Mileage and Travel Reimbursement

The rate changed twice in 2026. Most pages quoting a California mileage figure right now are quoting the January rate or something older. Check the date of your travel, not the date of your injury.

What is reimbursable

Travel to and from medical treatment, including physical therapy, imaging, and the pharmacy.

Travel to a medical-legal examination — a QME or AME.

Parking and bridge tolls.

And for an examination requested by the employer, insurer, administrative director, or the Appeals Board, § 4600(e) provides considerably more: "all reasonable expenses of transportation, meals, and lodging incident to reporting for the examination, together with one day of temporary disability indemnity for each day of wages lost in submitting to the examination."

Read that again: meals, lodging, and a day of temporary disability for wages lost. Not just mileage. Almost nobody claims the rest of it.

The provision that gets ignored

§ 4600(e)(2): "the mileage and tolls shall be paid to the employee at the time the employee is given notification of the time and place of the examination."

At the time you are notified. Not after you attend. Not after you submit a form.

If you have been noticed for a medical-legal examination and no mileage has been paid, that is a defect in the notice, and it is worth raising in writing before the appointment rather than after.

How to actually get paid

Keep a log. Date, provider, address, round-trip miles, parking, tolls. One page, kept as you go. Reconstructing two years of appointments from memory is how people give up on this.

Submit it in writing to the claims administrator, dated, with a copy kept.

Use the DWC's mileage form if you prefer a standard format.

And know that mileage is "compensation." A delay in paying it can support a § 5814 penalty — up to 25% or up to $10,000, whichever is less — and the two-year deadline runs from when the payment was due. How penalties work.

Frequently asked questions