Firefighter Tax Deductions 2025-26: What You Can and Can't Claim

General information only. Speak with a registered tax agent for advice.

Firefighters have a genuinely broad deduction profile compared with most occupations — protective clothing, tools, first aid training and overnight fireground travel are all squarely deductible. But the claim firefighters most often ask about, and most often get wrong, is fitness. The ATO’s position is strict: you generally can’t claim gym or fitness expenses even though you must pass fitness tests to keep your job, and the narrow exception only applies where your role demands an extremely high level of fitness well above the general occupation standard, combined with ongoing strenuous physical activity as an essential and regular part of your duties. A second area worth understanding properly is car expenses — most trips between home and the fire station are private, but firefighters carrying bulky tools or equipment, or moving between fire stations and job sites, can fall into a genuine exception. Get both of these wrong in either direction — claiming too much, or missing a legitimate claim — and it shows up at tax time.

What you can claim

Dollar ranges above are indicative of what firefighters commonly spend — they are not ATO limits. Claim what you actually incurred and can substantiate.

What you cannot claim

• Fitness and gym expenses, in almost every case. Skipping ropes, weights, gym memberships and other fitness equipment are private expenses even though you must pass medical examinations and fitness tests to keep your role. The only exception is very limited: you must both maintain an extremely high level of fitness well above the general standard for your occupation, and perform ongoing strenuous physical activities as an essential and regular part of your role. Even where that narrow exception applies, you can never claim conventional fitness clothing such as tracksuits, running or aerobic shoes, socks, or sporting shirts and shorts — those stay private in all circumstances.
• Conventional clothing. Everyday items worn regardless of occupation — jeans, drill shirts, shorts, trousers, socks, closed shoes — are not protective clothing just because you happen to wear them at work, even if your employer requires it.
• Trips between home and your regular fire station. Private, even if you live a long way away, work outside normal business hours, or work weekend or early-morning shifts. This changes only where the bulky-tools exception or shifting-workplace rules apply.
• Parking at or near your regular workplace and tolls on that commute. Private for the same reason as the home-to-work trip itself.
• Child care. Including school holiday programs and before and after school care. It has no direct connection to earning your income, however necessary it is to your ability to work.
• The cost of educating your children. School, university or TAFE fees, and the decline in value of iPads, laptops, desks, calculators or stationery bought for your children, are private expenses unconnected to your own income.
• Grooming. Hairdressing, cosmetics, and hair and skin care products are private — even if you receive a grooming allowance and your employer expects you to be well presented.
• Prescription glasses and contact lenses. Private, even where you need them to do your job. Only protective eyewear such as anti-glare, photochromatic or safety glasses can be claimed.
• Watches and smart watches, in the ordinary case. Not deductible even if required as part of your job — a smart watch is only claimable for the work-related use of its specific functions, evidenced by a usage diary.
• Entertainment and social functions. Work breakfasts, lunches and dinners, sporting events, gala nights, concerts and cocktail parties — even when compulsory or when you discuss work matters at the event. Travel to and from these functions is also excluded.
• Food and drink during normal working hours. Private, even if you receive a meal allowance. The overtime meal exception is narrow and depends on a separately identified allowance paid under an award.
• Your driver’s licence. Not deductible even where holding one is a condition of employment — though a special licence or condition needed for your duties, such as a heavy vehicle permit, is.
• Fines and penalties. Whether connected to work or not, and whether they’re parking, speeding, or any other kind of fine.
• Relocation costs. Moving to a new work location is not deductible, whether the move is a condition of your existing job or you’re starting a new one.
• Anything your employer paid for or reimbursed. Including clothing, tools, licences, courses or phone costs your employer covers directly.

Worked example

Osric is a firefighter based in Adelaide earning $92,000 in 2025-26. He works rotating shifts, holds a designated first aid role at his station, and completed a supervision-track course during the year.

At Osric’s marginal rate of 30% (plus 2% Medicare levy), these deductions reduce his tax by approximately $926. Run your own numbers through the Tax Return Calculator.

Note what is missing from that table: a working-from-home claim. Osric’s job is entirely shift-based at the fire station, so he has no genuine home-office hours to apply the 70c fixed rate to, and it would be wrong to include it just because it exists as a deduction category. If you do complete rostered admin or study time at home, keep a record of the hours and add the fixed rate separately — but don’t claim it as a matter of habit.

ATO audit triggers

• Any fitness or gym-membership claim. This is the single most scrutinised item on a firefighter’s return, because the deductibility test is narrow and the default answer is no. A claim here needs to clearly demonstrate both the extremely-high-fitness-standard test and the ongoing-strenuous-activity test, not just that fitness tests are a condition of the job.
• Car expenses claimed for the regular home-to-station commute. The bulky-tools exception requires all three conditions — essential tools, genuinely bulky, and no secure storage at the workplace. If your employer provides lockers or a secure store, the exception fails and the trip reverts to private.
• Conventional clothing or footwear claimed as protective. Jeans, drill shirts and generic closed shoes are conventional clothing regardless of how consistently you wear them on shift.
• Self-education that points at a different career. A course that helps you move into a new role or field, rather than maintaining or improving your current firefighting duties, is not deductible.
• Smart watch claims without a usage diary. The work-related-function exception depends on being able to show, not just assert, which functions you used for work and how often.

Records you need

• Evidence for any fitness-expense claim showing how your role meets both limbs of the test — the extremely high fitness standard and the ongoing strenuous physical activity — not just that fitness testing is compulsory.
• A basis for your laundry claim, even though no receipts are required at $150 or less — you still need to be able to show how you worked out the number of loads.
• Receipts for equipment and clothing, with purchase date and cost, so items can be correctly split between the immediate $300-or-less deduction and decline in value.
• Records of your car use if you rely on the bulky-tools exception — the logbook method or cents per kilometre method, plus evidence that no secure storage was available at the workplace.
• A diary of work-related use for anything apportioned between work and private purposes, including protective glasses, sunglasses, sunscreen, phone and data, and any smart watch functions.
• Written evidence for overnight travel and overtime meals above the amounts that don’t require receipts, and proof that any allowance received was declared as income.
• Membership and course invoices. Union fees often appear on your income statement, which the ATO accepts as evidence of the amount paid.

Key takeaways

• Fitness expenses are deductible only in very limited circumstances — an extremely high fitness standard well above the general occupation benchmark, combined with ongoing strenuous physical activity as an essential and regular part of your role. Conventional fitness clothing is never deductible, even then.
• The bulky-tools car exception needs all three conditions at once: essential tools, genuinely bulky tools, and no secure workplace storage. Choosing to bring tools home when secure storage exists doesn’t qualify.
• Protective clothing (fire-resistant uniform, steel-capped boots) and its laundry are solidly deductible; conventional items like jeans and plain footwear are not, even worn only on shift.
• Self-education must connect to your current firefighting duties — updating first aid skills or a supervision qualification counts; training for a different career doesn’t.
• Overnight deployment travel — accommodation, meals and incidentals when you sleep away from home to fight a fire — is deductible, but day trips home the same day are not.

Sources

• ATO: Fire fighters – income and work-related deductions
• ATO: Deductions you can claim
• Legislative anchor: ITAA 1997 s 8-1

Next step

• Run your estimate in the Tax Return Calculator
• Check your full claim against the Work-Related Deductions Calculator

Occupation guides

These role-specific guides cover the practical deduction rules, record-keeping checkpoints, and the best calculator to use next.

• Public service and education tax guides — uniforms, fitness and current-role training