What Can I Claim on Tax Without Receipts? The $300 Rule (and Its Fine Print)

The receipt-free claims, at a glance

The $300 rule: what it actually says

If your total work-related expense claims are $300 or less, you don't need written evidence. Three things everyone gets wrong:

1. It's a cap on the total, not per item. $250 of tools plus $100 of phone use is $350 total, so receipts are needed for all of it, not just the excess.
2. It excludes car, travel and meal-allowance claims. Those have their own rules and don't eat into the $300.
3. It is not a free $300. The ATO's data shows $299 of unspecified expenses is one of the most reviewed lines in the individual return. You must have genuinely incurred the cost, and if asked you'd need to explain what you bought and how you got to the number.

Claims clawed back come with shortfall interest attached, so everyone claims $300 is not a defence.

Laundry: the $150 sub-rule

Washing deductible clothing (uniforms with logos, protective gear, occupation-specific clothing, not plain black pants) can be claimed to $150 without receipts using the ATO's rates: $1 per load of work-only washing and 50c for mixed loads. Note the interaction: laundry over $150, or laundry pushing your total over $300, triggers the evidence requirement for the lot.

Car kilometres: 5,000 km, no logbook

The cents-per-km method covers up to 5,000 work kilometres a year at 88 cents per km (2025-26), a claim worth up to $4,400 with no receipts and no logbook. You still need to show how you worked the kilometres out: a few weeks of representative diary, or a demonstrable pattern such as a twice-weekly 30 km round trip between work sites across 42 working weeks. Home-to-work commuting never counts. More than 5,000 km of genuine work travel? You need the logbook method, receipts and all, but usually a bigger deduction.

Bank statements: better than nothing, less than enough

A bank or card statement proves you paid someone, not what you bought. The ATO may accept statements as part of your evidence where getting a receipt was genuinely impossible, ideally alongside your own note of what the purchase was. As a strategy, though, relying on statements fails reviews routinely. Thirty seconds photographing a receipt into a folder, or the ATO's myDeductions app, beats an argument with an auditor every time.

What you can never claim without evidence

No threshold, rule or app makes these claimable bare: big-ticket items over $300 each (which are also depreciated rather than instantly deducted), self-education courses, rental property expenses, income protection premiums, and anything reimbursed by your employer, which is never claimable at all. And the perennials that aren't deductible with or without receipts: normal commuting, everyday clothing, childcare, and gym memberships for all but a tiny class of physical-performance occupations.

If you've already claimed more than you can prove

• Lodged an inflated claim with no review yet: amend the return voluntarily, because penalties are typically cut by 80% or waived for disclosure before the ATO comes knocking.
• Years of returns not lodged because your records are a mess: missing receipts are a reason to use the rules above properly, not a reason to stay unlodged, because failure to lodge penalties outrun any deduction you'd lose.

Fix a lodged return with our amendment guide, or start the catch-up with the overdue returns guide and see what late lodgment costs.

Substantiation limits and rates checked July 2026.

General information only - not personal tax, financial or legal advice. Consider your own circumstances or speak to a registered tax agent. Remission of penalties or interest and payment plans are decisions of the ATO and outcomes can't be guaranteed.