Tax deductions for tradies
Tradies pay for a lot of their own gear, and the tax rules for it are full of catches. This guide is for tradies who work as employees, including apprentices. If you are a sole trader or a subcontractor with an ABN, you claim differently, so start with a business consultation. The first conversation for a new business is free.
This page sets out what you can and cannot claim as a tradesperson, apprentice, trainee or building and construction employee in Australia, checked against the ATO's own occupation guides. Where a rule has a catch in it, we have said so rather than left it out.
Aevum Accounting is a CPA practice and registered tax agent in Balcatta, Perth, working with tradies across Australia.
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 supplied it or paid for it, 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
Tools and equipment you buy for work. Outright at $300 or less, otherwise depreciated.
Repairs and insurance for your work tools.
Steel-capped boots, hi-vis vests and other protective clothing you pay for yourself.
Hard hats, safety glasses, earplugs, gloves and other protective equipment.
Sunscreen, a sunhat and sunglasses, if you work outdoors in the sun for prolonged periods.
Laundry of protective clothing or a compulsory uniform.
Renewing a licence, permit, card or ticket. The renewal, yes. The first one to get the job, no.
The extra cost of a special licence your work needs, such as a heavy vehicle licence.
Union and professional association fees.
Driving between sites on the same day, or from home to an alternative workplace.
Carrying bulky tools, but only where the ATO's strict conditions are met.
Courses linked to your current trade.
Phone and internet, for the work-related portion.
Overtime meals, but only with an overtime meal allowance under an award or agreement.
Not deductible, however it feels
The drive from home to your regular site, however early you start or far you live, and even if you are on call.
Driving from home to pick up your employer's van.
Taking tools home when there is secure storage on site.
Jeans, drill shirts and t-shirts, even if your employer requires them.
Your ordinary drivers licence, even if the job requires one.
The first licence, card or ticket you needed to get the job.
Anything your employer supplies, pays for or reimburses, including government-funded apprentice tools.
Fines, including ones you pick up on the job.
Food and drink on a normal shift. Only overtime meals with an overtime meal allowance count.
Gym and fitness costs, music subscriptions and child care.
Prescription glasses. Prescription sunglasses for outdoor work are a different matter.
Parking at or near your regular site.
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 written evidence for every dollar you claim, not just the part above $1,000.
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.
For tradies, it comes down to what you bought that year. Tools, protective gear, licence renewals and laundry all count against the $1,000, and so does the decline in value of bigger tools. Keep your receipts until you know which side of the line you are on.
You can claim tools and equipment you buy to do your work, for the work-related portion. A tool that cost $300 or less is claimed in the year you buy it. The catch is that you must use it mainly for your work as an employee, and it cannot be part of a set, or one of several identical items, that together cost more than $300.
Sets and identical items are the trap. A set means items marketed as a set, designed to be used together, or dependent on each other. In the ATO's examples, a carpenter's shifting spanner, boxed screwdriver set and hammer are not a set, so each is claimed outright. But 16 spanners at $22 each cost $352 together, and 10 identical clamps at $40 each cost $400, so neither batch can be claimed outright.
Above $300, you claim the decline in value over the tool's effective life instead, and in the first year only for the part of the year you owned it. Repairing and insuring your work tools is deductible too, for the work share. Tools your employer or someone else supplies are not yours to claim, and neither is anything you are reimbursed for.
If your employer lets you salary package tools or protective clothing, the rules change on 1 April 2027. From that date, tools of trade and protective clothing provided through salary packaging are no longer exempt from FBT, although items provided outside salary packaging stay exempt. This became law in June 2026, so check with us before you package anything.
The trip between home and your regular site is private. Carrying bulky tools is a narrow exception, and all of these have to be true. The tools are essential to your work. They are bulky, meaning awkward to move because of their size and weight, and can only be moved conveniently in a vehicle. There is no secure storage for them at the workplace. And you do not carry them as a matter of choice.
Secure storage on site ends the claim. If your employer provides it and you take your tools home anyway, the ATO treats that as your choice. In its examples, Andre, a concreter with a cement mixer, wheelbarrow and shovels and no secure storage, can claim. Claudia, a plasterer with a locked tool locker on site, cannot.
If you claim this trip, keep a record of every work item you carry and its size and weight. The ATO also expects evidence that the items are essential to your work, and that your employer did not provide secure storage at the workplace.
Driving from home to your regular site is private, however early you start or far you live, and even if you are called in while on call. So is driving from home to pick up your employer's van, as the ATO's examples of Paul, a tiler, and Priya, a plasterer, show.
You can claim driving directly between separate jobs on the same day, as long as neither is your home, and driving from home straight to an alternative workplace, such as a client's premises to do a quote. If you are sent from your usual site to another one, that trip counts: Bridie, a bobcat operator, can claim the drive to the other site and then home.
If you have no fixed workplace and move between sites as part of the job, you may be able to claim from home to the first site, between sites, and from the last site home. In the ATO's examples, an apprentice roof tiler who works at several sites a day can, and a scaffolder who stays at one site all day cannot.
A site you are assigned to for three months or more will usually become a regular place of work, and the drive there becomes private. Parking and tolls on work trips are deductible, but parking at your regular site is not, and fines never are.
For tax purposes, a car carries a load of less than one tonne and fewer than nine passengers, including the driver. A ute or panel van that can carry one tonne or more is not a car. Carrying capacity is the gross vehicle mass minus the kerb weight.
For a vehicle that is not a car, you cannot use cents per kilometre or a logbook. You claim the actual costs, such as fuel, oil, insurance, loan interest and decline in value, for the work share, with receipts for all of the vehicle's expenses and evidence of how you worked out the work use.
For a car, cents per kilometre is 88 cents for 2024-25 and 2025-26, and 91 cents for 2026-27, capped at 5,000 work kilometres per car per year, with a record of how you worked out the kilometres. The alternative is a 12-week logbook, with evidence of the actual costs.
Protective clothing and equipment you pay for yourself is deductible, if it gives enough protection against the risk of injury or illness at work. That includes steel-capped boots, hi-vis vests, fire-resistant clothing, overalls, hard hats, safety glasses, earmuffs and gloves. In the ATO's example, Saskia, a builder, claims steel-capped boots and a hi-vis vest that were not reimbursed. If your employer supplies the gear or pays you back, there is nothing to claim.
Jeans, drill shirts and t-shirts are conventional clothing, and you cannot claim them even if your employer requires them or you only wear them at work. In the ATO's example, an apprentice's cotton drill pants and shirt are not claimable, but the UPF50+ work shirts and heavy-duty abrasion-resistant trousers bought after sunburn and ripped pants are.
Sunscreen, sunhats and sunglasses, including prescription sunglasses, are deductible if you must work outside in the sun for prolonged periods, for the work share only. The ATO accepts sunscreen with an ARTG ID and an AUST L number on the label. Ordinary prescription glasses are private, but protective glasses, such as safety glasses and goggles, are deductible.
Laundry of protective clothing, or of a compulsory or registered uniform, can be worked out at $1 a load if the load is only work clothing, or 50 cents if you mix in personal items, even if your employer supplied the clothing. For the 2025-26 return, a laundry claim of $150 or less needs no written evidence, but you must be able to show how you worked it out. From 2026-27, that shortcut is gone.
The first licence, permit, card or ticket you need to get a job is not deductible, because it is a cost of getting work rather than doing it. The ATO's examples are a builder's licence and a bobcat licence. Renewing one you need to keep working is deductible, such as a forklift or heavy vehicle permit.
Your ordinary drivers licence is never deductible. The extra cost of a special licence your work needs is, unless your employer pays for it. Tony, a glazier, cannot claim the $72 renewal of his drivers licence, but can claim the $72 renewal of his Medium Rigid licence. In WA the licence renewal fee is the same for every licence class, so renewing a heavier class of licence usually adds nothing you can claim.
Union and professional association fees are deductible, and from 2026-27 they sit on top of the standard deduction.
Courses are deductible when they relate directly to your current trade and maintain or improve the skills you need for it, but not if they are designed to get you a new job. A first aid course is deductible if you are the designated first aid person at work, unless your employer pays for it.
The rules above apply to building and construction employees too, such as builders, concreters, scaffolders, surveyors, project managers and construction supervisors.
For cards, the ATO's own example is the White card, the general construction induction card. If you need one to get your job, you cannot claim the cost of getting it, but you can claim the cost of renewing it while you are working. Licences work the same way. Marcus, a bricklayer in the ATO's example, cannot claim the $137 fee for the licence he needed to get a job, but can claim its renewal if he is employed as a bricklayer when it is due.
Moving between sites has a catch. Ramesh, a surveyor in the ATO's example, can claim the drive from home, between sites and back home when he works at several sites a day. But if he works at one site for several days until the job is finished, the drive between home and that site is private, because he does not have shifting workplaces on those days. If you work from an office, trips between the office and sites count, but home to the office does not (Jack, an architect, in the ATO's example).
If your work requires you to travel and sleep away from home overnight, you can claim the accommodation, meals and incidental costs you pay for, but not what your employer provides or pays you back for. Choosing to sleep at or near the site rather than go home is not overnight work travel. A travel allowance that is not on your income statement, is within the ATO's reasonable amount and is all spent on accommodation and meals does not have to go in your return, but if you leave it out, you cannot claim those costs. That is the outcome in the ATO's example of Jason, a Perth surveyor sent to Geraldton for a week.
A fares allowance, paid under an award in force on 29 October 1986, is income, and it does not by itself make your trip to work claimable. In the ATO's examples, Michael, a factory carpenter with no bulky tools, cannot claim his travel to work, while Chandra, a house painter who carries bulky tools, can claim his trips from home to sites, between sites and home. For the 2025-26 return, a claim below the 1986 award amount needs no written evidence, but claim more and you need evidence for the whole claim. From 2026-27, that exemption ends.
For site gear, see Protective clothing, sun protection and laundry above; the ATO's summary for construction workers adds harnesses, goggles and breathing masks. Hiring equipment for your work is deductible too, for the work share.
Apprentices follow the same rules, with a few catches. If your employer pays your apprenticeship course fees, such as your TAFE fees, or reimburses you when you finish the course, you cannot claim them. If you pay them yourself and are not paid back, they can be deductible as self-education.
If you received government-funded tools through your employer as a new apprentice, you cannot claim their cost or their decline in value. Tools you buy with your own money are claimed like any other tradie's.
Even when your employer pays your apprenticeship or traineeship course fees, you can claim the study costs you pay yourself. In the ATO's example, Connor, an apprentice hairdresser whose employer pays his Certificate III fees directly to the course provider, can claim his textbooks and stationery, with written evidence, and his travel between home and the campus.
For travel to your course, both trips count when you go from home to TAFE or trade school and back home, or from work to your course and back to work. If you go from home to your course and then to work, or from work to your course and then home, only the first leg counts. In the ATO's example, Francesco, a painter, can claim the drive from the building site to his night course, but not the drive home.
Repayments on a study or training support loan, including an Australian Apprenticeship Support Loan (once called a Trade Support Loan), are not deductible.
Your drive to work stays private even if public transport does not suit your hours. Tim, an apprentice chef in the ATO's example whose shifts often end after the only bus stops, cannot claim it.
A meal allowance does not make ordinary meals deductible. In the ATO's example, Scarlett, an apprentice carpenter, is paid one when she is away at a distant site for 10 hours or more without staying overnight. She must include it as income, but cannot claim her meals.
For the White card, see Building and construction workers above.
You can claim the work-related share of your phone, data and internet, with records showing your work use, such as a four-week period that represents your year. For the 2025-26 return, if your work use is incidental and your claim is $50 or less, you do not need to keep bills, but you do need to be able to show how you worked out the claim.
Food and drink during a normal shift is not deductible. Overtime meals are, but only if you receive an overtime meal allowance under an industrial law, award or agreement, it is shown separately on your income statement, you include it in your return, and you buy and eat the meal while working overtime. A loading built into your hourly rate does not count. The reasonable amount is $38.65 a meal for 2025-26 and $40 for 2026-27, and for the 2025-26 return you need no receipts if you claim within it.
Allowances on your income statement are income. One paid for an unpleasant, special or dangerous part of the job, such as an inclement weather, multistorey or leading hand allowance, gives you nothing to claim against it. With a tool allowance, you claim what you actually spend, not the allowance.
For the 2025-26 return you are lodging now: receipts for everything you claim, kilometre records or a logbook for a car, receipts for all the expenses of a ute or van that is not a car and a record of its work use, and your income statement. Two shortcuts still apply this year. If your total work-related expenses, other than car, travel and overtime meal allowance claims, are $300 or less, you can claim them without receipts. If your laundry claim is $150 or less, you do not need written evidence of it. In both cases you still have to be able to show 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 for every work-related expense you 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.
Individual tax return by email: $330. In person at Balcatta or online: $440.
Add a rental property, a sole trader schedule, or share and crypto trading: $100 each.
Business consultation, 60 minutes: $400.
All prices include GST, and we agree the fee before we start. See the full price list.
Can I claim the drive to site?
Not to your regular site, however early you start or far you live, and not to pick up your employer's van. You can claim driving between sites on the same day, from home to an alternative workplace and, in narrow cases, to carry bulky tools when there is no secure storage on site.
Can I claim my tools?
Yes, if you paid for them and were not reimbursed. A tool costing $300 or less that you use mainly for work is claimed in the year you buy it, unless it is part of a set, or one of several identical items, that together cost more than $300. Above that, you claim the decline in value over the tool's effective life.
Can I claim my ute?
Yes, for the work-related share. A ute or van that can carry one tonne or more is not a car, so you claim actual costs with receipts, not cents per kilometre or a logbook. The trip from home to your regular site stays private whatever you drive.
Can I claim my steel caps and work clothes?
Steel-capped boots, hi-vis vests and other protective clothing, yes, if you paid for them and your employer did not supply or reimburse them. Jeans, drill shirts and t-shirts are everyday clothing, and they are not deductible even if your employer requires them.
Can I claim my White card?
If you need a White card, the general construction induction card, to get your job, the ATO says you cannot claim the cost of getting it. If you renew it while you are working, you can claim the renewal, as long as your employer does not pay for it or pay you back. The same goes for licences such as a bobcat or bricklaying licence.
Can I claim my TAFE fees as an apprentice?
Only if you pay them yourself. If your employer pays your course fees or reimburses you when you finish the course, you cannot claim them. Either way, you can claim other study costs you pay for yourself and are not paid back for, such as textbooks and stationery, with written evidence, and your travel from home to TAFE and back. Repayments on an Australian Apprenticeship Support Loan are not deductible.
I have an ABN. Does this page apply to me?
Not if you run your own business as a sole trader or subcontractor. Business claims work differently, and the $1,000 standard deduction does not apply if your only income is from a business. Having an ABN does not by itself make you a contractor rather than an employee, so if you are not sure, start with a business consultation. The first conversation for a new business is free.
How does the $1,000 standard deduction work for tradies?
From the 2026-27 return, you get up to $1,000 automatically, with no receipts needed. Any work expenses you claim reduce it, tools included, so it helps most in a year when you buy little. If your expenses are over $1,000, claim them as normal and keep records for every dollar. Your union fees go on top either way.
Do you work with tradies 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.
We have covered tradies' tax on the Aevum Accounting Podcast. On the Tools: A Tradie's Guide to Deductions and Myth-Busting (episode 50) covers the everyday claims and the myths, and its written companion is On the Tools: The Tradie's Guide to Tax Deductions. If you run your own business, From Tools to Tech: Tradie Job Management Software (episode 20) looks at job management software, and its written companion is From Shoebox to Sellable Asset.
For the new standard deduction, listen to The Thousand Dollar Deduction (episode 54).
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 FIFO and mining workers, engineers and bus drivers.