Uber Eats and food delivery rider jobs in Australia on a working holiday visa

The combination of flexible hours and substantial deductions (vehicle costs, equipment, phone) makes delivery work more financially attractive than the headline per-hour earnings suggest, but only if the tax side is set up correctly from the start.

What does the work involve?

Food delivery typically involves:

• Receiving orders through the platform app
• Travelling to the restaurant to collect the food
• Delivering the food to the customer
• Operating the platform app for ratings and earnings tracking
• Managing your own equipment (vehicle, delivery bag, phone)

Most riders work for multiple platforms simultaneously to maximise the number of orders available, switching between Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Menulog throughout a shift.

ABN requirement

Every food delivery rider needs an ABN before they can sign up with the platform. The ABN is required because:

• The platform pays you as a contractor, not an employee
• No PAYG tax is withheld from your earnings
• You are responsible for your own tax obligations
• The platform reports your annual earnings to the ATO under the Sharing Economy Reporting Regime

Without an ABN, the platform cannot legally pay you, and you would face 47% withholding under the No-ABN withholding rule. See our article on what is an ABN for the framework.

GST: when does it apply?

For food delivery (Uber Eats, DoorDash, Menulog), GST registration is required only if your turnover from delivery work exceeds $75,000 in a financial year. Most working holiday maker delivery riders earn well below this threshold and do not need to register for GST. This is different from passenger rideshare (Uber, Ola, Didi), where GST registration is required from the first dollar earned regardless of turnover. See our article on Uber driver rules for the rideshare differences.

If you are doing both food delivery and rideshare, the GST rules of rideshare apply to all your gig economy income from the first dollar.

How is delivery income taxed?

Food delivery income is taxed at the working holiday maker tax rates:

• 15% on the first $45,000
• 30% from $45,000 to $135,000
• Higher rates above $135,000

Because no tax is withheld from delivery earnings, you typically owe tax at the end of the financial year unless you have offsetting PAYG income with tax withheld. Setting aside 15% to 25% of every delivery payment into a separate account is a practical way to make sure the tax can be paid when the tax return is lodged.

What deductions can delivery riders claim?

Delivery work generates substantial work-related deductions:

• Bicycle: depreciation over its effective life (3 to 5 years), repairs, maintenance, tyres, chains, brake pads
• E-bike: as above, plus electricity for charging (estimated)
• Motorcycle or scooter: fuel, registration, insurance (work portion), maintenance, depreciation
• Car: cents-per-kilometre method (up to 5,000 km) or logbook method (see our article on vehicle expenses)
• Delivery equipment: bag, helmet, lights, lock, panniers
• Mobile phone: the work-related percentage of the bill plus the work-related percentage of the device cost
• Phone holder, dash cam, other vehicle accessories
• Cleaning supplies for the vehicle
• Platform service fees taken by Uber/DoorDash/Menulog

A typical part-time delivery rider can have $3,000 to $8,000 of legitimate deductions per year. Without these deductions, the taxable income is substantially overstated. See our article on ABN deductions for the framework, and our article on bicycle and vehicle deductions for the vehicle-specific rules.

What records do you need?

For every delivery rider, the records that matter are:

• The annual statement from each platform showing your gross earnings
• Bank statements showing platform deposits
• Receipts for every work-related expense (bicycle, equipment, phone, vehicle costs)
• A logbook or representative period for the work-use percentage of any shared-use items
• A diary of total kilometres travelled for delivery work

The platform reports your annual earnings to the ATO directly, so under-reporting income is one of the easiest ways to trigger an ATO review. The income side is fixed; the deduction side is where the optimisation happens.

Workers compensation: is there any?

Delivery riders working as contractors with an ABN are not automatically covered by workers compensation. If you are injured during a delivery shift, the cover is more limited than it would be for an employee. Some platforms offer optional injury insurance products, and personal accident insurance can be purchased separately. The bicycle insurance side is a separate question.

See our article on workplace injury rights for the framework. The difference between employee and contractor cover is one of the trade-offs of gig economy work.

How does our service support delivery riders?

For working holiday makers doing food delivery, our team:

• Registers your ABN with the correct business activity codes
• Reviews whether GST registration is required (rarely is)
• Reconciles platform statements with the ATO Sharing Economy data feed
• Identifies every legitimate work-related deduction (vehicle, equipment, phone, fees)
• Calculates the tax owed at the end of the year accurately
• Lodges the tax return with the full deduction picture

Delivery work without proper tax management often leads to a surprise tax bill at the end of the year. Get in touch with our team before you start (or as early as possible if you have already started) to set up the tax side correctly.