Rideshare carries the strictest tax rules of any gig work in Australia. You need an ABN, you must register for GST from the first fare regardless of turnover, and you must lodge quarterly Business Activity Statements.
Why does rideshare have its own GST rule?
Because passenger transport is treated as taxi travel for GST, and taxi travel has no registration threshold. Ordinary ABN work needs GST registration only once turnover passes $75,000 a year. Rideshare needs it from the first fare, whether you earn $500 or $50,000.
It applies to Uber, Ola, Didi and any platform carrying passengers for a fare. It does not apply to Uber Eats, other food delivery, or parcel and logistics work, which follow the standard threshold. Our guide to delivery riding covers that side.
The rule catches multi appers: carry passengers at all and the obligation is triggered, then sits over your whole enterprise.
What does GST registration actually require of you?
One eleventh of every fare belongs to the ATO, remitted through a quarterly Business Activity Statement. GST credits on business expenses bring the net cost well below the headline fraction.
You do not add GST to a price: the platform sets the fare and reports the gross. You remit the GST component of what you were paid and claim credits on fuel, servicing, parts and vehicle finance. For an active driver the net cost after credits typically lands around 5% to 8% of fare income.
Ignoring it creates the debts people arrive with. A driver who worked six months without lodging a statement can face backdated liability on every fare taken.
When are the statements due?
Quarterly, on a fixed calendar. July to September is due 28 October, October to December is due 28 February, January to March is due 28 April, and April to June is due 28 July.
Lodging through a tax agent typically extends those dates. Missing one triggers failure to lodge penalties on the same basis as a late return, charged per 28 days overdue. Our guide to late lodgement penalties covers how those are calculated.
What do you need before you can drive at all?
Two things beyond the ABN: a compliant vehicle and a state driver authorisation. The platform sets vehicle requirements, generally a four door sedan, hatchback, SUV or wagon under a maximum age, registered, roadworthy, comprehensively insured and inspected.
The authorisation is a state matter, separate from your ordinary licence. New South Wales requires a Passenger Transport Authorisation, Victoria a Commercial Passenger Vehicle accreditation, Queensland a Driver Authorisation, South Australia a General Passenger Transport Accreditation, Western Australia a PTD authorisation and the ACT a Public Vehicle Licence. Each generally involves a police check, a medical assessment and a fee, and the fee is deductible.
Drivers without a suitable car sometimes rent one through a rideshare rental scheme, and the rental cost is deductible.
What can you deduct?
More than almost any other backpacker work, because the vehicle is the business.
- Fuel, servicing, repairs, tyres and oil
- Vehicle finance interest, at the work related portion
- Registration, compulsory third party and comprehensive insurance, at the work related portion
- Depreciation, or the rental cost if the car is leased
- Tolls and parking incurred while driving
- Mobile phone and data, plus the device, at the work related percentage
- Phone holder, dash cam and in car accessories
- Vehicle cleaning
- Platform service fees taken by the app
- Driver authorisation and medical fees
Vehicle costs go through the cents per kilometre method, capped at 5,000 kilometres a year, or the logbook method, uncapped but requiring twelve continuous weeks of records. Full time drivers clear the cap within months, so the logbook is almost always worth substantially more. Our guide to vehicle logbooks covers what one has to contain.
Does the ATO already know what you earned?
Yes. Platforms report driver earnings directly under the Sharing Economy Reporting Regime, so the gross figure sits in ATO systems before you lodge anything and is matched against your return.
The record you need is not proof of income, which already exists, but proof of expenses, which exists nowhere except in what you kept.
How much should you set aside as you go?
Enough for two separate obligations. The GST component of your fares belongs to the ATO and is remitted quarterly. The income tax on your profit is a second amount, assessed at the end of the year.
Neither is withheld for you. A driver who treats the whole platform deposit as earnings has spent both, and finds out at the first Business Activity Statement rather than at lodgement. Setting aside from each week, into an account you do not touch, is what works when you earn weekly and pay quarterly.
What has to happen when you stop driving?
Two closures, and people usually do neither. The GST registration has to be cancelled with a final Business Activity Statement, and the ABN cancelled, dated to when you actually stopped rather than the day you remembered.
An open GST registration keeps generating quarterly obligations for a person who has left the country, and those accumulate failure to lodge penalties in your absence. Our guide to cancelling an ABN sets out what should be finished before the cancellation date.
Your driving pattern moves the final figure.
The registration rules are not optional, but what the year costs depends on how you drove it. The first two points create debts rather than refunds.
- Whether you carried passengers at all, which triggers GST from the first fare.
- Whether you registered for GST and lodged the quarterly statements, or accumulated a backdated liability.
- Whether a twelve week logbook exists, which decides how much of the car is claimable.
- Whether the vehicle is owned, financed or rented, which changes what enters the pool.
- Whether you also had wages, whose withholding often absorbs the tax on the driving income.
- How much you set aside as you went, given nothing was withheld from any fare.
- Whether the ABN and the GST registration were cancelled when you stopped.
The whole position is worked out in the working holiday tax return, and you can estimate your tax refund once you know what the driving actually earned.