The gear you buy to do your job is deductible, whether it's a drill, a laptop or a decent office chair. The main question is whether you claim it all at once or over a few years.
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By the Nomo team · Last reviewed 26 September 2026
If a tool or piece of equipment costs $300 or less and you use it for work, you can claim the whole cost in the year you buy it. Hand tools, a keyboard, a battery charger, a tool bag. Buy it in June and the deduction lands on that year's return.
Two catches. A set counts as one item: if the set costs more than $300 in total, you can't claim it all at once, even if each piece is cheap. And identical items add up: ten $40 clamps of the same kind bought in the same year are $400, so they're over the limit too.
Gear over $300 is claimed as its decline in value over its effective life, which the ATO publishes for each type of asset. You claim a share each year, starting from when you first use it (or have it installed ready to use). The ATO's depreciation tool works out the numbers.
Laptops, tablets and phones follow the same rules. See the ATO's computers, laptops and software guide.
Use the laptop for work and streaming? Claim the work share only. Work out the split honestly, write down how you got there, and apply it to the cost or the decline in value. A diary of how you use it over a representative four weeks is a simple way to back it up.
A $250 drill you use 80% for work: claim $200 this year. A $1,800 laptop you use 60% for work: claim 60% of its decline in value each year.
You can also claim the work share of repairs to your tools and equipment, insurance on them, and interest on money you borrowed to buy them.
From 2026–27, tools and equipment are among the work expenses covered by the $1,000 standard deduction. If your tools, gear and other work costs add up to more than $1,000, you claim them instead, with receipts for all of it. A new drill kit and a set of sockets can get you most of the way there. How the $1,000 standard deduction works.
Keep them for five years from when you lodge, and for assets you claim over several years, five years from your last claim for them. More in receipts and record keeping.
Scan the receipt when you buy the gear, mark it Work, Mixed or Personal, and Nomo keeps the record and the category right through to your end of year report. Nomo is an Australian tax deduction and mileage/work kilometre tracking app for PAYG employees and sole traders.
Tools and Equipment, with a choice of Work, Mixed or Personal.
Every purchase for the year, kept together.
See how Nomo tracks receipts. Tradies, see tradie tax deductions.
Small businesses can use the instant asset write-off to deduct business assets costing less than $20,000 in the year they're first used or installed ready for use. See sole trader tax deductions.
Yes, if you use them for work. The whole cost comes off in the year you buy them, as long as they aren't part of a set, or identical items, costing more than $300 together.
You claim the work share of its decline in value over its effective life, starting from when you first use it.
Yes, if you're claiming your actual expenses. The $300 figure is about claiming the whole cost at once, not about skipping the receipt.
No. You can't claim anything your employer supplied or reimbursed.
Yes, the work share of repairs and insurance on your work tools and equipment.
Claim the work share only, and keep a note of how you worked it out.
Buy the gear. Keep the receipt.
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Start 14-day free trialBy the Nomo team · Last reviewed 26 September 2026. We check these pages against current ATO guidance and update them when the rules change.
General information only, not tax advice. Rules change and everyone’s situation is different, so check ato.gov.au or talk to a registered tax agent about your situation. Nomo is a record keeping app, not a registered tax agent.