How many miles does the average American drive per year?

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Cifra · Accepted Answer

13,476 miles. The FHWA figure for average annual mileage per licensed driver is about 13,500 — roughly 37 miles every single day, weekends included. Men average noticeably more than women, and drivers aged 35 to 54 drive the most. Rural drivers accumulate more miles than urban ones despite shorter average trips being the stereotype. Estimate a daily commute and multiply. A round trip of twenty to thirty miles on working days, plus errands and weekend trips, gives a daily average in the thirties and an annual figure in the low tens of thousands. The explanation converts it back the other way: about thirty-seven miles every single day including weekends. The rural-urban comparison in the explanation is the counterintuitive one. Rural drivers accumulate more miles despite the stereotype running the other way, because distances between destinations are longer and there is no alternative to driving. Density reduces mileage even when it increases the number of trips. Note the denominator: this is per licensed driver, not per person or per vehicle. Changing the denominator changes the answer substantially, since a household may have more vehicles than drivers and a population includes many people who do not drive. Mileage statistics are unusually sensitive to which base they are divided by.

Source	U.S. Federal Highway Administration
Figure refers to	2022
Last checked	September 1, 2026
Unit	miles

How many miles does the average American drive per year?

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