needs the date, where you went, why, and the miles. Deduct either actual car costs or the IRS standard mileage rate, which changes every year and can change mid-year, so keep miles and let your preparer apply the rate.
• Meals are generally 50% deductible, and only when there is a business purpose and someone else at the table, or you are traveling overnight. Keep the receipt and note who and why.
• Cell phone and internet count only for the business-use share. A reasonable estimate of that share, written down once and applied consistently, is what a preparer needs.
• Books, study materials, supplies, vestments that are not everyday clothing, continuing education, and conference travel are all ordinary ministry expenses when you paid for them and were not reimbursed.

The best answer of all is to stop paying these costs yourself. If your church adopts an accountable reimbursement plan, it repays you for documented ministry expenses, and under Publication 463 those repayments are not wages, do not appear on your W-2, and are not subject to income tax or SECA. Every dollar reimbursed that way is worth more than the same dollar deducted, and the church can adopt the plan by a simple board action. A year of expense records is the case for asking.

One boundary worth stating plainly: none of this is a housing expense. Mileage, meals, and phone bills do not count toward the housing allowance exclusion under Section 107, and they should never appear in your housing allowance records. Keep them in a separate log.