Can you claim deductions without receipts?

Yes, within limits — and the limits are narrower and stranger than the internet suggests.

The headline rule: if your total claim for work-related expenses comes to $300 or less, you don't have to hold written evidence for it.

That is a real concession. It is also the single most misread sentence in Australian personal tax, so before anything else:

What the threshold actually buys you#

Three conditions, all of which must hold:

1. The expenses are work-related — incurred in earning your assessable income, not private.
2. You actually incurred them.
3. Your total work-related expense claim is $300 or less.

If all three are true, you can claim without holding the receipts. You must still be able to show how you worked out the claim — which in practice means being able to say what the money went on.

And if you go one dollar over $300, the concession doesn't shave off the first $300. You need written evidence for the whole claim.

The exclusions that catch people#

The $300 total is not simply "all your work deductions". These are carved out and don't count towards it:

• car expenses
• meal allowance expenses
• award transport payments allowance expenses
• travel allowance expenses

Each has its own substantiation regime. Car expenses in particular are their own world — a logbook or a kilometre record, not a receipt threshold.

The practical consequence: someone with $280 of small work expenses and a car claim is not "under $300 and done". The two are assessed separately, and the car claim needs its own records regardless.

The other concessions worth knowing#

Separate from the $300 threshold, and each with its own rules:

Small expenses#

Where an expense is $10 each, up to $200 in total, you can keep your own written record instead of the supplier's receipt. Write down the supplier, the amount, what it was, and the date — at the time.

Where a receipt was genuinely unavailable#

Unattended parking meters, some tolls, a tip. If it was not reasonably possible to get a receipt, a contemporaneous record you made yourself is acceptable.

Laundry#

Up to $150 of laundry expenses can be claimed without written evidence. Three things people get wrong here:

• "Laundry" means washing, drying and ironing. Dry-cleaning is not included — dry-cleaning has to be substantiated on actual cost like any other expense.
• The $150 counts towards the $300 total. It is not a separate allowance stacked on top of it.
• But the concession survives going over $300. If your total claim exceeds $300 you need written evidence for everything except laundry of $150 or less. This is the one carve-out that keeps working past the threshold, and it's the detail most summaries drop.

Laundry also only applies to clothing you can legitimately claim in the first place — occupation-specific, protective, or a compulsory branded uniform. Ordinary clothes worn to work are not deductible no matter how much you launder them.

What to do when you've lost a receipt for a real expense#

You spent the money, it's genuinely deductible, and the paper is gone. In rough order of what actually works:

1. Check your email. Emailed receipts are now the norm at most retailers, and searching the amount rather than the retailer often finds it.
2. Ask the supplier to reissue. Most point-of-sale systems can reprint from a card number, a date, or a loyalty account.
3. Bank statement plus corroboration. A statement establishes the amount, the date and the supplier — but not the nature of the goods, which is one of the five things written evidence has to show. Pair it with an order confirmation, a delivery note, a photo, or a note you made at the time.
4. Check whether it falls under a concession — small expense, or a situation where a receipt was never available.

What doesn't work is estimating at tax time and hoping. If the deduction can't be substantiated when asked about, it gets disallowed, with interest and possibly a penalty on top.

Is claiming under $300 an audit risk?#

Not inherently. It's a legitimate concession and plenty of people are properly entitled to it.

What draws attention is a claim that doesn't fit — a figure that lands at exactly $300 alongside an occupation and income where that pattern is unusual, or a taxpayer whose claims sit well outside the benchmark for their industry. The ATO publishes occupation-specific guidance precisely because it knows what normal looks like for each one.

The defence is not a smaller claim. It's a claim you can explain.

Summary#

• Up to $300 in total work-related expenses without written evidence — but you must have spent it and be able to explain how you calculated it.
• Car, meal allowance, award transport and travel allowance expenses are excluded from that total.
• Go over $300 and you need evidence for all of it, not just the excess.
• Small expenses of $10 or less, up to $200 total, can rely on your own written record.
• $150 of laundry without evidence — and it counts inside the $300.
• Every self-made record must be made at the time.