What Can I Claim on Tax in Australia? The Complete Deductions Guide

The question that determines the size of your refund is simple: what can you actually claim on your taxes? Australian tax law lets you deduct a wide range of work-related and income-producing expenses from your assessable income, which lowers the tax you pay. But the deductions you can claim are specific, the rates and conditions are set by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), and claiming something you are not entitled to is one of the fastest ways to trigger a review.

This guide covers every major deduction available to Australian individuals and small businesses: the three rules every claim must satisfy, what you can claim without receipts, a plain table of what you cannot claim, and how to substantiate each item. The rates that change from year to year are set out in a single dated table below and reviewed each income year, so you can always check the current figure at a glance.

Current Deduction Rates at a Glance

The Three Rules Every Deduction Must Satisfy

When an expense is partly work-related and partly personal (such as a phone or laptop), only the work-related proportion is deductible. You must have a basis for calculating the split.

• 
  You paid for it yourself. You cannot claim an expense your employer paid or reimbursed you for. If your employer paid for a tool, a subscription or a course and did not include it in your taxable income, it is not your deduction.
• 
  It directly relates to earning your income. The expense must connect to your income-producing work. Something that gives a general personal benefit, even if it makes you better at your job, is not deductible unless there is a direct link to earning income.
• 
  It is not private, domestic or capital in nature. Personal expenses are not deductible. Buying an asset is usually a capital expense: rather than deducting it in full, you depreciate it over its effective life, with exceptions for assets under $300 and the small business instant asset write-off.

When an expense is partly work-related and partly personal, such as a mobile phone or a laptop, only the work-related portion is deductible, and you need a reasonable basis for the split. For an occupation-by-occupation breakdown, our guides for tradie tax deductions, tax deductions for doctors, lawyer tax deductions and hospitality tax deductions list the specific claims for each role.

What You Can Claim on Tax: The Master List

This table summarises the deductions most individuals can claim, the applicable method, and the key condition attached to each. Detailed sections follow. Dollar rates that change year to year are held in the rates table above rather than repeated here.

Individual Tax Deductions in Full Detail

1. Work-Related Car and Vehicle Expenses

You can claim the work-related use of your own vehicle. This covers travel between different work locations, travel from your regular workplace to a client's premises, and travel from home to an alternative workplace that is not your regular one.

Method 1: Cents per kilometre

Multiply your work-related kilometres by the ATO cents-per-km rate for the income year (see the rates table above). The method is capped at 5,000 kilometres per vehicle per year. You do not need fuel receipts, but you must be able to explain how you calculated the kilometres, for example, using a diary of regular trips.

Method 2: Logbook method

Keep a logbook for at least 12 consecutive weeks, recording every journey (date, purpose, start and end odometer readings). The business-use percentage from the logbook then applies to all your actual running costs, fuel, insurance, registration, servicing, loan interest and depreciation. A logbook is valid for five years if your usage pattern does not change substantially, and this method usually produces a larger deduction for people who drive a lot for work.

2. Working From Home Expenses

If you work from home as part of your regular employment, you can claim the running costs for the time you spend working there. There are two methods.

Fixed rate method

Multiply your actual hours worked from home by the ATO fixed rate for the income year (in the rates table above). This rate covers electricity, gas, home and mobile internet, phone use, stationery and computer consumables. You cannot then claim any of those same items separately, doing so is the double-dip the ATO looks for first. You can separately claim the decline in value of office equipment such as a laptop, monitor, desk or chair.

Actual cost method

Calculate the work-related proportion of each running cost separately, electricity and gas, internet, phone, cleaning, and the decline in value of equipment. It requires more record-keeping but can yield a larger deduction for a home office with high operating costs. You do not need a dedicated office room to claim; you can work from any area of your home.

3. Work-Related Clothing and Laundry

Deductible clothing falls into three categories:

• 
  Occupation-specific clothing that is distinctive and not suitable for everyday wear, such as a chef's checked pants or a nurse's uniform.
• 
  Protective clothing required for your job: steel-capped boots, hi-vis vests, safety helmets, chemical-resistant gloves.
• 
  Compulsory uniforms that your employer requires you to wear and which are registered on the Register of Approved Occupational Clothing.

Plain clothing is not deductible, even if you only wear it for work. A suit, a white shirt, or black trousers are conventional clothing, not a uniform. For laundry, you can claim $1 per load for loads of work clothing only, or 50 cents per load for mixed loads. You do not need written evidence for laundry claims under $150.

4. Tools, Equipment and Technology

Under $300: claim the full cost in the year you buy it. Over $300: depreciate the asset over its effective life, claiming a portion of the cost each year. If an asset is used for both work and private purposes, only the work-related proportion is deductible or depreciable.

5. Self-Education Expenses

Course fees, study materials, student union fees and associated travel are deductible if the course directly relates to your current income-producing activities. It must maintain or improve the skills your current job requires, or be likely to increase your income from your current role.

6. Professional Memberships and Subscriptions

Annual fees paid to professional associations, work-related unions, and work-related journal or publication subscriptions are fully deductible. Examples include AMA membership for doctors, Law Society membership for lawyers, ICB membership for bookkeepers, trade union fees, and subscriptions to industry-specific publications. Only work-related subscriptions qualify a general-interest news subscription is not deductible even if you occasionally read work-related material in it.

7. Income Protection Insurance

Premiums for income protection insurance you pay outside super are fully deductible. This insurance replaces 75–85% of your income if you cannot work due to illness or injury. Not deductible: life insurance premiums, critical illness (trauma) premiums, and Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) premiums. If your income protection is held inside your super fund, the premiums come from your super balance, so you cannot claim them as a personal deduction. This is one of the most overlooked deductions Australians miss each year.

8. Investment and Rental Property Expenses

Costs incurred in earning investment income are deductible. For share and managed fund investors, this includes interest on money borrowed to buy income-producing shares, brokerage on share transactions (though brokerage forms part of the cost base for capital gains tax rather than being immediately deductible), dividend reinvestment plan fees, and account-keeping fees.

For rental property owners, deductible costs include interest on the investment property loan, council rates, water charges, land tax, property management fees, insurance, repairs and maintenance (not improvements), advertising for tenants, and depreciation on plant and equipment, as determined by a depreciation schedule.

9. Charitable Donations

Donations of $2 or more to ATO-registered Deductible Gift Recipients (DGRs) are deductible. Most major Australian charities are registered DGRs. You can verify a charity's status on the ABN Lookup DGR tool before claiming. A donation qualifies when it is a genuine gift to a DGR, it is at least $2, and you receive no material benefit in return. Donations to individuals, crowdfunding campaigns, non-registered charities and event tickets are generally not deductible, even for genuine charitable purposes.

10. Tax Agent Fees and Tax-Related Expenses

The fees you pay a registered tax agent to prepare and lodge your return are fully deductible in the year you pay them. This includes:

• 
  Tax agent preparation and lodgment fees
• 
  Fees for advice on your tax affairs
• 
  Travel costs to and from your tax agent's office
• 
  ATO-approved tax return lodgment software

These are claimed in the year you pay them. If you pay a preparation fee in one income year for a return that was prepared for the prior year, you claim it in the year of payment. This timing is why the prior-year agent fee is one of the most frequently missed deductions. Our tax return services in Adelaide cover exactly this kind of review.

What Can I Claim on Tax Without Receipts?

You can claim up to $300 in work-related expenses in total without receipts, provided you actually spent the money and can explain how you calculated the amount. This is a total across all your work-related claims, not $300 per item. The moment your total work-related deductions exceed $300, you need written evidence for every work-related claim, including the ones under $300.

Several specific claims have their own no-receipt rules:

What You Cannot Claim: Common Errors and Disallowed Deductions

The ATO's data-matching program identifies these disallowed deductions in lodged returns. Over-claiming leads to amended assessments, interest on underpaid tax and potential penalties. The most common errors are:

The $1,000 Standard Deduction for Work-Related Expenses

The government has legislated a standard deduction of up to $1,000 for work-related expenses, applying from the 2026–27 income year onward. If your genuine work-related deductions total less than $1,000, you can claim a flat $1,000 instead without receipts; if they total more, you claim the higher actual amount as normal. Check the rates table above for whether it is in effect for the income year you are lodging.

Most Overlooked Tax Deductions in Australia

These are the deductions Australian taxpayers most commonly miss:

• 
  Income protection insurance premiums paid outside super.
• 
  Prior-year tax agent fees: The fee you paid to have last year's return prepared is deductible in the year you paid it.
• 
  Union fees and professional association memberships are paid annually and forgotten by tax time. Check your bank statements for the annual debit.
• 
  Dividend reinvestment plan shares as income, not a deduction, but a common oversight; DRP shares are assessable income at market value and missing them creates a data-matching discrepancy.
• 
  Self-education for existing qualifications, a specialist nursing course, coding conferences or a new trade licence, all potentially deductible if tied to your current role.
• 
  Phone and internet for work: the work-related proportion of your personal phone and home internet, backed by a representative usage record.
• 
  Home office equipment depreciation under the fixed rate method, you can still separately claim the decline in value of a laptop, monitor or desk.
• 
  Sunscreen and sunglasses for outdoor workers, tradies, agricultural workers and landscapers can claim sun protection as work-related protective items.

Tax Write-Offs for Small Businesses and Sole Traders

Businesses can deduct all ordinary and necessary expenses incurred in earning assessable income. In addition to the individual deductions above (where they apply to your work), businesses can claim operating expenses (rent, utilities, advertising, website costs, professional fees, bank fees, software subscriptions and supplies), employee costs (wages, super guarantee, payroll tax and workers' compensation insurance), business insurance, vehicle expenses via the logbook method, the instant asset write-off (see the rates table for the current threshold), and bad debts. For the full breakdown by business type, see our small business tax return service and our small business tax deductions guide.

How to Maximise Your Tax Deductions

• 
  Keep records throughout the year, not at tax time. Photograph receipts at the point of purchase with a receipt app or the ATO myDeductions app.
• 
  Keep a working-from-home hours record from the first day of the income year; the fixed rate method needs contemporaneous records; don't try to reconstruct them later.
• 
  Know your occupation-specific deductions. The ATO publishes guides for teachers, nurses, tradies, doctors, and many other roles, each listing job-specific claims.
• 
  Watch your income-tested thresholds reportable employer super contributions affect the Medicare Levy Surcharge, the private health rebate and HELP repayments. Our guide to the Medicare levy and the tax-free threshold explains how these interact.
• 
  Consider your timing if you have significant deductible expenses (professional membership, income protection premiums, an agent invoice), paying before 30 June brings the deduction into the current financial year.
• 
  Stay off the ATO's radar: Over-claiming is the fastest route to a review. Our guide to avoiding a tax audit covers the current focus areas.

How The Kalculators Can Help

Our registered tax agents in Adelaide review your situation across every deduction category. Clients who lodged their own returns and then used our service commonly find deductions they had overlooked, such as income protection premiums, prior-year agent fees, equipment depreciation and self-education. If you lodged in the past two to four years and think you missed deductions, we can review previously lodged returns and lodge amendments where corrections are warranted.