If you are an employed disability support worker in Australia, your 2026–27 tax return has a feature no support worker has ever had before: the $1,000 standard deduction for work-related expenses, applied automatically with no receipts needed. But for most full-time support workers it is not the best deal on the table. Between driving from client to client, screening checks, training and protective gear, a support worker who itemises will usually save far more — in the worked example below, $889.92 more than the standard route. This guide lists everything you can claim, prices both routes, and flags the traps that catch support workers specifically — including one trap no other profession in this series has: the trip from home to your first client can be deductible for you, when it is private for almost everyone else.
The three ATO rules still sit underneath everything: you must have spent the money yourself without reimbursement, the expense must directly relate to earning your income, and you need a record to prove it. That last rule got sharper this year — more on that below.
First, the support worker difference: no registration board, no fixed workplace
Every guide that folds disability support workers into aged care misses the details that change a support worker’s return. Unlike nurses, midwives, physiotherapists and psychologists, support workers have no AHPRA registration — there is no annual renewal fee to claim, and no CPD hours set by a board. What you have instead is the NDIS Worker Screening Check, a mandatory clearance for anyone working in NDIS-funded roles, plus a Working With Children Check where your work involves children. The screening check is the support worker’s equivalent of a registration fee, and the deduction rule works the same way: a check you renew to keep earning income is deductible, while the very first check you obtained to enter the profession generally is not. Renewals fall every few years depending on your state, so in most years this line is small — but in a renewal year it belongs on your return.
The second support worker difference is where the work happens. Aged care workers travel to one facility; many support workers have no fixed workplace at all. Your day is a chain of client homes, community outings and group activities, and that pattern changes the travel rules in your favour — it is the single biggest reason a support worker’s return looks different from a facility worker’s.
What you can claim: the full list
Screening checks, memberships and insurance
NDIS Worker Screening Check renewals and Working With Children Check renewals you pay for yourself are deductible when you need them to keep working. Union fees (HSU, ASU and state branches) are deductible in full. These categories matter twice over this year, because union and professional association fees sit outside the $1,000 standard deduction: you can claim them on top of the full $1,000, as long as you keep the records. Income protection insurance premiums you pay yourself are also deductible and also sit outside the $1,000. If you pay a tax agent to prepare your return, that fee is deductible too and also sits outside the $1,000 — it is the one deduction that pays for its own paperwork.
Travel: the claim worth the most, and the one only support workers get
Car travel between clients’ homes during a working day is deductible — this is the support worker’s biggest claim. Travel between two unrelated jobs on the same day (a morning shift with one provider, an evening shift with another) is also deductible, as is travel to a training venue or an alternative workplace for the same employer. The 2026–27 cents-per-kilometre rate is 91 cents per kilometre, capped at 5,000 business kilometres, which puts a ceiling of $4,550 on the cents-per-kilometre method. Keep a diary or use the ATO app’s myDeductions tool: the ATO wants the work purpose of the trips, not just a total.
Here is the part that sets support workers apart. The ordinary trip from home to a regular workplace is private for everyone — but if you have no fixed workplace and travel continuously between client homes all day, the ATO treats you as having shifting places of work, and the trip from home to your first client and from your last client back home can be deductible as well. This is the rule community support workers live by, and it does not apply if your base is a group home or day program you report to every shift: for facility-based workers, home to the facility is still private. If your roster mixes both patterns, only the community days get the shifting-workplace treatment — keep the two patterns in separate diary entries so you can show which days were which.
Driving a client to appointments, activities or community outings as part of your duties is work travel too, and so are tolls and parking incurred on those trips. What you cannot claim is the cost of transporting a client in a vehicle you do not own or pay to run, or any travel the NDIS or your employer reimbursed — reimbursed kilometres are not your expense.
Uniforms, PPE and laundry
A compulsory uniform bearing your employer’s or provider’s logo is deductible, as are protective items you buy yourself: gloves, face masks, hand sanitiser, aprons, safety glasses and non-slip shoes. What you cannot claim is conventional clothing, even when your employer requires a neat appearance — plain black pants and a plain polo are private, logo or not is the test the ATO actually applies: no logo, no claim, unless the item is genuinely protective. Laundry for work-only loads is claimable at $1 per load (50 cents for mixed loads), and from 2026–27 you need written evidence for clothing and laundry claims — the old $150 laundry shortcut is gone, so keep the receipts and a note of your load count.
Training and first aid
Training that maintains or improves your skills in your current role is deductible: manual handling refreshers, mental health first aid, medication administration, behaviour support and NDIS practice-standards courses, plus the travel and accommodation to attend them. A first aid / CPR refresher is deductible where your employer requires it as a condition of the role — for most support workers it is a condition of employment, not an optional extra. What is not deductible is study for a new role or a different profession: a Certificate IV that qualifies you as an enrolled nurse, or a diploma that moves you into allied health, is a capital cost of a new career, even if your current employer encourages it.
Phone, internet and working from home
Phone and internet are claimable at the work-use percentage only — rostering apps, shift-swap messages, client communication and incident reporting count; scrolling does not. Merely checking rosters on your phone does not make the whole bill deductible. If you do administration from home (progress notes, incident reports, rostering, mandatory online training), the fixed-rate method is 70 cents per hour as the series working figure for 2026–27 (the 2026–27 fixed rate is unpublished at the time of writing, so confirm it at lodgement) — but you cannot double-count phone and internet inside it, because the fixed rate already covers them. For most support workers the home-admin hours are small — a couple of hours a week, not a full home office — so this line is modest. Do not inflate it: the ATO can see your roster.
Sleepovers, split shifts and allowances
Sleepover and broken-shift allowances paid under the SCHADS Award are assessable income — they must be declared, and they appear on your payment summary. What you cannot claim is the personal cost of the sleepover itself: bedding, food and toiletries during a sleepover shift are private, in the same way meals on a normal shift are private. An overtime meal is deductible only when you receive an overtime meal allowance under an award or agreement — buying dinner because your shift ran long is not enough on its own. And the café lunch during a community outing with a client? Treat it as private. The ATO does not allow deductions for entertainment or social functions, and a meal out with a client sits squarely in that territory, however much the outing is part of the support plan. Some platform guides suggest claiming it — that is the fastest way to an adjustment on a support worker’s return.
Worked example: itemising vs the $1,000 standard deduction, priced both ways
Meet Sarah, a hypothetical employed disability support worker in Geelong on a salary of $72,000, in the 30% bracket for 2026–27. With the 2% Medicare levy, every deduction dollar saves her 32 cents. Her year looks like this:
| Expense | Amount |
|---|---|
| Car travel between clients and to training: 2,400 km × 91c | $2,184 |
| Uniform (logo polo), non-slip shoes, gloves, masks, sanitiser, laundry | $620 |
| NDIS Worker Screening Check renewal + WWCC renewal (illustrative) | $250 |
| Manual handling refresher + mental health first aid course | $420 |
| Phone, 25% work use | $240 |
| Working from home (admin notes and training): 96 hours × 70c | $67 |
| Total itemised (reducing) expenses | $3,781 |
| HSU union fees (non-reducing, claimed on top either way) | $520 |
| Income protection premiums (illustrative, non-reducing) | $780 |
| Tax agent fee (non-reducing) | $240 |
| Total with non-reducing extras | $5,321 |
Itemised route: $5,321 × 32% = $1,702.72 saved. Standard route: $1,000 standard deduction + $1,540 of non-reducing extras (union $520 + income protection $780 + agent fee $240) = $2,540; $2,540 × 32% = $812.80 saved. Itemising wins by $2,781 of extra deductions, worth $889.92 in Sarah’s pocket — and the car claim alone, $2,184, is more than double the standard deduction.
But the standard deduction wins sometimes, and support workers should know when. Take Tom, a casual support worker doing one or two shifts a week, mostly at one group home, with only $860 of itemisable expenses and patchy receipts. His standard route is $1,000 plus his union fees — beating itemising by $140 of deductions, or $44.80 at 32%, with no record-keeping at all. The rule of thumb: if your itemisable total (excluding union fees, income protection and agent fees, which stack either way) is under $1,000, take the standard deduction and stop worrying. If it is over, itemise — but only with records.
The traps that catch support workers
The record-keeping sting. From 1 July 2026 the old $300 work-expense and $150 laundry record-keeping exceptions are gone — written evidence is now required for every claimed work expense. That does not touch the $1,000 standard deduction, which needs no receipts, but it does mean an itemised claim without receipts is now worthless, not just risky. A support worker’s car diary is the first thing the ATO asks for: keep it in the ATO app as you go, because reconstructing a year of client-to-client kilometres in June is how claims die.
The NDIS-paid trap. You cannot claim a deduction for anything the NDIS paid for, even if you used it to earn your income. If a participant’s plan funded the sensory toys, the vehicle modifications or the training course, it is not your expense. The same applies to anything your employer reimbursed at the exact amount — a reimbursement is not a cost you bore.
The facility-worker mistake. The shifting-places-of-work rule is the most valuable line on a community support worker’s return and the most dangerous line on a facility worker’s. If your base is a group home you report to every shift, home to the facility is private, full stop — claiming it because “support workers can” is exactly the error the ATO’s community support worker guide is written to catch. Claim the shifting pattern only on genuinely itinerant days.
The ABN boundary. Support workers who invoice through their own ABN — on platforms or as independent contractors — are running a business, not just a job, and the tax rules change with it: the $1,000 standard deduction applies to labour income, not business income, so you cannot use it on ABN income at all. Business expenses (platform fees, insurance, equipment, home-office costs for your business admin) are claimed as business deductions instead, GST registration becomes compulsory at $75,000 turnover (noting that NDIS-funded supports are generally GST-free, which does not remove the registration obligation once turnover crosses the threshold), and personal services income rules can limit what you deduct. This is the point where a support worker most needs an accountant, not a checklist.
The “my job requires it” trap. Required does not mean deductible. Conventional clothing, grooming, childcare during shifts, vaccinations and the ordinary commute are all private expenses even when the job makes them unavoidable. If the only reason an item is work-related is that work is where you wear or use it, it almost certainly fails the test.
Tips: get the most out of your return
- Log client-to-client kilometres weekly, not yearly. A contemporaneous diary is what survives an ATO review; a June reconstruction is what does not.
- Separate your diary by pattern. Mark community days (shifting workplaces) apart from facility days so the home-to-first-client claim is defensible day by day.
- Renew screening checks in the year that suits you. A renewal paid in June and one paid in July fall in different tax years — if you are near a bracket boundary, the timing is worth a thought.
- Compare both routes every year. A quiet year (parental leave, casual hours, a move to facility work) can flip you from itemising to the standard deduction — run the numbers before you lodge.
- Keep union and insurance receipts even on the standard route. Union fees, income protection and agent fees stack on top of the $1,000, but only with records.
Frequently asked questions
Can disability support workers claim travel between clients?
Yes — travel directly between clients’ homes, between unrelated jobs on the same day, and to training or an alternative workplace is deductible at 91 cents per kilometre up to 5,000 kilometres. If you have no fixed workplace and travel continuously between clients, the home-to-first-client and last-client-to-home legs can be deductible too.
Is the NDIS Worker Screening Check tax deductible?
A renewal you pay to keep working is deductible. The first check obtained to enter the profession generally is not, in the same way a first Working With Children Check is not.
Should a support worker take the $1,000 standard deduction or itemise?
Compare your itemisable total (excluding union fees, income protection and agent fees, which you claim either way) with $1,000. Above $1,000, itemise with full records; below it, take the standard deduction and save the paperwork.
Can support workers claim the café lunch during a community outing?
Treat it as private. Meals during normal shifts and entertainment or social functions are not deductible, and a meal out with a client sits in that territory even when the outing is part of the support plan.
Can an ABN support worker claim the $1,000 standard deduction?
Not on business income. The standard deduction applies to labour income (salary and wages); ABN earnings are business income, claimed through business deductions instead, with GST registration compulsory at $75,000 turnover.
Are uniforms and PPE tax deductible for support workers?
Compulsory logo uniforms and protective items you buy yourself — gloves, masks, sanitiser, non-slip shoes — are deductible, plus laundry at $1 per work-only load or 50 cents per mixed load, with written evidence required from 2026–27. Plain clothing without a logo or protective purpose is not.
Disability support work is some of the most mobile, hands-on work in Australian healthcare — a different client’s home every hour, a different suburb every shift, often with no office to call base. The tax system recognises the real costs of that work — the kilometres, the screening checks, the training, the protective gear — but only when you can prove them. Price both routes, keep the diary, and claim the version that pays you more: for most full-time community support workers that is still itemising, by a margin worth having.
General information only, not tax advice. Check your award, agreement and personal circumstances, or speak to a registered tax agent, before lodging.
Related reading: Tax Deductions for Aged Care Workers Australia 2026-27, The $1,000 Standard Tax Deduction Explained, Car Expenses Tax Deduction Australia 2026-27, Work From Home Tax Deduction Australia. Try the calculators: Income Tax Calculator. Sources: ATO — Standard deduction for work-related expenses, ATO — Community support workers and direct carers, ATO — National Disability Insurance Scheme.
