Can I claim a laptop on tax when working from home?

A laptop you pay for and use for employment may qualify for its work-related portion. Private use needs to be excluded. A laptop your employer supplies is not your purchase to claim, and reimbursement must be accounted for. ATO: computers and laptops; ATO: employer-provided items.

General information for Australian employees. Official sources checked 6 September 2026. Check the rules for your claim year and ask a registered tax agent where your circumstances need individual advice.

The $300 test is about cost, not your chosen work share

Illustrative example: you buy a $1,200 laptop yourself and use it 20% for work. The $240 work share does not turn it into an asset costing $300 or less. Review decline in value and apportion the relevant year’s amount; $240 is not automatically the current-year deduction. ATO: cost and decline in value.

For an asset genuinely costing you $300 or less, the remaining immediate-deduction tests still matter: mainly producing non-business income, and the restrictions on sets and similar assets. Joint ownership has its own cost considerations; private use is not the same thing as owning only part of a device. ATO: cost and the four tests.

Keep purchase and usage evidence

Save the itemised invoice, delivery details and date first used for work. Record how you distinguish employment use from personal browsing, streaming and other household use. If you already owned the laptop before it became a work device, check the starting value and history instead of treating it as a new purchase.

Keep separately purchased software or subscriptions identifiable. An invoice for a laptop, monitor and accessories needs an item-level review rather than a single assumption about the whole basket.

Track the laptop in The Paper Keep

Upload the original invoice, review the extracted items and use a Computers for review category. Tag the laptop laptop, work-use-review and depreciation-review. Note where the usage record is kept.

The WFH work-assets screen can estimate decline in value using cost, date, work percentage and depreciation settings. Check the settings and effective life for your situation. Its immediate-cost shortcut for small assets does not verify all ATO conditions, and unusual histories may need a separate calculation.

Do not count the price and the asset deduction

The revised fixed rate leaves eligible asset decline in value outside the covered running costs. ATO: separate equipment costs. That does not mean you should add both the laptop purchase price from the general summary and the model’s asset result to a claim.

The summary’s category flags identify spending to review. They do not replace a purchase price with depreciation. Keep the original total, retain the calculation and check the monitor guide for screens bought with the laptop.

Compare another item in our WFH expense guides.