More than most riders think. A bicycle, e-bike, scooter or motorcycle used to earn income is a work asset, and its cost, repairs and running expenses are deductible in the work use proportion. Cars have two simplified methods. Everything else uses actual costs.
What decides whether you can claim a vehicle at all?
Whether the vehicle earns you income, and whether you are an employee or working under an ABN. That decides everything else on this page.
A delivery rider on an ABN riding for Uber Eats, DoorDash or Menulog is producing income, and the bike is a business asset. An employee riding to a fixed workplace is commuting, private travel that has never been deductible however far or however early. The ATO checks this distinction first on a rider's return.
What can a delivery rider actually claim?
Both the vehicle itself and what it costs to run, in the proportion you use it for work. The asset is claimed in full or over its effective life depending on what it cost; running costs are claimed as you incur them.
- The bicycle, e-bike or scooter itself. Under $300 it is deductible in full immediately, and from 1 July 2026 an instant deduction threshold of $1,000 applies. Above the threshold it is depreciated over its effective life, typically three to five years.
- Repairs and consumables: tubes, tyres, chains, brake pads, servicing.
- Equipment: helmet, lights, lock, panniers, delivery bag, phone mount.
- Electricity to charge an e-bike battery, on a reasonable estimate of the work portion.
- Insurance specifically covering the vehicle.
A bike used 80% for delivery and 20% for getting around is an 80% claim across all of it. That percentage needs a basis, not a guess, and a few weeks of representative records normally establishes one.
How are cars different?
Cars are the only vehicle class with simplified methods, and there are two. A car here carries fewer than nine people and under one tonne.
Cents per kilometre pays a flat rate per work kilometre, capped at 5,000 kilometres per car per year. It needs a reasonable basis for the estimate rather than every receipt, making it the low effort option.
The logbook method records twelve continuous weeks of use to establish a work percentage, then applies that percentage to your actual costs for the year: fuel, servicing, registration, insurance and depreciation. The logbook stays valid for five years.
For a rideshare driver the logbook usually produces the larger deduction, because 5,000 kilometres is a low ceiling for someone driving for a living. The trade is that the twelve weeks must actually have been kept, and cannot be reconstructed afterwards.
What about motorcycles and heavy utes?
Neither is a car for these purposes, so neither gets cents per kilometre or the logbook. Both use actual costs apportioned to work use: fuel, registration and compulsory third party, insurance, servicing, tyres, tolls and parking, and riding gear genuinely required for the work.
Records are the constraint. Actual cost claims need evidence for each item, and a rider or tradesperson running a ute in Perth or Darwin without receipts has a real deduction and no way to substantiate it.
What do people miss most often?
The small recurring costs, because they never feel like a claim at the time. Tolls on work trips, which in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane add up over a year. Parking during work activity. Vehicle cleaning for rideshare drivers. E-bike charging. Riding gear.
Bicycle depreciation is the most missed item, because riders assume the ATO does not care about a bike. It does, and a $1,800 e-bike used mostly for delivery is one of the larger deductions a rider will have.
Your vehicle class matters more than your spending.
Vehicle deductions vary more between two riders than almost any other claim, because the rules turn on employment status and vehicle class rather than on what you spent.
- Whether you are an employee or on an ABN. Commuting is private for an employee, and this is the biggest single branch.
- Which vehicle class it is. A motorcycle or a heavy ute is claimed on actual costs, with a receipt behind every item.
- Whether a twelve week logbook exists, because it cannot be created retrospectively.
- What proportion of use is genuinely work, and whether you have a defensible basis for that number.
- Whether the vehicle cost sits under or over the instant deduction threshold for the year in question.
- Whether most of your ABN income comes from one payer, since personal services income rules can restrict what is deductible against it.
Vehicle claims are made through your working holiday tax return, and you can estimate your tax refund once you have a rough figure for the year's costs.