Which car trips are actually deductible

Most disputed car claims aren't disputes about arithmetic. They're disputes about whether the trip counted at all.

flowchart TD
  trip[This car trip] --> commute{Home to your regular workplace?}
  commute -->|Yes| private[Private - commuting]
  commute -->|No| alt{Between workplaces or to an alternative work site?}
  alt -->|Yes| yes[Usually deductible]
  alt -->|No| extra{Itinerant work or bulky essential tools?}
  extra -->|Yes| yes
  extra -->|No| private

The default: commuting isn't deductible

Travel between home and your regular place of work is private, even if:

• you work back late, or start before dawn
• there is no public transport option
• you take a work call on the way
• you do a small work errand en route

The reason is that the trip puts you in a position to work; it isn't travel on work.

Trips that generally do count

• Between two workplaces in the same day — from your office to a client site, or from one employer to a second job.
• From your workplace to an alternative work location and back, such as a conference, a training venue, or a supplier.
• Home to an alternative workplace that isn't your regular one, where you go there for work and not simply to start your day.
• Travel where your home is a base of employment in the genuine sense, not merely a place you sometimes work.
• Itinerant work — where travel is inherent to the job, you work at several sites each day, and you can't reasonably nominate one as your base.
• Carrying bulky, essential equipment you cannot securely store at work, where the size or weight is what makes the car necessary.

The bulky-tools exception is narrower than the tradie folklore suggests. A laptop bag is not bulky equipment. Secure storage being available at work generally kills the claim, even if using it would be inconvenient.

Same day, mixed purpose

Split the trip. Office → client → home: the office-to-client leg is deductible, the client-to-home leg generally is not. Recording legs separately as you drive is far easier than untangling one long trip later.

What to write down per trip

Whichever method you use, each work trip wants:

Field	Why it matters
Date	Ties the trip to the income year and your roster
From and To	Establishes it wasn't home-to-regular-work
Purpose	The one field that answers "was this work?"
Kilometres	Feeds the claim, whether capped or apportioned
Odometer	Required for a logbook; useful evidence otherwise

"Client visit — Parramatta" is a purpose. "Work" is not.

A small habit that pays

The record is worth more when it's contemporaneous. A trip logged as you switch off the engine is evidence. The same trip typed in the following June is a reconstruction, and it reads like one.

Keep it to a few seconds per trip and it stays sustainable across a whole year — which is the only thing that makes the claim worth having.

Bear in mind

• These rules are about cars. Taxi, rideshare, flights, and public transport for work travel follow their own path, and aren't subject to the 5,000 km cap.
• If your employer reimburses the travel, you can't also claim it.
• A car allowance on your payslip is assessable income; it doesn't change the deduction rules, and it doesn't remove the need for records.