You're not owed $300 — the work-expense threshold isn't a free claim

Lodging your own 2025–26 return, you will hear that everyone can claim $300 of work expenses, with no receipts and nothing actually spent. The ATO's Employees guide for work expenses (current at 12 August 2026) lists that as a myth.

The guide's wording is that there is no such thing as an automatic deduction. The same myth bundles an automatic $150 for clothing and laundry, and an automatic 5,000 km on the cents per kilometre method. Those figures are substantiation exceptions: relief from keeping some receipts, in some cases. They are not amounts the ATO adds because you had a job.

$300 or less, and over $300

For 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026, the myTax 2026 claiming deductions instructions (updated 13 July 2026) split the record you need on the total of the work expenses this rule covers.

Total of those work expenses	Records you need
$300 or less	A record of how you worked the claim out — a calendar, a spreadsheet, a note. Written evidence (a receipt or invoice) is not required.
More than $300	Written evidence for the whole claim. Not only the amount over $300.

The ATO's records you need to keep page (updated 8 June 2026) says the same thing in one line: exceptions do not allow you to claim an automatic deduction. Under $300 you still show that you spent the money, and how you calculated the amount. One example they give is amounts highlighted on a bank statement, with a written description of each item and how it related to your work.

A bank or credit card statement on its own is not written evidence. It is not from the supplier, and it generally does not include everything a receipt has to show. Once the total is over $300, the statement alone will not carry the claim.

Go over by a dollar and the exception drops away for every dollar. A $310 total needs written evidence for all $310. The records page uses this exact misunderstanding as the case it will not excuse: thinking you only had to keep records for the part above $300.

Three rules on both sides of the line

myTax states three golden rules for work expenses on this return. The threshold does not turn them off.

1. You spent the money yourself and were not reimbursed. A partial reimbursement leaves only the unreimbursed part.
2. The expense directly relates to earning your income. Private use comes off. Normal home-to-work travel and buying lunch stay private.
3. You have a record to prove it.

Under $300, the record is how you calculated the claim. Over $300, it is written evidence for the total. Either way, keep records for five years from the date you lodge, in most cases. Paper or a clear electronic copy is fine.

The claiming deductions page (updated 13 July 2026) uses the same three rules, and it says an employer asking you to buy something does not by itself make the cost deductible.

Left out of the $300

myTax is explicit. The $300 threshold does not include:

• car expenses
• meal allowance expenses
• award transport payment expenses
• travel allowance expenses

Each of those has its own written-evidence rules. A car claim does not sit inside a $200 stationery total.

Laundry is the figure people add on the side. Up to $150 of laundry for deductible work clothing has its own written-evidence exception, and that $150 counts inside the $300. It does not lift the line to $450. Which clothes qualify is a narrower test — see uniforms, laundry, and protective clothing.

A different $300, and a $1,000 that waits until next year

A work asset costing $300 or less can be deducted straight away when you use it mainly for work. That is the immediate write-off for the asset. A laptop over that cost is decline in value across its effective life. The fork is in how to claim big purchases like laptops.

The $1,000 standard deduction — the instant tax deduction — does not apply to the 2025–26 return. myTax says to keep claiming this year the usual way. What changes at Tax Time 2027 is in don't claim the $1,000 standard deduction on your 2025–26 return.

From next year, this exception goes

Keep this in the background while you lodge. From 1 July 2026 the ATO's standard deduction page (updated 14 September 2026) removes three record-keeping exceptions: the $300 work-expense limit, the $150 laundry limit, and the award transport expense exemption. That applies to everyone, whether or not the standard deduction is available to you. Draft Law Companion Ruling LCR 2026/D5 describes the same repeal of the old $300 and $150 substantiation exceptions from the 2026–27 year.

For the return you are finishing now, the $300 exception still stands.

Before you type the number

Car or allowance below means the four claims the $300 line leaves out: car expenses, meal allowances, award transport payments, and travel allowances.

flowchart TD
  start["2025-26 claim"] --> spent{"For work?"}
  spent -->|No| out["Leave it out"]
  spent -->|Yes| kind{"Car or allowance?"}
  kind -->|Yes| own["Own rules"]
  kind -->|No| total{"$300 or less?"}
  total -->|Yes| calc["Keep a note"]
  total -->|No| proof["Need receipts"]

The note you can still explain in October

The claims that fall over are usually small. Someone types $300 because a colleague said everyone does. Or they file receipts only for the slice above $300 and have nothing for the rest. A line written when you paid — what it was, what it cost, why it was work — is the record the under-$300 rule asks for. In a year that goes over $300, that same line is what the receipt belongs to.

This is general information, not tax advice. Check the Employees guide and the myTax 2026 instructions for your own return.