Tax & GST
Personal trainer tax deductions in Australia
Every dollar you spend running your training business is a dollar you shouldn't be taxed on — but only if it passes three tests, and only if you can prove it. Here's what you can claim, what you can't, and the four claims that get trainers into trouble every single year.
You can claim an expense if you paid for it yourself, it directly relates to earning your training income, and you have a record of it. For most PTs that means insurance, registration, equipment, courses, gym floor rent, software, the work share of your phone, and travel between clients.
The four that catch people out: your own gym membership, plain activewear, the drive from home to your first client, and your own coffee — all usually private, no matter how work-adjacent they feel.
The three tests every claim has to pass
The ATO frames this as three rules, and it's worth learning them properly because they answer most questions you'll ever have without needing a list:
- You spent the money yourself and weren't reimbursed. If a gym paid for your first-aid renewal, it's their deduction, not yours.
- The expense directly relates to earning your income. There has to be a real connection between the spend and the money you make from training — not just a plausible story.
- You have a record to prove it. No receipt, no claim. A clear photo of the receipt counts.
Where an expense is partly private — your phone, your car, your internet — you don't lose the claim. You apportion it: work out a fair business-use percentage, claim that share, and keep the working out that got you there.
What personal trainers can claim
This is the practical list for a sole-trader PT. It isn't exhaustive, and a few lines depend on facts only you know — those are marked.
| Expense | Claim? | The detail that matters |
|---|---|---|
| Public liability & professional indemnity insurance | Yes | Fully deductible. Business insurance carries GST, so if you're registered there's a credit too. |
| Industry registration (AUSactive and similar) | Yes | Registration and professional association fees are deductible. |
| First aid and CPR renewal | Yes | Required to keep working — a maintenance cost of your current role. |
| CPD, courses and workshops | Usually | Deductible where the course maintains or improves the skills you already earn income from. A course that opens a new field generally isn't. |
| Equipment — bands, mats, kettlebells, sleds, straps | Yes | Cheaper items are claimed in the year you buy them. Bigger assets are written off over time — see below. |
| Gym floor rent or studio hire | Yes | Paying a gym to train your clients there is rent. Deductible in full. |
| Music licensing (OneMusic Australia) | Yes | If you play music in sessions you generally need a licence, and it's deductible. |
| Software and apps — scheduling, coaching, accounting | Yes | Deductible. Watch the GST: some overseas suppliers don't charge Australian GST, so there's no credit to claim. |
| Phone and internet | Work share | Apportion it. Claiming 100% of a phone you also use privately is a standard audit trigger. |
| Car travel between clients or venues | Yes | Deductible. Home to your first client generally isn't — see the traps below. |
| Uniform with a permanent logo | Yes | Branded and it's a uniform. Unbranded and it's just clothes. |
| Marketing and advertising | Yes | Ads, a website, printing, photography for your business. |
| Accountant and bookkeeper fees | Yes | Including the cost of managing your tax affairs. Not every small practice is GST-registered, so check the invoice before claiming a credit. |
| Bank fees and merchant fees on the business account | Yes | Deductible — but they're financial supplies, so there's no GST credit. |
| Your own gym membership | Usually not | Keeping fit is treated as private, even for trainers. See below. |
| Plain activewear and running shoes | No | Conventional clothing, regardless of what you wear it for. |
| Home to first client / last client to home | Usually not | Private travel unless your home is a genuine base of business. |
| Your own coffee and meals | Usually not | Feeding yourself is private, and entertainment rules restrict it further. |
The four claims PTs get wrong
1. Your own gym membership
This is the single most common wrong claim in the industry, and the logic behind it is genuinely reasonable: you're a trainer, being fit is the job, so the membership must be a work expense.
The ATO doesn't see it that way. Keeping fit is treated as private in nature, and a deduction for your own fitness is allowed only in a narrow set of occupations where an extremely high level of fitness is an essential requirement of the role — think specialist police or defence units, not personal training. Being fit helps you sell training; that isn't the same as the law treating it as a cost of earning the income.
The distinction that does matter: paying a gym for floor access so you can train paying clients there is rent, and it's deductible. A membership that lets you train yourself is not. If your gym charges you one fee that genuinely covers both, that's a conversation for your agent — and a reason to ask the gym to itemise the invoice.
2. Activewear
Clothing is deductible in three situations: it's a compulsory or registered uniform, it carries your business logo permanently, or it's protective. Plain leggings, singlets and cross-trainers are none of those. The test isn't whether you only wear them at work — it's whether they're conventional clothing. They are.
Put your logo on your training tops and the tops become deductible. That's not a loophole, it's the actual rule, and it's cheap to act on.
3. The commute
Driving from home to the first client of the day is private travel. So is the drive home from the last one. What is deductible is travel between two places you work: client one's gym to client two's building, the studio to an outdoor session, one venue to the next.
There are two exceptions worth knowing. If your home is a genuine base of business — a real test, not just doing invoices at the kitchen table — trips from home can count. And if you're carrying bulky equipment that's essential to the session with nowhere secure to store it at the venue, that trip can be deductible too. Both need records.
Most PTs use the cents-per-kilometre method: a set rate per business kilometre, capped at 5,000 km per car per year, with no receipts required but a record of how you worked out the kilometres. Above that cap you need a logbook. The rate is set each year — it was 88c/km for 2024–25 and 2025–26, and 91c/km for 2026–27. Full breakdown of car claims →
4. Coffee and meals
Buying your own coffee between clients is private, however much it feels like a cost of a 5am start. Meals for yourself during a normal working day are the same. On top of that, Australian tax law contains specific entertainment rules that restrict deductions for food and drink, which is why "I discussed business" doesn't automatically make a cafe bill claimable.
There are narrower situations where food and drink costs are treated differently — genuinely working away from home overnight, for instance. That's a different rule from your regular flat white. The full coffee question, properly answered →
Each one feels like a work expense because it's near your work. The test isn't proximity — it's whether the spend is genuinely incurred in earning the income, or is really about living your life while you happen to be earning. Judged that way, all four answer themselves.
Equipment: claim it now or write it off over time?
Small gear — bands, mats, a few kettlebells — is generally claimed in full in the year you buy it. More expensive assets are depreciated: you claim the cost across the years you use it rather than all at once.
Where the line sits depends on the write-off threshold in force for that income year, and that figure has moved several times in recent years. Rather than guessing, check the current threshold for the year you bought the asset, or ask your agent — it's exactly the sort of thing that's cheap to confirm and expensive to assume.
Record the purchase properly at the time — date, supplier, amount, and what it was. If it turns
out to be a depreciating asset, your agent has what they need. If you only have a bank line
reading SPORTSDIRECT 412.00 eleven months later, you'll be reconstructing it from
memory, and memory is not a record.
Records: what you actually have to keep
- Keep records for five years from the date you lodge the return they support.
- Digital copies are fine as long as they're a true and clear reproduction of the original. A readable phone photo counts; a blurry one doesn't.
- Receipts fade. Thermal paper from a cafe or a hardware store can be blank inside a year. Photograph it the day you get it.
- A bank statement alone is usually not enough for expenses that need substantiating — it shows an amount and a merchant, not what you bought or whether it carried GST.
- If you're registered for GST, you need a valid tax invoice to claim a credit on purchases over the ATO's threshold — currently $82.50 including GST.
The admin is the hard part, not the rules
Most trainers don't lose deductions because they misunderstand tax law. They lose them because a receipt faded in a gym bag in October and nobody remembers what it was for. Momentum Tracking logs expenses against the right category as you go, keeps the receipt photo attached, apportions part-private costs, and rolls it all into a BAS-ready summary — so what you hand your accountant is a record, not a shoebox.
See how it works → Built by an Australian PT of 12 years. Free 30-day trial.Do I need to worry about GST?
Only once you're registered. Registration is compulsory when your GST turnover reaches $75,000 in a 12-month period — and that's measured on a rolling basis, looking both at the last 12 months and at what you reasonably expect over the next 12. Plenty of trainers cross it mid-year without noticing.
Once registered you charge GST on your sessions, claim credits on business purchases that carried GST, and lodge a BAS. When PTs need to register for GST → · How to do your BAS →
Common questions
Can I claim my own gym membership?
Generally no. The ATO treats keeping fit as private in nature, even for trainers, and allows a deduction only in a narrow set of occupations where an extremely high level of fitness is an essential requirement of the job. Renting floor space so you can train paying clients is a different expense — that's rent, and it's deductible.
Can I claim the drive from home to my first client?
Usually not — home to work is private travel. Travel between two places you work, such as one client's gym to the next, is deductible. The exception is where your home is a genuine base of business, which is a specific test rather than simply doing admin at the kitchen table.
Can I claim my activewear?
Only if it's a genuine uniform carrying your business logo permanently, or it's protective clothing. Plain leggings, singlets and running shoes are conventional clothing and aren't deductible, no matter how exclusively you wear them for work.
How long do I need to keep receipts?
Generally five years from the date you lodge the return the record supports. A digital photo is acceptable provided it's a true and clear reproduction of the original — so photograph thermal receipts early, before they fade.
I train clients online as well. Does that change anything?
The same three tests apply. Online coaching tends to shift the mix — more software, more phone and internet, less floor rent and travel — and it makes apportionment more important, because a laptop and a home internet connection are almost always part-private.
I'm a contractor at a gym, not self-employed. Is this still relevant?
Mostly yes, if you're genuinely contracting — you're running a business and these are your business expenses. If you're an employee of the gym, the deduction rules are similar in spirit but the surrounding obligations differ, and anything the gym reimburses you for isn't yours to claim. If you're not certain which you are, that's worth resolving with your agent, because it changes more than your deductions.