Accountant for Delivery Drivers
Fixed-fee tax returns and BAS for delivery drivers working for themselves, whether you deliver for Uber Eats, DoorDash or Menulog, run blocks for Amazon Flex or hold a courier contract with your own van, and for the drivers whose contract asked for a Pty Ltd. Prepared and lodged by an experienced accountant, 100% online, so it fits around your shifts.
- Platform income reconciled to what the apps reported
- Car, van or bike claimed with the right method
- Typically lodged in 5 business days
- Any software, or a spreadsheet and your app statements
One fixed fee, whichever way you're set up.
A sole trader delivering in your own name, or a Pty Ltd because the contract asked for one. Both priced here, both including the vehicle claim.
Sole trader
Delivering in your own name, whichever apps or contracts
- Sole trader tax return, personal return included$330
- Registered for GST+$110
- One or two drivers on your payroll+$110
- Personal return with the business schedule
- Car, van or bike claimed with the right method
- Income reconciled to what the platforms reported
- Lodgement with the ATO
Company
Courier company, one van or a few
- Company tax return$440
- Registered for GST, or with staff$660
- Your own personal return$150
- Company return and financial statements
- Wages and super reconciled for the two on payroll
- GST reconciled to your lodged BAS
- Lodgement with the ATO
Your earnings already sit in an app. Your fee should reflect that.
If your income is a weekly payout from a platform and your expenses are fuel, the phone and the car on a bank feed, the return is review and judgement, not data entry. You should not be paying for hours that never happened.
Hourly billing, an office visit in the middle of the lunch rush, and weeks of waiting for what is usually a straightforward return.
Fixed fee. Published pricing. Typically five business days. Send the statements from the car.
The apps already told the ATO what they paid you
Since 1 July 2024 the food and grocery delivery apps, the ones that take the customer's payment and pass your share on, have had to report what they pay each driver to the ATO twice a year, by 31 January and 31 July, and the ride-sourcing platforms have since 1 July 2023. Courier companies that pay subcontractors report by 28 August under the taxable payments rules, and from tax time 2026 those amounts land in your own return as pre-fill, the ATO naming courier and food delivery specifically. Amazon Flex pays you directly rather than passing a customer's payment through, so it may sit outside both streams. The income is just as assessable. It is only the ATO's copy that may be missing.
So the return has to match what was reported, and where a courier company is the payer the ATO's own advice is to lodge after 28 August, once its report has landed. The platform's service fee or commission is a deduction, which the ATO says can be claimed in full, so the return carries the income before the fee and the fee as an expense, not the net payout. Tips, promotions and referral bonuses are income. So is anything the apps never saw: cash jobs, private clients, a mate's removal.
Car, van or bike: the method depends on what you drive
A car for tax purposes carries under one tonne and fewer than nine passengers. For a car a sole trader picks one of two methods: cents per kilometre, 88c for 2025-26 and 91c for 2026-27, capped at 5,000 business kilometres a year, or a logbook, which turns 12 continuous, representative weeks into a business percentage of every running cost and holds for five years. Cents per kilometre suits a few shifts a week. A full-time driver clears 5,000 kilometres long before the year does, and from there only the logbook keeps counting.
A cargo van rated to carry one tonne or more is not a car, so neither method applies: you claim the business share of actual costs, with no car limit on the depreciation. A motorbike, scooter, bicycle or e-bike is not a car either, so it is actual costs at your business percentage too. Whatever you drive, the kilometres that count are the ones spent delivering. The ATO's own example for drivers is the shift that turns into a night out: the kilometres stop counting at the turn. Our guide to delivery driver tax deductions works each method through with figures.
- Cents per kilometre, 88c for 2025-26 and 91c for 2026-27, capped at 5,000 km
- Or a logbook: 12 weeks sets the percentage, valid for five years
- The car limit of $69,674 caps what you can depreciate
- A car you owned privately before you started cannot be written off
- Actual running costs at your business percentage
- No cents per kilometre, no car limit
- Written off in full only if the whole cost is under $20,000
- Actual costs at your business percentage
- No cents per kilometre
- Keep a record of how the percentage was worked out
Delivery only? GST starts at $75,000. Add rideshare and it starts at the first dollar
Food and parcel delivery sits under the ordinary rule: registration becomes compulsory once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, tested two ways, the last twelve months and the next twelve, and you have 21 days from that point to register. A delivery-only driver under the line has no BAS to lodge.
Ride-sourcing is different. The ATO treats it as taxi travel, so a driver who takes even one fare has to be registered from the day they start, regardless of earnings, and the ATO's own page says an existing registration then covers all the business income on that ABN. Switch the app from Uber Eats to Uber for a Saturday night and the delivery income is inside GST too. Once you are registered, whichever way it happened, you lodge a BAS each quarter, due 28 October, 28 February, 28 April and 28 July. Quarterly BAS is $150 a statement, on top of the return.
Told you need a Pty Ltd? What it changes, and what it doesn't
The apps only ever ask for an ABN. It is the courier contracts, the owner-driver runs for the big carriers and the last-mile subcontracts, that ask for a company, and the reason is usually theirs, not yours. A business that contracts an individual mainly for their labour may have to pay super on that contract, ABN or not. Contract with a company instead and the ATO says it does not. So the Pty Ltd is often a condition of the run.
What it rarely does is lower the tax on one van's income, because the money still has to come out to you as wages or dividends and is taxed in your hands when it does. What it adds is a second return, financial statements, ASIC's annual fee and a director with duties ASIC enforces. Where it earns its keep is a second van, a driver on the books, or profit you can genuinely leave in the business.
- The contract requires it and the run is worth having
- There is a second van, or a driver on your books
- Profit can genuinely stay in the business
- You register to look established to a carrier that only asked for an ABN
- You expect it to lower the tax on income you take home anyway
- You pay yourself from the company account with no plan for wages, dividends and Division 7A
Behind a year or two? The platform data reached the ATO before you did
Missing the date does not trigger an automatic fine. The ATO warns you by phone or in writing and issues a notice to lodge before it applies a failure to lodge penalty, and it generally lets an isolated late year go. When the penalty does apply it runs at one penalty unit for each 28 days late, capped at five, and a unit is $364 for infringements on or after 1 July 2026, so $1,820 per return at the ceiling.
The expensive version is the default assessment: with the platform reports on file and no return from you, the ATO can estimate your income for you, with none of your deductions, no fuel, no phone, no vehicle. Catching up is quoted as one fixed fee in writing before any work starts, however many years it is.
How it works
Pick your fee
Sole trader or company. Unsure? Tell us and we'll point you at the right one.
Onboard online
About ten minutes. Share your app statements and bank feed, or your software login.
We prepare the return
Income reconciled, the vehicle method chosen, BAS if it applies. We come back to you if anything needs a look.
Approve and lodge
You review, you approve, we lodge with the ATO.
Do Uber Eats Drivers Pay GST in Australia?
Uber Eats delivery sits under the $75,000 GST threshold, unlike rideshare. What the two turnover tests mean, and what one night of passengers does.
Sole traders · Deadlines and obligationsDelivery Driver Tax Deductions in Australia (2026)
What delivery drivers can claim in Australia: the vehicle method that changes on a scooter, platform fees, the bag, phone and tolls, and when GST starts.
Common questions from delivery drivers
Do I need an ABN to deliver for Uber Eats, DoorDash, Menulog or Amazon Flex?
Yes. Every platform pays you as a contractor and asks for one, and the ATO's position is that the income is assessable from the first delivery whether or not you count it as a business, so it goes in a return either way. One ABN covers every app you drive for, and the Australian Business Register's own line is that most people with an ABN lodge every year, profit or loss, above or below the tax-free threshold.
Do I have to register for GST?
Not for delivery on its own until your GST turnover reaches $75,000, tested on the last twelve months and the next twelve, with 21 days to register once you cross it. Take a single rideshare fare and the answer changes: ride-sourcing is taxi travel for GST, registration is compulsory from the day you start, and it then covers all the business income on that ABN, delivery included.
Cents per kilometre or a logbook?
Cents per kilometre is simple and capped: 5,000 business kilometres a year, so $4,400 at the 2025-26 rate and $4,550 at the 2026-27 rate, with no receipts but a record of how you counted. A logbook takes 12 continuous weeks, holds for five years and lets you claim your business percentage of everything, fuel, insurance, servicing, depreciation and interest. A full-time driver is usually well past 5,000 kilometres, which is where the logbook starts paying. Neither method applies to a motorbike, scooter or bicycle, or to a van of one tonne or more, which claim actual costs.
Two of us deliver with the one car. How do we split it?
Each of you claims your own share and keeps your own record of it. The ATO's own page allows two joint owners using a car for separate income to claim up to 5,000 kilometres each under cents per kilometre. If the car is in one name only, the other driver can claim only the direct costs they paid, fuel mostly, unless a family arrangement makes them an owner in practice: permission to use it as their own, and the running costs paid by them. What you cannot do is both claim the whole car.
Can I pay tax through the year instead of one bill?
Yes. Nothing is withheld from platform payouts, so the first return brings a bill, and after it the ATO usually moves you onto quarterly PAYG instalments automatically once your business income passes $4,000 and the tax on it passes $1,000. You can enter voluntarily before that, or make prepayments whenever you like. Either way, put a share of every payout aside from the first week. We can tell you roughly what share once we see the numbers.
The courier company wants me to have a Pty Ltd. Do I have to?
Only if the contract says so, and many do. It is usually about their obligations rather than your tax: contracting a company rather than an individual takes super off their side. Before you register, get the contract read and the numbers run, because a company adds a second return, financial statements and ASIC's annual fee, and its return here starts at $440. See the company tax return service.
I haven't declared delivery income for a couple of years. What now?
Lodge before the ATO does it for you. The delivery apps have reported payouts since 1 July 2024, ride-sourcing since 2023, and courier companies report what they pay subcontractors every August, so the income is usually already on file, and a default assessment built on it would carry none of your deductions. Overdue years are quoted as one fixed fee for the lot, and we request penalty remission where appropriate. See overdue tax returns.
Ready to get this year's return off the list?
Most clients are onboarded and lodged within two weeks.