Every July, I hear the same thing from friends who’ve just lodged their tax return: “I probably could have claimed more, but I wasn’t sure what counted.” They’re usually right. Most people claim the deductions they’ve always claimed — a bit of laundry, maybe some union fees — and leave the rest on the table simply because nobody explained the actual rules.
Quick answer: Under Australian Taxation Office (ATO) rules, a work-related expense is only deductible if you paid for it yourself and weren’t reimbursed, it directly relates to earning your income, and you can show a record of it. Within that framework, the deductions people most commonly miss include the working-from-home fixed-rate method, the cents-per-kilometre car method, laundry costs for genuinely work-specific clothing, sun protection for outdoor workers, self-education that maintains skills in your current role, and tax agent fees claimed in the year you actually paid them. This guide walks through each one — who qualifies, the conditions attached, and the mistakes that trip people up — using the ATO’s official 2025–26 guidance. It’s not a shortcut to a bigger refund; it’s a plain-English map of what you’re already legally entitled to claim.
The Three Golden Rules Before You Claim Anything
Before getting into specific categories, it’s worth locking in the test the ATO applies to every single work-related deduction. All three conditions have to be met:
- You spent the money yourself, and your employer didn’t reimburse you for it.
- The expense directly relates to earning your income — not just “related to work” in a loose sense.
- You have a record to prove it, such as a receipt, invoice, or (for some categories) a diary of hours or kilometres.
If an expense fails any one of these, it isn’t deductible, no matter how work-related it feels. This is also why a blanket “you’ll get a bigger refund” promise doesn’t hold up — every claim below depends on your individual circumstances, and over-claiming is one of the most common triggers for an ATO review.
Working From Home: The Deduction Most People Underclaim
For the 2024–25 and 2025–26 income years, the ATO’s fixed-rate method for working from home is 70 cents per work hour. This rate is meant to cover energy, internet, phone, and stationery/computer consumables combined — you don’t add these separately on top of the 70 cents.
What people miss: the fixed rate doesn’t include everything. Big-ticket items like a laptop, monitor, desk, or office chair are claimed separately, either as an immediate deduction (if $300 or less) or depreciated over time if they cost more. So a home-office claim can legitimately be two claims layered together — the 70c/hour rate, plus depreciation on the equipment you bought to make that home office work.
The other common mistake is record-keeping. The ATO requires you to keep a record of the actual number of hours you worked from home for the full year — not an estimate, and not just a diary for a “representative” four-week period (that shortcut no longer applies). A timesheet, roster, or a running note in your phone’s calendar is usually enough, but it has to reflect real hours.
Car Expenses: Cents-per-Kilometre Is Easier Than People Think
If you use your own car for work purposes — not your regular commute, but things like travelling between two different workplaces, visiting clients, or carrying bulky tools you can’t leave at work — you can generally claim using the cents-per-kilometre method at 88 cents per kilometre for 2025–26, capped at 5,000 work kilometres per car.
You don’t need fuel or service receipts for this method, but the ATO does expect you to be able to show how you worked out your kilometres — a logbook, diary, or app-based trip record. The big miss here is people assuming they need receipts for everything; for cents-per-kilometre, you don’t, but you do need to be able to justify the figure. And the trap in the other direction: ordinary trips from home to your regular workplace are private travel, not a deduction, even if you check emails on the way.
Work Clothing, Laundry and Sun Protection
This is where the most confusion sits, because the ATO draws a hard line between clothing types:
| Clothing type | Example | Deductible? |
|---|---|---|
| Conventional clothing | Business suit, plain black pants, jeans | No — even if your employer requires it |
| Occupation-specific clothing | A chef’s chequered pants, a barrister’s robe | Yes |
| Protective clothing | Steel-capped boots, high-vis vests, fire-resistant gear | Yes |
| Compulsory, distinctive uniform | Branded shirt with employer’s logo under a strict uniform policy | Yes |
The single most common mistake: people claim plain black work pants or a suit because their employer “insists on it.” The ATO explicitly excludes conventional clothing regardless of whether it’s compulsory — the test is whether the item is distinctive to your occupation or genuinely protective, not whether your boss requires it.
For laundering clothing that does qualify, the ATO allows $1 per load if it’s work-related items only, or 50 cents per load if mixed with personal items. A handy detail most people don’t know: you don’t need written evidence for your laundry claim if it’s $150 or less, even if your total work-related claims for the year exceed $300 (which normally would require substantiation).
Sun protection is a genuinely overlooked one. If your job requires you to work outdoors for all or part of the day — a landscaper, roofer, delivery driver, or outdoor teacher, for example — sunscreen, sunhats, and sunglasses can be deductible. The detail almost nobody checks: the sunscreen must carry an AUST L number (meaning it’s registered with the Therapeutic Goods Administration), not just any bottle from the supermarket.
Tools, Equipment and the $300 Rule
If you buy a tool or piece of equipment for work that costs $300 or less, you can generally claim the full cost as an immediate deduction in the year you bought it. Above $300, you claim the decline in value (depreciation) over the item’s effective life instead of the full amount upfront. People often miss the immediate deduction for smaller items — a $250 tool bag, a $180 pair of safety glasses, a $90 calculator for a bookkeeper — because they assume everything work-related has to be depreciated.
Self-Education: The Test Most People Get Backwards
Course fees, textbooks, and related travel can be deductible — but only if the study has a “sufficient connection” to your current job. In practice, that means the study must either maintain or improve skills you use in your current role, or be likely to lead to an increase in income from that same role.
What trips people up is claiming self-education for a course that would qualify them for a new job or a different field entirely. That’s the one scenario the ATO rules out — study to get you into a different profession isn’t deductible, even if it’s a sensible career move. A nurse studying a specialist nursing certificate is on solid ground; that same nurse studying a law degree to change careers generally isn’t.
Union Fees, Memberships and Income Protection Insurance
Union fees and subscriptions to a professional association directly related to your job are deductible in full, and there’s no threshold — even a small annual fee counts. Income protection insurance is another one people overlook entirely: premiums for a policy that covers you for loss of income (as opposed to a policy bundled inside your superannuation that covers death or total permanent disability) are generally deductible, provided you’re paying the premium yourself outside of your super fund. If you’re weighing this up alongside your super contributions, it’s worth understanding how superannuation and DASP work if you eventually leave Australia, since insurance held inside super behaves differently to income protection you hold personally.
Managing Your Tax Affairs: A Timing Quirk Almost Nobody Knows
Fees you pay a registered tax agent, tax software costs, and even certain costs of getting tax advice are deductible. The detail that catches people out: you claim the fee in the income year you actually pay it, not the year the return relates to. So the fee you pay your accountant this year for last year’s return gets claimed on next year’s tax return, not this one. It sounds pedantic, but it’s a genuinely common miss, especially for people who assume the deduction and the service happen in the same tax year.
Common Mistakes That Draw ATO Attention
A few patterns show up again and again in ATO guidance on what goes wrong:
- Estimating instead of recording. Guessing your work-from-home hours or car kilometres instead of keeping an actual record.
- Claiming the private portion of a mixed-use item. If you use your phone or internet 60% for work, you can only claim 60% — not the full bill.
- Claiming conventional clothing. Plain uniforms, suits, and everyday clothes, even under a compulsory dress code.
- Double-dipping on the working-from-home rate. Claiming the 70c/hour rate and then separately claiming for internet or phone on top of it.
- Assuming a $1,000 standard deduction applies now. It doesn’t for 2025–26 — that flat, no-receipts standard deduction is legislated to start from the 2026–27 income year, not this one.
Sources: ATO – Deductions you can claim, ATO – Work-related deductions.
How to Actually Put This Into Practice
None of this replaces individual advice from a registered tax agent, particularly if your situation is complex — multiple employers, investment income, or a mix of employee and contractor work. If you’re lodging for the first time, our full guide to lodging your first Australian tax return walks through the lodgment process itself step by step. It also helps to understand where these numbers come from in the first place — our guide to reading your Australian payslip explains how tax withheld, gross pay, and super appear on your payslip, which is often the starting point for working out what you actually spent versus what your employer already covered.
If you’re checking how a change in hours, overtime, or a pay rise affects your take-home pay before you factor in deductions, our Pay Calculator is a quick way to see the numbers. And if you’re an employee wondering how compulsory super contributions interact with your overall position, our guide to how superannuation actually works for employees covers the mechanics of the 12% guarantee.
Key Takeaways
- Every deduction must meet three tests: you paid for it, it relates directly to your income, and you have a record.
- The working-from-home fixed rate is 70c/hour for 2025–26 and requires an actual record of hours — plus you can separately claim depreciation on equipment over $300.
- The cents-per-kilometre car rate is 88c/km, capped at 5,000km, and doesn’t need fuel receipts — but does need a record of how you calculated your kilometres.
- Conventional clothing is never deductible, even if your employer requires it — only occupation-specific, protective, or compulsory distinctive uniform items qualify.
- Sunscreen only counts for genuine outdoor work, and only if it carries an AUST L number.
- Self-education only qualifies if it maintains or improves skills in your current job — not if it’s aimed at a new one.
- Tax agent fees are claimed in the year you pay them, which is often the year after the return they relate to.
- The $1,000 no-receipt standard deduction does not apply to the 2025–26 income year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I claim a deduction if my employer already reimbursed me?
No. If you were reimbursed, you didn’t personally bear the cost, so it fails the first of the ATO’s three tests.
Do I need receipts for every work-related deduction?
Generally yes, with narrow exceptions — laundry claims of $150 or less don’t require written evidence, and the cents-per-kilometre car method doesn’t need fuel receipts (though you still need to show how you calculated the kilometres).
Can I claim my regular commute to work?
No. Ordinary travel between home and your regular workplace is considered private travel, not a work-related expense.
Is the $1,000 standard deduction available this year?
No. As of the 2025–26 income year it hasn’t started — it’s legislated to apply from 2026–27 onward. For now, you still need to substantiate your actual work-related claims.
Can I claim my work uniform even if it’s compulsory?
Only if it’s genuinely occupation-specific, protective, or a distinctive compulsory uniform. Conventional items like black trousers or a plain business shirt aren’t deductible even under a strict dress code.
Can I claim a course that would help me switch careers?
Generally no. Self-education is only deductible if it maintains or improves skills for your current role, or is likely to increase your income in that same role — not if it’s aimed at a different profession.
When do I claim my tax agent’s fee?
In the income year you actually pay it — which is often the year after the return it relates to, not the same year.
What if I’m not sure whether something qualifies?
Check the ATO’s occupation-specific guides or speak with a registered tax agent before claiming. Claiming something you’re unsure about is one of the more common reasons a return gets reviewed.
This article is general information based on ATO guidance current at the time of writing and isn’t personal tax advice. Your circumstances may differ, and deduction eligibility depends on your specific situation — check the ATO’s website or speak with a registered tax agent before lodging.