Tax deductions for dentists and dental professionals
For dentists and the dental team, a lot of the tax rules are about staying registered and keeping your skills current. Your first registration with the Dental Board, which you need to get the job, is not deductible, but each yearly renewal is. In the ATO's own example, an orthodontist can claim the total cost of a conference in Vancouver, even though one day of it was sightseeing and golf.
This page sets out what you can and cannot claim as a dentist, dental specialist, oral health therapist, dental hygienist, dental therapist, dental prosthetist or dental assistant in Australia, checked against the ATO's own occupation guide, which covers dentists. Where a rule has a catch in it, we have said so rather than left it out. The guide does not name the rest of the dental team, so we have also checked each rule against the ATO's general pages, which apply to every employee. Like the ATO's guide, this page is written for employees. If you work on your own ABN, for example as a contractor associate, or you own a practice, a business consultation is the better place to start.
Aevum Accounting is a CPA practice and registered tax agent in Balcatta, Perth, working with dentists and dental professionals across Australia.
Approved by Ben De Rosa, CPA. Last checked against the ATO's guidance on 26 September 2026.
What dentists and dental professionals can claim
Before any specific deduction, an expense has to clear all three of these. The ATO calls them the three golden rules.
1. You spent the money yourself and were not reimbursed. If your employer paid for it or paid you back, it is not your deduction.
2. The expense directly relates to earning your income. Not helpful to your career in general. Directly related to the job you are doing now.
3. You have a record to prove it. Usually a receipt.
If an expense was part work and part private, you can only claim the work-related portion. And you cannot claim at all if you have no records, or if someone else paid.
The short version, before the detail. These are the claims worth checking every year.
Usually deductible
Renewing your Dental Board registration each year, if you pay for it yourself.
Professional indemnity insurance you pay for yourself.
Professional association and union fees.
Income protection premiums you pay yourself.
CPD (continuing professional development), and postgraduate study that improves your skills in your current job.
Conferences and seminars, including fares, and accommodation and meals if you have to stay away overnight.
Scrubs, enclosed non-slip shoes and a compulsory uniform with your practice's logo, if you buy them yourself.
Washing, dry-cleaning and repairing that clothing, even if your employer supplied it.
Gloves, face masks, face shields and safety glasses you pay for yourself.
Instruments and equipment you buy for work, and repairs and insurance for them.
Driving between two jobs on the same day, and parking and tolls on work trips.
The work share of your phone, data and internet.
Not deductible, however it feels
Your first registration, including the application fee, which you need to get the job.
Life, trauma and critical care insurance.
Study that gets you into a new job, rather than improving the one you have.
Study loan repayments, and Commonwealth supported course fees even if you pay them upfront.
Business clothes and other everyday clothing, even if your employer requires them.
Haircuts, cosmetics and skin care, even with a grooming allowance.
Prescription glasses and contact lenses, even if you need them to work.
Vaccinations, even if your employer requires them.
The drive between home and your regular practice.
Parking at or near your regular practice.
Food and drink on a normal day, even with a meal allowance.
Work dinners and other social functions, even compulsory ones.
Each of these is explained properly below.
From the 2026-27 income year, if you are an Australian resident earning a salary or wage, you get a standard deduction of up to $1,000 for work-related expenses. The ATO applies it automatically and you do not need receipts for it. It became law in June 2026 and starts with the 2026-27 return, which you lodge from July 2027. It does not apply to the 2025-26 return you are lodging now.
It is not a bonus on top of your normal claims. Any work-related expenses you claim reduce it dollar for dollar. Claim $600 of expenses and your standard deduction drops to $400, so you land on $1,000 either way, with more paperwork. If your work expenses are more than $1,000, you claim them the way you do now, and you need records for every dollar you claim, not just the part above $1,000. For most expenses, that means written evidence such as receipts.
Union fees and professional association memberships sit outside it. You can claim those on top of the full $1,000, as long as you keep the records. The same goes for deductions that are not work expenses, such as donations to charity, income protection premiums and your tax agent's fee.
For dental professionals, it depends on who pays for what. If your employer pays your registration, indemnity insurance and CPD, your own work expenses may sit well under $1,000. If you pay them yourself, they all count against it, and together they can take you past it. Keep your receipts until you know which side of the line you are on.
The initial cost of getting registered is not deductible. You need registration before you can be employed, so the ATO treats that first cost as a cost of starting work, not of earning your income. Renewing your registration with the Dental Board of Australia each year is deductible, if you need it for your current job and pay for it yourself. You renew online through AHPRA by 30 November, so the renewal you paid in late 2025 goes in the 2025-26 return you are lodging now.
The renewal due by 30 November 2025 covers registration from 1 December 2025 to 30 November 2026. Under the Dental Board's fee schedule effective 18 September 2025, the national fee for that renewal was $818 for a dentist or dental specialist, $278 for a dental prosthetist, and $256 for a dental hygienist, dental therapist or oral health therapist. NSW fees were slightly lower. On your first registration you pay an application fee as well as the yearly fee, and neither is deductible.
Professional association and union fees are deductible, and if the amount is on your income statement, that is your evidence. Professional indemnity insurance that relates to your work is deductible if you pay for it yourself, but not if your employer pays it.
Income protection premiums you pay yourself are deductible too, but not life, trauma or critical care cover, or income protection held through your super fund and paid from your contributions.
From 2026-27, your registration and indemnity insurance count against the $1,000 standard deduction, because they are not on the ATO's list of costs that sit outside it.
The Dental Board requires dental practitioners to complete at least 60 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) over each three-year cycle.
Self-education, including CPD, is deductible if it directly relates to your current job and, when you pay for it, either maintains or improves the skills and knowledge you need for your current duties, or is likely to increase your income from your current job. It is not deductible if it only relates to your job in a general way, or helps you get a new job or change jobs. In the ATO's example, Nadia, a dentist doing postgraduate study in dental surgery, can claim her study expenses, because the study improves her dentistry skills and is relevant to her current job.
If your study would move you into a different role in the dental team, the ATO's guide has no dental example, so talk to us before you claim it.
Deductible study costs include course fees, textbooks, academic journals and stationery. Fees for a Commonwealth supported place are not deductible, whether you pay them upfront or through HECS-HELP. Fees for a full fee-paying place can be, including fees you pay with a FEE-HELP loan. Study loan repayments are never deductible.
Seminars, conferences and training courses that relate to your work are deductible, including fares, registration and, if you have to stay away overnight, accommodation and meals, unless your employer pays for them or pays you back.
In the ATO's example, Mary, an orthodontist, attends an 8-day work-related conference in Vancouver on modern cosmetic dentistry. One day involves a sightseeing tour of the city and a networking game of golf. Because her main purpose in going is work-related, she can claim the total cost of the conference, including her airfares, accommodation and meals.
If your main purpose is private, such as a holiday, you can only claim the direct costs, such as registration. If you go for both work and private reasons, such as adding a week's holiday to a week-long course, you can only claim the work-related part. If you are away for 6 or more nights in a row, you generally need to keep a travel diary showing where you were, what you were doing, and the dates and times.
Everyday clothing is private, even if your employer requires it and you only wear it at work. The ATO's guide gives business attire as its example.
You can claim what you pay to buy, hire, repair or replace four kinds of work clothing. Protective clothing protects you from specific risks of injury or illness at work, and the ATO's examples include enclosed non-slip shoes, scrubs, and lab coats that protect your everyday clothes. Occupation-specific clothing distinctly identifies your profession, but a white lab coat does not, because several professions wear one. A compulsory uniform is one your employer strictly and consistently enforces and that distinctly identifies you as working for them, such as a shirt with the practice's logo. A non-compulsory uniform counts only if your employer has registered it on the Register of Approved Occupational Clothing. Clothing your employer buys, repairs or replaces is not claimable.
Washing claimable clothing can be worked out at $1 a load for work clothing only, or 50 cents a load if you mix in personal items, even if your employer supplied the clothing. Dry-cleaning and repairs are claimed at actual cost. If your employer launders your scrubs or pays for the cleaning, there is nothing to claim.
Haircuts, cosmetics, and hair and skin care products are private, even if you get a grooming allowance or your employer expects you to be well groomed.
Protective items you pay for yourself are deductible where they protect you from a real and likely risk of illness or injury at work, such as gloves, face masks, face shields, safety glasses or goggles, and sanitiser, and so is repairing, replacing or cleaning them. You cannot claim them if your employer supplies them, pays for them or pays you back.
Prescription glasses and contact lenses are private, even if you need them to work. Protective glasses, such as safety glasses, goggles and anti-glare glasses, are claimable for their work use, if you wear them to reduce a real and likely risk of illness or injury at work. Vaccinations are private too, even if your employer requires them.
The ATO does not mention loupes in its guide or in its pages on glasses and equipment. Equipment you buy for work is claimable for its work use, over its effective life if it costs more than $300, but prescription glasses are private. If you buy your own loupes, particularly with your prescription built in, talk to us before you claim them.
You can claim instruments and equipment you use to do your job, for their work-related use, and insurance for them, but not items your employer or someone else supplies.
An item costing $300 or less can be claimed in the year you buy it, if you use it mainly for work, it is not part of a set costing more than $300 together, and it is not one of several identical or almost identical items costing more than $300 together. That matters if you buy hand instruments as a set, or several identical ones. Otherwise, you claim the item's decline in value over its effective life, and if you buy it part way through the year, only for the part of the year you own it. Repairs to equipment you use for work are deductible too, for the work share.
Dental textbooks and journals you use mainly for work follow the same $300 tests. Otherwise, a book whose content is directly relevant to your work goes into your professional library, which you claim over its effective life.
The trip between home and your regular workplace is private, even if you live a long way away or work weekends or early morning shifts. You can have more than one regular workplace. If you work at one practice on some days and another on other days as a standard arrangement, each is a regular workplace, and the drive from home to either is private.
You can claim driving directly between two separate jobs on the same day, as long as neither is your home, to and from an alternative workplace for the same employer on the same day, and from home directly to an alternative workplace, meaning somewhere you work that is not your usual place of work.
The ATO allows narrow exceptions for the trip from home. One is carrying bulky equipment that is essential to your work, when there is no secure storage for it at work and you do not carry it by choice. Another is having no fixed workplace and travelling continually between work sites before going home, which can make the trips from home to your first site and from your last site home claimable. If you think either applies to you, talk to us before you claim it.
Cents per kilometre. 88 cents per kilometre for 2024-25 and 2025-26, and 91 cents for 2026-27, capped at 5,000 work kilometres per car per year. You still need a record of how you worked out the kilometres. The alternative is a 12-week logbook and your actual costs.
If your car is salary packaged under a novated lease, you cannot claim its running costs, because it is usually your employer that leases the car and makes it available to you. You can still claim work-related parking and tolls you pay yourself.
Parking at or near your regular workplace, and tolls between home and work, are private. Parking and tolls on work trips are deductible. Fines never are.
Food and drink during your normal working hours is private, even if you receive a meal allowance. So are work breakfasts, lunches and dinners, gala nights and other social functions, even if they are compulsory or you discuss work at them, and so is getting to and from them.
Phone, data and internet costs are deductible for the work-related use of your own phone or devices, but not if your employer provides the phone and pays for your use, or pays you back. Keep your bills and a record of how you worked out your work use. A record over a continuous 4-week period that represents your year can be applied to the whole year.
Working from home counts only for the extra running costs it causes. The fixed rate method is 70 cents per work hour for 2024-25 and 2025-26, with a record of your actual hours, and it covers your energy, phone and internet, so you cannot also claim those separately.
For the 2025-26 return you are lodging now: receipts for everything you claim, a record of your hours if you work from home, kilometre records or a logbook for car claims, and your income statement. Two shortcuts still apply this year. If your total work-related expenses, other than car, travel allowance and overtime meal allowance claims, are $300 or less, you can claim them without receipts. If your laundry claim, not counting dry cleaning, is $150 or less, you do not need written evidence of it. In both cases you still have to be able to show that you spent the money and how you worked out the figure.
From 2026-27, those shortcuts end for everyone. If you claim more than the standard deduction, you need written evidence, such as receipts, for your work-related expenses. Some exceptions continue, including travel allowance and overtime meal allowance claims within the ATO's reasonable amounts, and car claims at cents per kilometre. For those, you still need records that show how you worked out the claim. For laundry worked out at the ATO's per-load rates, its current guidance is to keep a record of how many loads you washed, whether each was a work-only or mixed load, and evidence that you paid for the laundry.
The ATO's myDeductions tool in their app is a reasonable way to keep records through the year. We cannot access it directly, but you can export from it and send it to us. A shared Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox folder works just as well.
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Can I claim my Dental Board registration and indemnity insurance?
Renewing your Dental Board registration each year, yes, if you need it for your current job and pay for it yourself. Your first registration and its application fee are not deductible, because you need them before you can be employed. Professional indemnity insurance is deductible if you pay for it yourself, but not if your employer pays it.
Can I claim my scrubs?
Yes, if you buy them yourself, because the ATO gives scrubs as an example of protective clothing, and you can claim washing them too. You can also claim washing scrubs your employer supplies, if you wash them yourself. If your employer launders them or pays for the cleaning, there is nothing to claim.
Can I claim my loupes?
The ATO does not mention loupes in its guide or in its pages on glasses and equipment. Equipment you buy for work can be claimed for its work use, but prescription glasses are private, even if you need them to work. If you buy your own loupes, particularly with your prescription built in, talk to us before you claim them.
Can I claim postgraduate study and CPD?
Yes, if it maintains or improves the skills and knowledge you need in your current job, or is likely to increase your income from it. In the ATO's example, a dentist doing postgraduate study in dental surgery can claim it, because it improves her dentistry skills. Study to get a new job is not deductible, and neither are Commonwealth supported course fees or study loan repayments.
I am a contractor associate or I own a practice. Is this page for me?
If you are an employee, yes. It does not cover you if you work on your own ABN, for example as a contractor associate, or if you own or run a practice. For those, a business consultation is the better place to start.
How does the $1,000 standard deduction work for dentists and dental professionals?
From the 2026-27 return, you get up to $1,000 automatically, with no receipts needed. Any work expenses you claim reduce it, including your registration renewal and indemnity insurance, so it helps most when your work expenses are under $1,000. If they are over, claim them as normal and keep records for every dollar. Your professional association and union fees, and income protection premiums, go on top either way.
Do you work with dentists and dental professionals outside Perth?
Yes. We are based in Balcatta and we work with clients across Australia, by email or online appointment. See our pricing page for how the two options differ, or book an appointment.
There is no episode of the Aevum Accounting Podcast for dentists or the dental team yet, but one is relevant to you. The Thousand Dollar Deduction (episode 54) explains the new standard deduction, and its written companion is The $1,000 Instant Tax Deduction: What It's Actually Worth.
This page is written for employees. If you own or run a practice, The Medical Clinic's GST Guide (episode 38) is the place to start, and it has a written companion. For advice on your own practice, book a business consultation.
We are a CPA practice and registered tax agent, TPB registration 26302591. You can check our credentials, meet the team, or book an appointment.
Also worth reading: tax accountants Perth for how we work with individuals, and our guides for doctors, allied health professionals and nurses and midwives.