Teacher laptop tax deduction: how to claim your laptop, iPad or printer

Can teachers claim a laptop on tax?

Yes, if three things are true. You paid for it with your own money. You use it for your teaching work, such as planning, marking, reports, emails and online learning platforms. And you weren't reimbursed. The ATO's guidance for teachers lists computers and equipment you buy for work as claimable, but only the share of use that is for work.

Step 1: Work out your work-use percentage

This is the number the ATO looks at hardest. You need a reasonable, evidence-based estimate of how much of the laptop's use is for work. The usual way is a diary for four representative weeks. Record the hours the laptop is used for work and for everything else, including your family's use.

Be realistic. A laptop that sits on the kitchen bench and is used by the whole household is unlikely to be 90% work. A device you take to school every day and use for your class's online platform might well be. The ATO describes claiming 100% for a device that's also used privately as a common error.

Step 2: Under or over $300?

The $300 test decides when you can claim, not whether you can. It's applied to each item, but identical items bought together, such as a set, are added together.

Step 3: Depreciation, worked out properly

For items over $300, you claim the decline in value. The ATO sets an effective life for each type of asset. For laptops and tablets, the figure used for many years is 2 years. The ATO replaced its old ruling with a 2025 effective life determination, so check the current figure in the ATO's depreciation tool before you lodge. You choose one of two methods and stick with it for that item.

If you bought your laptop in the last weeks of June, the first-year claim is tiny either way. The rest arrives in the next return. That isn't money lost, just money delayed.

The low-value pool: usually not the best choice for laptops

Assets that cost less than $1,000 can go into a low-value pool. Pooled items are claimed at 18.75% of the work share in the first year, whatever the purchase date, and 37.5% of the remaining pool balance each year after that. Once you choose to use a pool, everything eligible you buy later must go in it too.

For a laptop with a 2-year life, the pool is slower than diminishing value. A $900 laptop used 100% for work and bought on 1 July gives $900 in year one under diminishing value, but only about $169 in year one in the pool. The pool helps mainly with assets that have long effective lives, such as office furniture, and assets bought late in the year.

What a laptop deduction is worth to you

A deduction reduces your taxable income. You get back your marginal rate, not the full amount. For most classroom teachers in 2026–27 that's 32% (30% tax plus 2% Medicare levy). Above $135,000, which includes HALT and leadership salaries in several states, it's 39%.

Laptops and the 2026–27 $1,000 standard deduction

From the 2026–27 income year, people with salary or wage income get a $1,000 standard deduction automatically. Your itemised work-related claims reduce it, so you effectively get whichever is larger, not both.

A laptop changes that sum. A teacher whose union fees, registration and WFH come to $700 would normally take the $1,000. (This counts union fees inside the work-related total. Whether they count towards it or can be claimed on top of the $1,000 isn't confirmed for 2026–27: see are union fees tax deductible?.) Add the $742 second-year laptop claim from the example above and the itemised total becomes $1,442, so itemising wins by $442. If you're in the middle of claiming a laptop, keep your records. See the $1,000 standard deduction for teachers.

Software, repairs, phones and printers

• Software and subscriptions you pay for yourself, such as a design app or a teaching resource site, are claimable for the work share in the year you pay. Your school's Microsoft or Google account doesn't count, because you didn't pay.
• Repairs to a laptop you claim, such as a new battery or screen, are deductible for the work share. An upgrade that improves it, such as more storage, is added to its cost and depreciated.
• Mobile phones follow the same rules. Phone handsets generally have a longer ATO effective life than laptops. Check the ATO tool. Phone and internet bills are a separate claim unless you use the WFH fixed rate.
• Printers and ink: a printer over $300 is depreciated, and printer ink for school work is claimable. If you use the WFH fixed rate, ink and paper are already covered by it.
• Selling or giving away the laptop while it still has value left triggers a small balancing adjustment. Tell your tax agent, or check the ATO's guidance, in the year it happens.

Records to keep

Keep these for five years from the date you lodge the last return that includes a claim for the laptop. For a laptop claimed over three years, that's longer than you might think.