Tax & GST
Phone, internet and home office for personal trainers
Your phone is a work tool and a personal one on the same SIM. Your programming happens at the kitchen table between a 6am and a 4pm. Both are claimable — but only the work share, and only if you can show how you arrived at the number.
You claim the work-related share of your phone, internet and home running costs — almost never the whole bill. The number that matters is your business-use percentage, and the record that matters is how you worked it out.
For home running costs there are two methods and you have to pick one. The fixed rate — 70 cents per hour from 1 July 2024 — already includes phone and internet, so you cannot claim those separately on top of it. The actual cost method is more work and usually a bigger claim. Rent and mortgage interest are a different category again, and claiming them can cost you when you sell the house.
Apportionment is the only skill on this page
Nearly every mistake in this area is the same mistake: treating a mixed expense as if it were a pure one. The phone is the obvious case. It rings for clients, and it rings for your mother. The internet runs your invoicing and your Netflix.
You don't lose the claim because an expense is mixed. You apportion it: work out a fair business-use percentage, claim that share, and keep the working out that got you there. The percentage itself is the deduction, and it only counts for anything if it came from something real rather than a round number that felt about right. A percentage you can't reconstruct is a percentage you can't support.
Your phone: how to get to a number
Start from the honest position. If it's your only phone, it is a private phone you also use for work. The ATO's expectation is that you identify the work-related portion over a representative period, usually around four weeks, and apply that pattern to the year.
- Calls and messages. Count work calls and messages against the total. If 40 of 100 calls that month were clients, gyms or suppliers, that's a 40% starting point.
- Data. If most of your work use is data — the coaching app, video check-ins, uploading programs — count data instead, because calls will understate it badly.
Then write down the sample period, what you counted, and the percentage you landed on. That note is the claim. The bill proves you spent the money; it proves nothing about how much of it was work.
Claiming an entire bill on a phone you also use privately is a reliable way to attract attention, and it's easy to avoid. A full claim is defensible on a second handset and plan used only for the business: no personal calls, no family group chat, nothing. One private habit undoes it.
There's a long-standing concession for very small work-related phone claims that allows a simpler basis than a four-week analysis. Whether it applies to a sole trader, and what the limit is, is worth confirming with your agent before you rely on it.
Internet
Same logic, harder evidence. There is no itemised bill for a home connection, so the percentage has to come from how the household actually uses it: how many people are on it, what for, and how much of that is business. Apportion by time or by number of users. Either is acceptable if it's reasoned and written down. What isn't acceptable is 50% because halves are tidy.
GST credits follow the same apportionment: a 40% business phone gives you 40% of the GST, not the lot. And the hourly working-from-home rate below is an income tax shortcut — it doesn't produce a GST credit, so you still need the actual bills. More on GST for personal trainers →
What counts as working from home when you're a trainer
This trips people up because the training itself happens somewhere else. The hours still count: writing and adjusting programs, invoicing and chasing payments, coaching calls and online client check-ins, answering messages outside session time, filming and editing content, CPD.
What doesn't count is training yourself in the garage, or being at home with your phone on in case someone messages. The hours have to be hours you were working.
The two working-from-home methods
There are two ways to claim the additional running costs of working at home, and you pick one for the income year. The part people get wrong is that they don't combine: the costs the fixed rate covers can't then be claimed on their actual numbers as well.
1. The fixed rate method
A set rate for each hour you work from home, currently 70 cents per hour from 1 July 2024. One number covering a bundle of costs, which is why it's simple and why it's restrictive. The rate is reviewed periodically, so confirm the figure for the year you're lodging.
It includes energy (electricity and gas for lighting, heating, cooling and running your devices), home and mobile phone, internet, stationery, and computer consumables like paper and printer ink.
You can still claim separately on top of the rate: the decline in value of your desk, chair, laptop, phone handset and similar assets, repairs to those assets, and cleaning a dedicated home office if you have one.
If you claim the fixed rate, you cannot also claim your phone bill and your internet bill. They are already in the 70 cents. Plenty of people claim the hourly rate and then add a separate phone line on top, because both feel like real, separate costs. They are, but you've been paid for one of them already.
It's a clean, obvious error to spot from the outside. If your phone claim is the one you really care about, and for a lot of trainers it's the biggest number here, use the actual cost method for everything instead.
2. The actual cost method
Work out what you actually spent and what portion of it was work: the real work-related share of energy, phone, internet, consumables, and the decline in value of the gear you use. More effort, and usually a materially bigger claim for someone who genuinely runs a business from home rather than answering the odd email.
There's no hourly rate here, so you're not locked into the bundle. Each expense stands on its own percentage, which is why it suits a trainer whose phone is doing heavy lifting and whose electricity use at home barely changes.
| Fixed rate | Actual cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Phone & internet | Included — no separate claim | Claimed on their own percentage |
| Energy | Included | Work-related portion, worked out |
| Laptop, desk, chair depreciation | Claimed separately | Claimed separately |
| Hours record | Every hour, all year | Representative record (commonly 4 weeks) per expense |
| Effort | Low | Higher |
| Usually suits | Light, occasional admin at home | Online coaching, heavy phone use, a real home base |
Records: the requirement differs by method
This is where the fixed rate stops being the easy option.
- Fixed rate: a record of the actual hours you worked from home for the entire income year. Not an estimate. Not a four-week sample scaled up. A timesheet, roster, diary or app log kept as you go. You also need evidence you incurred each of the costs the rate covers — one bill for each is generally enough.
- Actual cost: no year-long timesheet, but you still need a record of your work-from-home pattern — a diary or similar kept for a representative period, commonly four weeks — plus the bills and a defensible basis for every percentage you've applied. Energy in particular can't be apportioned without hours.
- Both: keep it for five years from the date you lodge the return it supports.
Reconstructing a year of home-work hours in July from memory is not a record, and everyone who tries it discovers the same thing: the number they end up writing is a guess wearing a uniform.
A percentage is only worth what its record is worth
The apportionment isn't the hard part. Remembering in July why your phone was 40% and not 60% is. Momentum Tracking stores the business-use percentage against each expense as you enter it, keeps the receipt attached, and carries both through to a BAS-ready summary. The percentage survives the year, so what you hand your accountant is a position, not a shrug.
See how it works → Built by an Australian PT of 12 years. Free 30-day trial.Laptops, tablets and the depreciation question
A laptop or tablet used partly for work is claimable on the same principle: business-use percentage, claim that share. What changes is when you claim it.
Cheaper items are generally written off in the year you buy them. More expensive assets are depreciated — you claim the cost across the years you use it, with the business-use percentage applied. Where the line sits depends on the write-off threshold in force for that income year, and that figure has moved several times recently. Check it for the year you bought the asset rather than assuming last year's.
Keep the invoice, not just the bank line, because you'll want the date and the model if the asset gets depreciated. And record the business-use percentage at purchase: a laptop bought in September is very hard to apportion honestly the following June. Full deductions checklist →
Occupancy costs: rent, mortgage interest, rates and insurance
Everything above is a running cost: the extra you spend because you're working at home. Occupancy costs are the costs of owning or renting the property at all, and you'd pay them whether you worked there or not.
Generally, you can't claim them. Rent, mortgage interest, council rates and house insurance are only deductible where part of your home is a genuine place of business. That's a real test, involving space genuinely set aside and used for the business, not a corner of the lounge with a laptop on it. Most sole-trader trainers don't meet it, because the business is conducted at gyms, in parks and in clients' homes.
If part of your home is treated as a place of business, that can reduce the main residence exemption when you sell, meaning capital gains tax on a share of the gain on your own house. A few hundred dollars a year of occupancy deductions can cost far more than that at settlement, and it's a decision you make years before you feel it.
Not a reason to panic. A reason to never claim occupancy costs casually, and to have the conversation with your registered tax agent before the first return that includes them, not after.
Worth knowing: if your home genuinely is a base of business, the drive from home to a client can stop being private travel. How car claims work for trainers →
Common questions
Can I claim 100% of my phone as a personal trainer?
Almost never. If the phone is also your personal phone, you can only claim the work-related share of the bill. A full claim is only defensible on a second handset and plan used solely for the business, with no private calls, messages or data on it at all.
Can I claim my phone and internet on top of the 70 cents per hour working from home rate?
No. The fixed rate already includes phone, internet, energy, stationery and computer consumables, so claiming them again separately is double-dipping. If you want to claim your phone on its own numbers, use the actual cost method for everything instead.
How do I work out my phone's business-use percentage?
Take a representative period, usually four weeks, and count the work-related use against the total — calls, messages and data. Turn that into a percentage, write down how you got there, and apply it to the year's bills. The percentage is the part the ATO would ask about, not the bill.
Can I claim rent or mortgage interest for the space I work in at home?
Generally no. Occupancy expenses such as rent, mortgage interest, council rates and house insurance are only deductible where part of your home is a genuine place of business, a much higher bar than working at the kitchen table. Claiming them can also affect the main residence exemption when you sell, so speak to your agent first.
Do I need to keep a record of every hour I work from home?
If you use the fixed rate method, yes — a record of the actual hours you worked from home across the whole income year. A four-week sample isn't enough. Under the actual cost method you don't need a timesheet for the whole year, but you do need a record of your usual work-from-home pattern — commonly a four-week diary — plus the bills and a defensible basis for each work-use percentage.