What Can I Claim on Tax? The Complete Work Expenses Guide for 2025-26

Updated 26 July 2026

The three golden rules

Every work deduction must pass all three:

1. You spent the money yourself and were not reimbursed. Employer-reimbursed costs are the employer's deduction, not yours.
2. It directly relates to earning your income. Not preparing for a future job, not making you generally presentable, not getting you to work.
3. You have a record. Receipts for most things; specific records for cars and home offices. Above $300 of total work expenses, written evidence is mandatory for the lot.

Car expenses: the biggest and most audited claim

Your daily commute is not deductible; travel during work is. Deductible trips include travel between two workplaces, to clients or site visits, and to meetings away from your base. Home-to-work becomes deductible only in narrow cases: carrying bulky tools with no secure storage at work, or where home is genuinely your base of employment.

Two methods:

Working from home

The fixed rate is 70 cents per hour for 2025-26, covering electricity, gas, internet, phone and stationery, with equipment depreciation on top; or claim actual costs with full apportionment records. The methods, records and worked examples are in our dedicated work from home guide. The one-line rule: keep a real record of hours all year, and never claim internet or phone separately on top of the fixed rate.

Tools, equipment and technology

• $300 or less: immediate deduction in the year of purchase (work-use portion)
• Over $300: depreciate over the effective life, again at work-use percentage
• Laptops, phones, monitors, tools, professional bags and protective gear all qualify at their work percentage; a 100% claim on a personal phone will not survive review, so keep a representative month's usage split

Clothing and laundry

Deductible: compulsory uniforms with a logo or registered design, occupation-specific clothing (chef's whites, nurse's scrubs), and protective clothing (hi-vis, steel caps, sun protection for outdoor workers). Laundry of those items is claimable, with records required over $150 of laundry.

Self-education and professional development

Deductible when the course maintains or improves skills for your current job or is likely to increase your income from it: short courses, conferences, seminars, degrees connected to your role, plus the textbooks, travel and depreciation that go with them. Not deductible when it is designed to get you a new job or first job; a nurse studying law claims nothing, a nurse studying a graduate certificate in clinical practice claims it all.

Other common deductions

• Union fees, professional memberships and registrations
• Income protection insurance premiums (outside super); life and TPD are not deductible personally
• Work-related phone and internet at a documented work percentage (if not using the WFH fixed rate for those hours)
• Overtime meals where a genuine overtime meal allowance was paid under an award, up to the ATO's reasonable amount, around $38 per meal for 2025-26 under the annual determination
• Sun protection for outdoor workers
• Handbags, briefcases and work bags used to carry work items, at work percentage
• Cost of managing tax affairs: last year's tax agent fee and travel to see them
• Interest and dividend deductions: account fees, investment loan interest, subscriptions tied to investment income
• Donations of $2 or more to deductible gift recipients; see our donations guide

Work travel beyond the car: flights, accommodation, meals

Where work takes you away from home overnight, the travel itself opens up: airfares, accommodation, meals and incidentals while away, taxis and rideshare between airport, hotel and work. The rules that keep it clean:

• A travel diary is required for trips of six or more consecutive nights, recording what you did and when
• Travel allowances: if your employer pays a bona fide travel allowance, claims up to the ATO's published reasonable amounts (set each year by determination) can be made without receipts, though you still need to show the money was spent
• Mixed trips apportion. A conference with three days of sessions and four days of holiday claims the work fraction of the airfare and only the conference-day costs
• Relocation is not travel. Moving cities for a new role is private, however work-driven it feels

What a deduction is actually worth: the marginal rate maths

A deduction reduces taxable income, not tax, so its cash value is your marginal rate. A $1,000 deduction returns:

Two consequences follow. First, never spend a dollar to save at most 47 cents; buy what the job genuinely needs, then claim it. Second, timing matters at the margins (more levers in our maximising your return guide): a deductible purchase brought forward into a high-income year is worth more than the same purchase next year at a lower rate.

Self-education worked example. Priya, a project coordinator on $95,000, completes a $4,200 graduate certificate in project management directly tied to her role, plus $380 of textbooks and $250 of travel to intensives. Total claim $4,830, at a 32% marginal rate: about $1,545 back, for study that also supports the pay rise. The same course taken to switch into a different career: $0.

Five myths that cost people money at review

1. "Everyone claims $300 automatically." The no-receipts threshold still requires that you actually spent the money on deductible items. A standard claim with nothing behind it is the easiest adjustment the ATO makes.
2. "My accountant's software knows what I can claim." Averages by occupation are a review trigger, not an entitlement. Claims need your records, not the occupation's.
3. "Cash purchases are invisible." The deduction fails without evidence either way; invisibility only removes your proof.
4. "If it was for work, the whole thing is claimable." Phone, internet, laptops and cars are nearly always mixed-use; the work percentage is the claim, and a documented basis for the percentage is the defence.
5. "A bigger refund means a better accountant." A defensible refund means a better accountant. Inflated claims unwind with interest and penalties two years later, addressed to you, not the preparer.

One more change on the horizon: from 1 July 2026 a standard $1,000 instant deduction for work-related expenses applies, meaning claims up to $1,000 will not require itemised substantiation from the 2026-27 return onward. It does not apply to the 2025-26 return you are lodging now, and taxpayers with more than $1,000 of genuine claims will still do better itemising.

Records: the myDeductions habit

The ATO's myDeductions tool inside the ATO app records receipts, trips and hours as they happen, then uploads straight into your return or to your tax agent at year end. Photograph every receipt at purchase; thermal paper fades before five years, and the record-keeping obligation runs five years from lodgment. A shoebox reconstructed in July loses money every single year, in claims forgotten and claims unsupportable.

What you cannot claim

• Home-to-work travel (with the narrow exceptions above)
• Conventional clothing and grooming
• Child care
• Fines, however work-related the parking felt
• Meals during a normal work day
• Anything salary-sacrificed or reimbursed
• Club memberships and most entertainment

Claiming depreciation properly

Anything over $300 is claimed over its effective life, not upfront, and the mechanics matter:

• Choose a method: diminishing value (bigger claims early) or prime cost (even claims). Diminishing value suits tech that you will replace; once chosen for an asset, you keep it.
• Effective life: use the Commissioner's annual effective life determination (laptops around 2 years, phones 3, office furniture 10+) or self-assess with reasons.
• Work percentage applies every year, and can change; a laptop that was 80% work during a WFH-heavy year and 40% after a role change is claimed at each year's actual percentage.
• Part-year purchases apportion by days. A monitor bought in May yields a sliver in year one; do not let the small first-year number talk you out of registering the asset, the claim runs for its whole life.
• Disposals settle the account. Sell or bin a partly depreciated asset and a balancing adjustment squares the difference between written-down value and what you got.

The practical tip: keep a one-line asset register (item, date, cost, work %, method) from the first purchase. Five minutes per asset preserves years of claims that reconstructed returns routinely miss.

Occupation snapshots

• Tradies: tools over and under $300 (the under-$300 immediate deduction does most of the work), protective gear and sun protection, bulky-tools vehicle claims where the ute genuinely carries the kit and the site has no secure storage, licences, tickets and renewals (white card, working at heights), phone for quoting and scheduling. The trap: claiming home-to-site travel without the bulky-tools facts to support it.
• Nurses and carers: occupation-specific shoes and scrubs, agency commissions, AHPRA and annual registrations, self-education tied to the current role, kilometres between facilities on the same shift (not home to the first facility). The trap: conventional comfortable shoes; they fail unless occupation-specific.
• Teachers: classroom supplies bought out of pocket, excursion supervision costs, professional development and union fees, a share of home internet for planning and reporting. The trap: anything reimbursed by the school claimed again.
• Office and remote workers: the WFH fixed rate with a real record of hours, equipment depreciation, professional memberships and subscriptions, self-education. The trap: phone and internet claimed on top of the fixed rate.
• Sales and real estate: logbook car claims (kilometres are usually far beyond the 5,000 cap), phone, personally borne marketing and gifts within FBT-free limits, home office. The trap: entertainment dressed as marketing; client meals are not deductible.
• FIFO and shift workers: overtime meals against a genuine allowance, licences and medicals required by the role, protective gear. The trap: travel to the departure point, which remains private commuting despite the distances involved.

The ATO publishes occupation guides with its expectations by role; claims far outside the pattern for your occupation and income are what its analytics select for review.

This article provides general information only, current at the date of publication, and does not constitute personal tax, legal or financial advice. Consider your circumstances or speak with us before acting. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.