Almost every “truck driver deductions” list online has the same flaw: it treats every driver as one taxpayer. The ATO's own occupation guide is written for employeedrivers only. Several commercial checklists then list truck registration, insurance, repairs and depreciation alongside hi-vis and gloves — which invites an employee to claim costs their employer paid. That is one of the quickest ways to fail a review.
So this guide splits the two from the start, and covers the parts nobody publishes: the substantiation trap inside the meal rules, and fuel tax credits, which for an owner-driver is often the largest single cash item of the year.
First: which kind of driver are you?
The answer changes almost everything below it. If you receive a payslip and your employer owns the truck, you are an employee — even if you drive interstate and are away for weeks. If you hold an ABN and supply the truck, you are an owner-driver running a business, whether as a sole trader or through a company.
A third case catches people out: driving on an ABN in someone else'struck. You are contracting, but with no substantial equipment of your own, so the personal services income rules very likely apply — and they restrict which deductions you get. That case is worth a conversation rather than a checklist.
Meals: the amounts, and the trap inside them
For 2026-27 the ATO's reasonable amounts for employee drivers who sleep away from home are:
Four conditions have to hold before those figures mean anything: you were paid a bona fide travel allowance by your employer, you slept away from home, you actually incurred the cost, and the meal fell inside the travel period.
Three further points that trip people up. The three meals are separate amounts — you cannot shuffle an unspent breakfast into dinner, and you cannot aggregate the week. The deduction is what you actually spent, not the reasonable amount, so a driver who lives on $40 a day of home-packed food claims $40, whatever the allowance was. And accommodation is never covered by the exception: it always needs written evidence. Sleep in the bunk and you spent nothing on accommodation, so there is nothing to claim.
Owner-drivers: the amounts don't apply to you
This is the most common error we see in the topic, and it is repeated confidently across the web. The reasonable amounts exist because an employer paid you a travel allowance. An owner-driver has no employer and no allowance, so the substantiation exception is simply unavailable — the ATO's ruling on this is explicit. Keep receipts, and keep travel records for any trip of six or more consecutive nights.
In practice, the roadhouse-and-vending-machine reality of long-haul work means some costs genuinely cannot produce a receipt. There is a route through that in the substantiation rules, but it depends on a properly kept diary rather than an estimate at year end. Worth setting up properly once.
Licences: the answer most sites get wrong
Renewing your driver's licence is not deductible, and that stays true even though you cannot legally do your job without it. The ATO treats holding a licence as a private matter, because you would hold one anyway.
What is deductible is the additionalcost of a special condition or permit beyond the ordinary licence fee — the incremental amount, not the base. The ATO's own worked example runs a $45 licence renewal (not deductible) against a $73 heavy vehicle permit (deductible). Several competing pages tell drivers to claim the whole heavy-vehicle licence; if you have been doing that on the strength of a blog post, it is worth a review.
Gear, clothing and the small stuff
- Sunglasses — deductible as protective equipment where they are anti-glare, photochromatic or otherwise protective, and that includes prescription sunglasses. Ordinary prescription glasses are not.
- Hi-vis, steel caps, gloves, wet-weather gear — deductible. Ordinary clothing worn to work is not, however hard-wearing.
- Laundry — $1 per load for work-only items, 50c where mixed with private washing. Under $150 total you need not keep written evidence, but you still have to explain how you worked it out.
- Sleeper-cab bedding, pillows, a bunk fan — deductible where the truck is your accommodation on the road.
- Phone and internet — the work-use percentage, supported by a representative four-week record.
- CB radio, GPS, dash cam, load restraints, tools — deductible; anything over $300 is depreciated rather than claimed outright.
- Union and industry association fees — deductible.
- Fines and infringements — never deductible. Not speeding, not logbook breaches, not parking.
Once your total work-related claims pass $300, written evidence is required for all of them — not just the amount above $300.
Fuel tax credits — the item nobody writes about
If you run a vehicle over 4.5 tonnes GVM on diesel in your business, you can claim back part of the fuel excise. For an owner-driver this is frequently the largest single credit of the year, and in our experience it is the most commonly missed — usually because it needs its own registration. Being registered for GST is not enough; fuel tax credits are a separate registration.
The second row is where money is routinely left behind. Fuel burnt by a refrigeration unit, a power take-off, a concrete agitator or a tipper's hydraulics is auxiliary use — it is not propelling the vehicle along a public road, so it is not reduced by the road user charge, and it attracts the higher rate even while the truck is driving down the highway. Loading, idling in a yard, and travel on private haul roads are treated the same way.
Two practical notes. Rates change often — they were re-set on 1 July and again on 3 August 2026 — so the rate that applies is the one in force when you acquired the fuel, and a quarter can straddle two rates. And fuel tax credits are assessable income, so they belong in your return as well as your BAS. You can generally claim back four years, which means a driver who has never registered is often owed a material sum.
The truck itself (owner-drivers)
A prime mover is not a “car”for tax purposes — a car is a vehicle designed to carry a load under one tonne and fewer than nine passengers. Two consequences follow, and both are misreported elsewhere. The cents-per-kilometre and logbook methods are unavailable to you, because those are car-expense methods; you claim actual running costs instead. And the luxury car depreciation limit does not cap your truck.
Depreciation runs over the truck's effective life. Finance matters too: with a chattel mortgage you depreciate the truck and claim the interest, whereas under a lease you generally claim the lease payments instead. Getting that wrong at purchase is expensive to unwind, so it is worth a call before you sign.
On the instant asset write-off: an extension for 2026-27 was announced in the Budget but, as at the date of this post, it is not yet law. Treat it as a maybe until it passes. At a $20,000 threshold it is in any case largely irrelevant to a prime mover, though it can cover a trailer fit-out, tooling or a laptop.
Sole trader or company as an owner-driver?
Because you supply substantial equipment — the truck — your income is generally notpersonal services income, which is the opposite of the position for a driver using the principal's vehicle. That leaves the structure question open on ordinary commercial grounds: profit level, asset protection, who else is in the family, and what compliance cost you are willing to carry.
We have written that decision up separately in sole trader vs company, including the part most comparisons skip: the company rate is a deferral, not a discount, once the money reaches you.
What the ATO actually asks for
- Your income statement, and the travel allowance shown on it (or evidence of it where it is not itemised)
- Work diary or fatigue diary — the strongest possible proof of nights away, and you are already required to keep it
- Bank and card statements showing a consistent pattern of spending on the road
- Receipts for anything above the reasonable amounts, and for all accommodation
- For owner-drivers: fuel invoices with litres, odometer records, and a basis for splitting on-road from auxiliary fuel
The pattern matters more than any single receipt. A driver who can show fifty-one nights in the fatigue diary and card spending that matches is in a far stronger position than one holding a shoebox of unsorted dockets.
Mistakes we see every year
- Employees claiming fuel, registration or repairs on the employer's truck
- Treating the reasonable amount as a flat entitlement rather than a cap on what you spent
- Claiming above the reasonable amount without the receipts to carry the whole claim
- Claiming accommodation on nights slept in the bunk
- Owner-drivers using the employee meal amounts
- Claiming a licence renewal or a heavy-vehicle licence in full
- Never registering for fuel tax credits — or registering, but claiming the on-road rate for reefer fuel
- Using cents-per-kilometre for a prime mover
- Claiming fines, and expecting the “cost of doing business” argument to work
Talk to us
We prepare returns for employee drivers and owner-drivers across Australia, by phone or Zoom — you do not need to be local. Fixed pricing, quoted in writing before we start: sole-trader returns from $349, BAS from $90 a quarter. For owner-drivers we check the fuel tax credit position as a matter of course, including whether back-years are claimable.
Sources
Reasonable travel allowance amounts: ATO Taxation Determination TD 2026/4 (2026-27) and TD 2025/4 (2025-26). Owner-driver position: Taxation Ruling TR 2004/6.
Occupation guidance: ATO — Occupation and industry specific guides.
Fuel tax credits: ATO — Income, deductions and concessions for business. Rates change each February and August; check the rate in force when the fuel was acquired.
Vehicle expense methods: ATO — Cars, transport and travel.
