Tax deductions for FIFO & mining workers in 2026: what you can claim

The most common FIFO tax question has the least popular answer. No, you generally cannot claim the flights or the drive between home and the mine, because the ATO treats getting to your regular work site as private travel, even when that site is a thousand kilometres and a charter flight away. Start there, because it is where most claims go wrong. Once it is out of the way, there is still a solid list of genuine deductions on a mine site, and a fair share of it gets missed.

The travel question, first

Travel between your home and your normal work site is private, however far you fly or drive to reach it. What can be deductible is travel you do as part of the job once you are rostered on: moving between separate work sites, or a trip your employer directs that is not just your ordinary journey to work. If you have to carry bulky, essential equipment because there is nowhere secure to leave it on site, a narrow exception can apply, but it is specific and worth checking against your own facts rather than assuming. And if you receive a living-away-from-home allowance, know that it works nothing like a deduction: it is a fringe benefit that does not go on your return at all, and it means you cannot claim the accommodation and food it covers.

What makes a cost claimable

Every deduction on a mine site turns on three things. You paid for it yourself and the company didn't reimburse you, it ties directly to the work that earns your pay, and you have a record to show for it. Anything you use on the job and off it, your phone most obviously, counts only for its work share. When a swing runs the days together, that record is the difference between a cost you half-remember and a claim the ATO accepts.

Protective gear and sun protection

The safety kit you buy yourself is deductible: steel-capped boots, hi-vis, safety glasses, gloves and a hard hat where you fund them. So is laundering compulsory or protective clothing, which is a small weekly cost that adds up over a year of swings. For anyone working in the open, sun protection is deductible too, the sunscreen, the sunglasses and the broad-brimmed hat, and it is one of the most commonly forgotten claims on an outdoor site.

Tickets, licences and training

The competency tickets and licences that keep you on site are deductible when you renew them: your machinery tickets, a high-risk work licence, a renewed heavy-vehicle licence where it is required for the role. First aid courses and self-education that builds on your current job qualify as well. The cost of the first ticket that gets you through the gate does not, because that ticket buys your way into the industry rather than helping you do a job you already hold.

The deductions that get missed

The overlooked ones are the small, recurring costs nobody keeps a receipt for:

• Sunscreen and sunglasses. For outdoor site work, protection from the sun is a genuine work expense.
• Laundering your hi-vis. Washing compulsory or protective clothing is claimable, and rarely tracked.
• Ticket and licence renewals. The competency tickets you refresh to stay rostered on.
• Your own tools and tech. The decline in value of gear or a laptop you bought yourself and use for work.
• Phone and union fees. The work share of your phone, and any union membership tied to the job.

What you can't claim

A few things feel like part of the job on a mine site but never make it onto your return:

• Home to site. The commute to your regular work site is private, flight or drive, no matter the distance.
• Meals you aren't travelling for. Food is private unless you are required to stay away from home overnight for work, and meals the camp provides are not yours to claim.
• Keeping fit. Gym memberships and fitness costs are private, even where you need to pass a medical to work.
• Everyday clothing and grooming. Ordinary clothes, and the haircut, are private whatever the site rules say about presentation.

One more that trips people up: the remote area, or zone, tax offset is often assumed to come with FIFO work. Since 2015 it generally does not, unless your usual home is in the zone rather than just the site you fly into. It is an offset rather than a deduction in any case, so check your eligibility with the ATO before you count on it.

Records that survive the swing

A swing is hard on paperwork. A docket for your boots or a bottle of sunscreen left in a work bag for three weeks is a docket already gone, and a ticket-renewal invoice is easy to file away and forget. The ATO wants written evidence for what you spent, plus a note of how you worked out the work share on things like your phone. The costs that vanish are the recurring small ones: the laundry loads for your hi-vis, the sunscreen and glasses, the licence you refreshed to stay rostered on. The fix is to catch each one the day it happens, at the till or the moment the renewal lands, not to rebuild a year of it the night before you lodge. There is a free option for this, the ATO's own myDeductions app, and it will log the plain expenses for you. PFO+ Tax is built for the way a mine roster runs: snap a receipt for your PPE, a ticket renewal or a bottle of sunscreen and it sorts itself against the right claim straight away, keeps a tally of your laundry loads as the swings stack up, and pulls the year together into an accountant-ready pack. The whole lot stays encrypted, kept on Australian servers, and is never sold or shared.

The bottom line

The money is good, and that is exactly what tempts people into claiming the flights and the drive that get them to site, which is the quickest way to have a return sent back. Set the commute aside and claim what the work actually costs: the boots and hi-vis, the sunscreen, the tickets you renew to keep working, the tools you bought yourself and your phone's work share. Keep those receipts safe across the swing, and your return reflects the real expense of working away, with nothing in it to draw a closer look.

Related: construction worker deductions · income tax calculator. General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.

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