Quick answer
Accommodation you need because you stay away from home overnight for work is deductible, and the 10% GST is claimable with a valid tax invoice. The stay must be genuine work travel where you return home, not a relocation. Keep the tax invoice, claim within the ATO reasonable amounts if you receive a travel allowance, and keep a travel diary if you are away six or more nights.
Is work accommodation tax deductible in Australia?
Yes, when an overnight stay is a genuine result of work travel. If a project, client, or conference requires you to stay away from home, the reasonable cost of accommodation is deductible, and it follows the same logic as business travel. The crucial distinction is between travelling for work and living away from home: if you have relocated or taken an extended posting, the accommodation is dealt with under the living-away-from-home rules and fringe benefits tax, not as a deduction.
Australian accommodation carries 10% GST, so a work hotel stay is one of the travel costs where there is a GST credit to claim, provided you hold a valid tax invoice. Meals charged to the room follow the meal rules rather than the accommodation rules.
How much can you claim?
You claim the actual, reasonable cost of the accommodation. There is no fixed cap on a deduction, but where you receive a bona fide travel allowance the ATO publishes annual reasonable amounts that set the level you can claim without full substantiation:
| Item | Treatment |
|---|---|
| Accommodation (Australia) | Actual cost, 10% GST credit with a tax invoice |
| Reasonable amounts | Published yearly by the ATO for allowance recipients |
| Stays of 6+ nights | Travel diary required |
| Living away from home | FBT and a LAFHA, not a deduction |
Worked example. An engineer stays three nights in Brisbane for a temporary project. The hotel is $198 per night including $18 GST, totalling $594 with $54 of claimable GST. Because the trip is under six nights, no travel diary is required, but she keeps the tax invoice and notes the work purpose. The $594 is deductible and the $54 GST is claimable.
Record-keeping requirements
Keep the tax invoice from the accommodation provider, not just the card receipt, because you need a valid tax invoice to claim the GST credit above $82.50. Note the work purpose and the dates of the stay. If the trip runs to six or more consecutive nights, keep a travel diary so you can separate work nights from any private days. The ATO requires records to be kept for five years.
How to claim, step by step
- Confirm the stay is genuine work travel where you return home, not living away from home.
- Obtain a valid tax invoice from the accommodation provider.
- Code the room cost to travel or accommodation and claim the 10% GST credit.
- Treat any meals charged to the room under the meal rules.
- If you receive a travel allowance, check your claim against the ATO reasonable amounts.
- Keep a travel diary for stays of six or more nights and retain records for five years.
Common mistakes
- Keeping only the card receipt, which is not a valid tax invoice and blocks the GST credit.
- Treating a relocation or long-term posting as deductible travel instead of living away from home.
- Missing the travel diary for trips of six or more consecutive nights.
- Claiming the private portion of a trip extended into a holiday.
- Lumping room-service meals into the accommodation cost instead of applying the meal rules.
Software that helps
Hotel folios bundle the room, the GST, and any meals on one document, so the value is in splitting them correctly at capture.
- TravelPerk itemises booked stays and separates accommodation from extras.
- ExpenseFlow reads the hotel folio, separates the room cost from the meals and incidentals, applies the 10% GST treatment to each line, and syncs the coded stay to Xero.
- Expensify matches the hotel card transaction to the uploaded folio for faster reconciliation.
FAQ
See the answered questions above for deductibility, reasonable amounts, the travel diary rule, GST on hotels, and living away from home.