- Normal trips between home and work are not deductible
- Cents per kilometre is 91c for 2026-27, capped at 5,000km per car
- Claims over $300 need written evidence, and records last 5 years
- A travel diary is required for trips of 6 or more nights in a row
Work related travel expenses Australia-wide come down to a single question: were you travelling for work, or travelling to work? You can claim taxi, ride-share and public transport fares, airfares, short-term car hire, tolls, parking, and the accommodation, meals and incidentals that come with travelling overnight for work. You cannot claim normal trips between home and work, except in limited circumstances, and you cannot claim meals on a day trip where you get home the same night.
For car travel you choose between the cents per kilometre method, set at 91 cents for the 2026-27 income year and capped at 5,000 work-related kilometres per car, and the logbook method, which has no cap. Every rule, figure and record you need is below, and if you would rather not assemble it yourself, Sleek’s tax accountants do this work every day.
Can I claim the travel between my home and my work?
No. You cannot claim the cost of normal trips between home and work, even if you live a long way from your workplace, work outside ordinary hours, or are on call. There is no general travel to work deduction in Australia, and this is the most common reason a travel claim gets adjusted.
The exceptions are narrow and specific. They apply when:
- You carry bulky tools or equipment your employer requires you to use, and there is no secure place to store them at work
- You travel directly between two separate places of employment, and neither one is your home
- You travel from your regular workplace to an alternative workplace and back again
- Your home is a genuine base of business and you travel from it to a client or job site
If none of those describe your trip, it is private travel. A logo on the car, a laptop in the boot or an early start does not change that, and there is no travel to work deduction available for it.
What counts as a work-related travel expense in Australia?
Once you are travelling for work rather than to work, the list opens up considerably. Most work travel expenses fall into one of these categories:
- Taxi, ride-share and public transport fares
- Airfares
- Short-term car hire
- Road and bridge tolls, and parking fees
- Accommodation, meals and incidentals when you travel overnight for work
- Expenses for vehicles that are not cars, such as motorcycles, utility trucks and minibuses
- Actual running costs for a car you borrowed from someone else
Two boundaries matter here. Expenses for a car you own, lease or hold under a hire-purchase agreement are claimed as car expenses at D1 rather than as travel expenses, with tolls and parking the exception to that split. And where a trip is part work and part private, you claim only the work portion.
What can’t you claim, and where do travel claims usually go wrong?
The disallowed list is short and the ATO applies it strictly:
- Normal trips between home and work
- Food, drink and incidentals on a day trip where you return home the same night
- Running costs of a vehicle your employer provides, other than tolls and parking you pay for yourself
- Costs of living away from home for personal reasons
Four mistakes account for most of the trouble:
- Claiming the commute because the vehicle is signwritten or carries work gear
- Claiming dinner on a same-day trip because the day ran late
- Carrying last year’s cents per kilometre rate onto this year’s return
- Treating the ATO’s reasonable amounts as money you are entitled to rather than a records shortcut
Cents per kilometre or logbook: which car method should you use?
There are two methods for claiming a car you own or lease, and you may use whichever produces the larger deduction, provided your records support it.
The cents per kilometre method applies a flat rate to your work-related kilometres. The rate is 91 cents per kilometre for the 2026-27 income year, and 88 cents for 2025-26, which is the year covered by the return most people are lodging now. The claim is capped at 5,000 work-related kilometres per car, per year.
The logbook method uses a work-use percentage instead. You keep a logbook for a continuous 12-week period along with odometer readings, work out what share of your travel was work-related, and apply that percentage to your actual running costs. There is no kilometre cap.
What can you claim when you travel overnight for work?
Overnight travel is where the deduction gets meaningful. Where your work requires you to sleep away from home, you can claim accommodation, meals and incidental expenses for the duration of the work-related part of the trip.
The overnight requirement is doing real work in that sentence. If you drive to a client three hours away and come home the same night, the fares and tolls are claimable, but the meals you bought on the road are not.
A trip that mixes work with leave needs apportioning. The flights are claimable where the dominant purpose of the trip was work, and the accommodation and meals are claimable only for the days you were actually working.
What are the ATO’s reasonable amounts for 2026-27?
Each year the ATO publishes reasonable amounts for travel allowance expenses. The current determination is TD 2026/4, and it applies to the 2026-27 income year only. The figures below are Salary Band 1, covering salaries of $153,210 or less.
| Location | Accommodation | Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner | Incidentals | Daily total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $230 | $36.00 | $40.45 | $69.00 | $25.40 | $400.85 |
| Darwin | $220 | $36.00 | $40.45 | $69.00 | $25.40 | $390.85 |
| Brisbane | $188 | $36.00 | $40.45 | $69.00 | $25.40 | $358.85 |
| Perth | $180 | $36.00 | $40.45 | $69.00 | $25.40 | $350.85 |
| Canberra | $178 | $36.00 | $40.45 | $69.00 | $25.40 | $348.85 |
| Hobart | $176 | $36.00 | $40.45 | $69.00 | $25.40 | $346.85 |
| Melbourne | $175 | $36.00 | $40.45 | $69.00 | $25.40 | $345.85 |
| Adelaide | $158 | $36.00 | $40.45 | $69.00 | $25.40 | $328.85 |
| Other country centres | $141 | $32.25 | $36.80 | $63.45 | $25.40 | $298.90 |
Overseas travel is handled differently. Accommodation is not covered by a reasonable amount, so you need written evidence for it regardless of the sum. Meals and incidentals are set by cost group, and the country you are visiting determines which group applies.
Is there a maximum I can claim without receipts?
There is no dollar cap on what you can claim, only a threshold above which you need written evidence. For travel expenses that threshold is $300. Below it you still need records showing how you worked out the claim, and above it you need receipts or invoices.
The reasonable amounts work differently again, and they are widely misread. A reasonable amount is the point below which the ATO does not require you to keep written evidence for a travel allowance expense. It is not an entitlement, and it is not a figure you may claim without having spent the money.
That distinction is worth sitting with. If your employer pays you a $400 daily allowance for Sydney and you spend $260, your deduction is $260. Claiming the full reasonable amount on a return where the spend never happened is one of the more visible things you can do, because the ATO already knows what allowance was reported against your name.
What records do you need to keep, and for how long?
Your work travel expenses are only as strong as the records sitting behind them. The requirements stack by claim size and trip length:
- Claims of $300 or less: keep records showing how you calculated the claim, such as a diary or spreadsheet
- Claims above $300: keep written evidence showing the supplier’s name, the amount, the nature of the goods or services, the date of purchase and the date of the document
- Overseas accommodation: keep written evidence regardless of the amount claimed
- Trips of six or more nights in a row: keep a travel diary recording your activities, for domestic and overseas travel alike
- Allowance-based claims within the reasonable amount: no written evidence required, though the travel diary rule still applies to overseas trips of six nights or more
Keep all of it for five years from the date you lodge the return. There is more detail on the evidence rules in our guide to claiming tax deductions without receipts, and the substantiation you need at year end sits in the EOFY tax time checklist.
What do work-related travel expenses examples look like in practice?
Two short cases, both using the figures above.
Marco, sole trader electrician, cents per kilometre. Marco drives from home to his first job of the day, then between four client sites, then home again. The first and last legs are private travel. The between-site legs come to 4,200 kilometres across the 2026-27 year, which at 91 cents gives him a deduction of $3,822, comfortably inside the 5,000 kilometre cap. He keeps a diary of the trips so he can show how the figure was built.
Priya, employee consultant, two nights in Sydney. Priya’s employer pays her a travel allowance for a two-night client visit. Under TD 2026/4 the Sydney reasonable amounts for her salary band are $230 a night for accommodation, plus $36.00 breakfast, $40.45 lunch, $69.00 dinner and $25.40 incidentals a day. Because her spend sits inside those figures she does not need written evidence, and because the trip is under six nights she does not need a travel diary.
These work-related travel expenses examples cover the shape of most claims. The detail changes; the rule, figure and record sequence does not. If you are weighing up whether a structure change would improve the position, our overview of tax strategies explained is a useful next read.
What changes if your business reimburses travel?
Three treatments, and they are not interchangeable:
- Reimbursement: the business pays back an actual, receipted cost. The employee has no deduction, because they are not out of pocket. The business claims the expense.
- Travel allowance: the business pays a set amount to cover expected costs. The allowance is assessable income to the employee, who then claims their actual deductible spend against it.
- Employer-provided vehicle: the employee claims nothing for running costs, other than tolls and parking they paid for themselves.
Reimbursing private travel, or providing a vehicle for private use, can create a fringe benefits tax liability for the business. That is a separate regime with its own valuation rules and its own return, and it is worth getting advice before assuming a reimbursement is neutral. Getting the classification wrong is a quiet way to end up on the list of tax penalties to avoid.
How Sleek helps with work related travel expenses
Most unclaimed travel deductions are not lost to ignorance of the rules. They are lost to records that never got kept, which is a bookkeeping problem wearing a tax costume.
Sleek’s accounting service covers the whole cycle: Xero and Dext set up so receipts are captured when they happen, quarterly BAS, and a registered tax agent preparing the return at year end. You can see what that costs on our fixed monthly pricing page, and sole traders have their own sole trader accounting plan. There are more answers in our accounting and tax FAQs.
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FAQs on work related travel expenses australia
Can I claim flights and accommodation for a conference?
Yes, where attending the conference is directly connected to earning your income. Flights, accommodation, meals and incidentals for the conference days are deductible, and you apportion out any days you added on for private purposes. Keep the program or registration confirmation alongside the receipts, because it evidences the work purpose.
What about a trip that mixes business with a holiday?
Apportion it. Where work was the dominant purpose of the trip, the airfare is generally deductible in full and the accommodation and meals are deductible only for the work days. Where the holiday was the main event and you fitted a meeting in, the airfare is not deductible and you claim only the costs directly attributable to the work.
If I run my business from home, is the trip to a client claimable?
Yes, where your home is genuinely the base of your business rather than somewhere you happen to do admin. A sole trader who operates from a home workshop or home office and drives to a client site is travelling between workplaces, not commuting. The distinction rests on whether the work of the business actually starts at home, so keep evidence of that.
Can I claim parking fines I picked up on a work trip?
No. Fines and penalties imposed under Australian law are specifically non-deductible, whatever the circumstances of the trip. Parking fees and tolls are a different matter and remain claimable where the travel itself is work-related.
Is the travel claim included in a tax return service, or is it extra?
At Sleek it is included. Preparing and lodging the return covers reviewing your deductions, travel among them, with no separate charge for working through the claim. The point of having a registered tax agent is that the substantiation gets checked before lodgement rather than after a review letter arrives.
