FY2025-26 guide
What can Uber and delivery drivers claim on tax in Australia? (FY2025-26)
A plain-English guide to rideshare and delivery driver tax deductions in Australia for FY2025-26 — the GST rule most drivers get wrong, cents-per-km vs logbook, and what's not deductible.
If you drive for Uber, DiDi, UberEats or DoorDash in Australia, the ATO treats you as running a business — not as an employee. That changes almost everything about how you report income and claim deductions. Here's what the published ATO rules say for the FY2025-26 year.
The GST rule most rideshare drivers get wrong
This is the single biggest difference between rideshare and ordinary side income. If you carry passengers (ride-sourcing), GST registration is required from your very first dollar of fares — the usual $75,000 turnover threshold does not apply.
If you only deliver food or parcels and never carry passengers, the normal $75,000 GST registration threshold does apply. Drivers who do both need to look at the ride-sourcing rule.
Being registered for GST means charging GST on fares, claiming GST credits on expenses, and lodging a BAS — usually quarterly.
Car expenses: two methods, and most drivers don't compare them
There are two ways to claim car expenses, and you can only use one per car per year. The difference is often hundreds of dollars.
- •Cents per kilometre: 88c per work kilometre for FY2025-26, capped at 5,000 work kilometres per car (so a maximum of $4,400). No receipts required, but you must be able to show how you worked out your kilometres.
- •Logbook method: you claim actual running costs multiplied by your business-use percentage. That percentage comes from a continuous 12-week logbook, which stays valid for five years.
Because the cents-per-kilometre method caps out at 5,000 km, drivers doing serious distances often do better under the logbook method — but only if they actually kept the 12-week logbook. If you haven't started one, starting today still helps future years.
Pricing both methods by hand means adding up a year of receipts twice. The rideshare calculator does it from your own numbers, shows you which one comes out bigger, and estimates your quarterly BAS at the same time.
Rideshare & Delivery Driver Tax Calculator — $19 →Other expenses drivers commonly claim
- •Platform commissions and service fees charged by Uber, DiDi, DoorDash and similar
- •Fuel, servicing, tyres, registration and insurance (apportioned to business use, under the logbook method)
- •Tolls and parking incurred while working
- •Mobile phone and data, apportioned to work use
- •Passenger amenities such as water and mints, and insulated delivery bags
- •Car cleaning, and accounting or tax agent fees
What is not deductible
- •Fines — parking or speeding — even if incurred while working
- •Meals you eat during a shift (a private expense)
- •Ordinary clothing, even if you wear it only while driving
- •Kilometres driven with the app off, and travel from home to the area you start work
Records the ATO expects you to keep
Keep records for five years: platform tax summaries, receipts or tax invoices for expenses, your 12-week logbook and odometer readings, and a record of how any work-use percentage was calculated. Bank statements alone are generally not enough.
Keeping a logbook, an expense tracker and a GST record straight across a year of driving is the tedious part — the workbook gives you all three in one file, already in the format the ATO expects.
Rideshare & Delivery Driver Tax Calculator — $19 →The quickest way to get this organised
Working out which car method wins, tracking GST, and keeping substantiation straight is exactly what our rideshare workbook automates — it compares both car methods for you, estimates your quarterly BAS, and maps everything to the sole-trader business schedule.
This article is general information only, based on published ATO rates and rules for FY2025-26. It isn't tax advice and doesn't consider your circumstances. OzTaxReturn is not a registered tax agent. Check your own position at ato.gov.au or with a registered tax agent (tpb.gov.au).