Claiming Work-Related Clothing, Laundry and Dry Cleaning Expenses

Regardless of whether you’re an employee or you’re self-employed, if you wear a specific uniform, protective or occupation-specific clothing, you may be able to claim purchase and cleaning costs for these items.

Types of clothing you can claim on tax

According to the ATO, you can claim four different types of clothing on your tax. These are the same for employees and self-employed individuals.

Protective clothing and footwear

Things that you would wear while working to protect you from injury or illness while working or to prevent damage to your clothing. These can include things like:

• Non-slip shoes
• Steel-cap boots
• Gloves
• Aprons
• Overalls
• Fire-Resistant Clothing
• Sun-protective clothing
• Safety vests

Compulsory uniforms

This is clothing that is distinctive to your place of work and usually has your employer or business logo on it. In order for this rule to apply, your workplace must have a strictly enforced uniform policy that makes it compulsory for you to wear specific items of clothing or footwear in the workplace.

Non-compulsory uniforms

Uniforms that you don’t have to wear are available for you should you wish to wear them. Your workplace must have registered this uniform on the Register of Approved Occupational Clothing, and you must actually wear it to work (i.e., you can’t purchase the uniform but then never wear it into the workplace).

Occupation-specific clothing 

This is clothing that is immediately identifiable as belonging to an occupation that you wouldn't wear for everyday use. An example of this would be the black and white chequered pants that chefs wear. 

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What you can’t claim

You cannot claim clothing or laundry expenses if you wear what would be considered “conventional clothing” to work.

The ATO defines conventional clothing as the kinds of everyday items that people could wear regardless of what occupation they were filling. Examples of this include general business attire, the black pants and white shirts that waiters often wear and jeans or cargo pants that are often favoured by tradespeople. 

You are also unable to claim any work-related clothing expenses if your employer buys, repairs and/or cleans your work clothes for you or reimburses you for any related costs. 

This is also not the place to claim Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), such as hard hats or safety glasses, as these fall under the category of “other work-related expenses”.

How to claim your clothing

If you’re sure that your clothing meets all the above requirements, you are able to claim it on your tax return. All clothing purchase expenses can be claimed in full so long as they meet the ATO’s requirements. 

As with most things tax-related, the safest bet is always to keep a hold of your receipts. You are, however, able to claim work-related clothing expenses, including laundry costs, of up to $300 without receipts.

If you do have receipts, one of the easiest ways to keep track of your work-related clothing expenses is via the myDeductions tool that you can use to keep track of your expenses

You can then either enter your total expense costs as a deduction on your tax return or simply present this information to your tax agent to fill out on your behalf.

Claiming laundry, dry-cleaning and repair costs

You can claim any costs incurred to launder, dry-clean, or repair clothing if it meets the same criteria above. Therefore, it must be either occupation-specific, protective, compulsory or a registered non-compulsory uniform.

The ATO sets reasonable amounts for claiming laundry costs, and these apply to both home laundering and the use of laundromats.

The reasonable amount is currently set at:

• $1 per load if you are only washing work clothing
• $0.50 per load if you’re mixing personal items with work clothing.

If you receive a specific laundry allowance from your employer, you can only claim deductions for the amount you actually spent, not just the entirety of the allowance. The allowance also must be counted as assessable income that will be included on your tax return.

You can claim dry cleaning and repair expenses in their entirety so long as they apply to the same categories of work-related clothing mentioned above. If claiming these on tax, you will need to keep receipts to prove your purchases. 

You may claim up to $150 of laundry expenses without receipts, but you will need to show how you came up with the total. Once again, this is included in the $300 total allowed for unreceipted clothing expenses as well.

If you are claiming laundry expenses the ATO suggests keeping diary entries of your washing for this purpose.

Example: Louise wears a uniform for her work at a fast-food restaurant. She washes her uniforms with her other clothes twice a week, and she has worked 40 weeks this financial year. She calculates her claim as follows:
The number of claimable loads per week x number of weeks = total number of claimable laundry loads
2 x 40 = 80
Total number of claimable laundry loads x reasonable cost per load = total deduction claim
80 x $0.50 = $40

Louise has $40 of laundry expenses she can claim on her tax return as a deduction.

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