Nurse car and travel deductions: what you can claim
Nurses move around more than most workers. You might drive between two hospitals in a day, cover community visits from one home to the next, or get called in across town at short notice. Some of that travel is deductible and some of it is not, and the difference is worth real money, especially for community and district nurses who are on the road all day. Here is what you can claim, what you can't, and how to work it out.
The rule that catches everyone: your commute is private
Start with the one that surprises people. The trip from home to work and back is private travel, and you cannot claim it, no matter how far you drive, how strange the shift, or that there was no bus at five in the morning. Getting yourself to work is treated as your own cost, not the job's. That holds for the ordinary commute even when the hours are anything but ordinary.
The travel you can claim
Plenty of nursing travel does count. You can generally claim:
- Driving between two workplaces on the same day. A shift at one hospital and then another, or your ward to a different site for training, is work travel.
- Community and district visits. If your role has you driving between patients' homes or facilities through the day, that on-the-clock travel is deductible. It is often the biggest claim a community nurse has.
- Itinerant work. If you genuinely shift between workplaces with no single fixed base, even some home-to-work travel can count. Our agency vs permanent guide explains when agency work meets this test.
- Work trips by any transport. It is not only cars. A train, bus, tram, taxi or rideshare for a genuine work trip can be claimed, so keep the tickets.
The two ways to claim your car
If you are using your own car for that work travel, there are two methods, and you pick whichever gives the better result:
- Cents per kilometre. A set rate for each work kilometre, up to 5,000 work kilometres a year. You do not need receipts, but you do need to show how you worked the kilometres out, so keep a diary of your work trips. Simple, and enough for most nurses.
- Logbook. You keep a twelve-week logbook to work out what share of your driving is for work, then claim that share of your actual running costs: fuel, servicing, insurance, registration and the car's decline in value. More effort, but it wins when your work travel is high.
The cents-per-kilometre rate changes each year, so check the current figure on the ATO's page rather than trusting an old number.
What you can't claim
- Your normal commute, home to work and back.
- Travel your employer reimbursed. If you were paid back for the trip, it is not yours to claim.
- A car allowance on its own. An allowance is income, not an automatic deduction. You still claim only the actual work travel you did and paid for yourself.
Keep a record as you drive
Travel claims live or die on the record behind them, and a shift-worker's memory of a year of trips is not it. A simple diary of your work kilometres, or a full logbook if you use that method, is what makes the claim stand up.
The bottom line
For nurses, travel comes down to one line: getting to and from work is private, but travelling as part of the work is not. Claim the drives between workplaces, the community visits and the genuine work trips, use whichever car method gives you more, and keep a record of the kilometres as you go. Leave the ordinary commute off. Get that right, and the running around the job asks of you is at least recognised at tax time.
General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.