Tips on Claiming Travel

You can claim vehicle and other travel expenses directly connected with your work, but generally you can’t claim for normal trips between home and work – this is considered private travel.

What you can claim

You can claim the cost of travelling:

• directly between two separate workplaces – for example, when you have a second job
• from your normal workplace to an alternative workplace (for example, a client’s premises) while still on duty, and back to your normal workplace or directly home
• if your home was a base of employment – you started your work at home and travelled to a workplace to continue your work for the same employer
• if you had shifting places of employment – you regularly work at more than one site each day before returning home
• from your home to an alternative workplace for work purposes, and then to your normal workplace or directly home. This does not apply where the alternative workplace has become a regular workplace
• if you needed to carry bulky tools or equipment you used for work and couldn’t leave them at your workplace – for example, an extension ladder or a cello.

What you can’t claim

You can’t claim the cost of driving your car between work and home just because:

• you do minor work-related tasks – for example, picking up the mail on the way to work or home
• you have to drive between your home and your workplace more than once a day
• you are on call – for example, you are on stand-by duty and your employer contacts you at home to come into work
• there is no public transport near where you work
• you work outside normal business hours – for example, shift work or overtime
• your home was a place where you ran your own business and you travelled directly to a place of work where you worked for somebody else
• you do some work at home.

**The above material has been sourced from the Australian Taxation Office. For further information please visit their website