A West Australian long-haul driver named Shaw claimed $32,782.50 in meal expenses for a single year. He had no receipts for any of it.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) cut his claim to $5,890. That is about $19 a day to feed himself. Shaw fought it and won at the Tribunal. The ATO appealed to the Federal Court, and in 2026 the Court dismissed the appeal. He kept the lot.
If you drive for a living, this is the most useful tax case in years. It is also the most misunderstood. Plenty of drivers have taken it to mean they can claim $128 a day, no questions asked.
That is not what it says. And believing it is how you end up like the other driver in this piece, the one who lost $19,807.
The short answer. Most truck driver tax deductions come down to one question, which is whether you actually spent the money. For the year ended 30 June 2026, an employee truck driver who sleeps away from home and receives a travel allowance that covers meals can claim up to $31.15 for breakfast, $35.55 for lunch and $61.30 for dinner without keeping receipts. The rule removes the receipt requirement. It does not remove the requirement to have actually spent the money, or to be able to show how.
How much can a truck driver claim for meals without receipts?
If you are an employee truck driver who sleeps away from home overnight and receives a travel allowance, the ATO sets a “reasonable amount” for meals. For the year ended 30 June 2026, the return you are lodging now, those amounts are:
| Meal | Reasonable amount |
|---|---|
| Breakfast | $31.15 |
| Lunch | $35.55 |
| Dinner | $61.30 |
Add all three together and a full day comes to $128.00, but be careful with that number. The ATO does not publish a daily total, and the determination says plainly that the three amounts cannot be aggregated into a single daily amount. They are three separate limits, not one.
And claiming up to a limit is not the same as being entitled to it. The determination is blunt about this: the deduction allowed for each meal is the amount actually spent and not simply the reasonable amount.
Three catches:
- Each meal is separate. Away for breakfast and lunch but home for dinner? You claim $31.15 plus $35.55, and nothing for dinner. This matters most on the days a trip starts and ends.
- You cannot carry the unused bit forward. A cheap breakfast does not buy you a bigger dinner.
- It is meals only, not accommodation. Because drivers usually sleep in the cab, the rule only covers food and drink. The ATO goes further: you cannot claim accommodation at all if you sleep in your truck or your employer puts you up. If you do pay for a room yourself on a run, that needs written evidence, because the no-receipts rule does not reach it.
What the Shaw case decided
Here is the part that gets misquoted.
The reasonable amount is not a standard deduction. It is not $128 a day handed to everyone who sleeps in a truck. It saves you from keeping receipts, but you still have to have spent the money, and you still have to be able to show it if the ATO asks.
The Tribunal was blunt about this. It found that the ATO’s reasonable amounts do not give truck drivers a standard or automatic deduction, and told tax agents who treat them that way to change how they work, because the law does not support it.
So what did Shaw win on? Evidence. He proved he spent the money without a single receipt.
The ATO says the same thing in its own guide for drivers: receiving a travel allowance from your employer does not automatically entitle you to a deduction. You still need to show that you were away overnight, you spent the money, and the travel directly relates to earning your employment income.
Two drivers, $19,807 apart
Compare Shaw with a driver called Duncan, whose case ran a year earlier. On paper they look almost identical. Both long-haul. Both claimed meals for the 2021 income year, when the rate was $105.75 a day rather than today’s $128.00. Both kept their claim at or under the ATO’s reasonable amount.
Duncan claimed $28,200 and lost $19,807 of it. Shaw claimed $32,782.50 and kept every dollar.
| Duncan | Shaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Amount claimed | $28,200 | $32,782.50 |
| What the ATO originally allowed | $8,393 | $5,890 |
| Allowance covered meals | No, accommodation | Yes |
| Gave evidence in person | No | Yes |
| Spending explained to the Tribunal | No evidence before it | Yes, in detail |
| Result | Lost $19,807 | Kept the lot |
The difference was not the amount. It was three things.
1. What the allowance was for
Duncan’s travel allowance came under the Road Transport (Long Distance Operations) Award. Under that Award, the allowance was not payable if he was given suitable accommodation away from the truck.
The Tribunal read that and concluded the allowance was most likely there to cover accommodation, or possibly a hardship loading, rather than meals. The rule only works for the category of expense your allowance actually covers. So Duncan’s meal claim fell over before anyone even looked at his spending.
This is the 30 second check worth doing tonight. Get out your income statement or a payslip. Is there a travel allowance on it, and does your award or agreement say it is there to cover meals? If it is really an accommodation or hardship payment, you may not get to use the no-receipts rule at all.
2. Whether anyone turned up to explain it
Duncan was not able to give evidence at his hearing, and his wife, who had put together the grocery spreadsheet his claim leaned on, was not called. A spreadsheet with nobody to swear to it proved nothing.
Shaw gave evidence in person, and the Tribunal’s finding on him is worth reading in full: I found him to be a credible and honest witness. Put simply, I believed him, and this was because his evidence made practical sense. The Federal Court leaned on that finding when it dismissed the Commissioner’s appeal in March 2026.
3. Being able to explain how you eat on the road
This is the one to copy. Shaw could describe his working life in detail:
- He drove the Pilbara and the Nullarbor.
- He was away roughly six days a week, sleeping in the truck.
- He carried about $1,500 in cash, because there are stretches out there with no EFTPOS.
- He had a freezer and a hot plate in the cab and cooked for himself.
- He and his wife did a big grocery shop before each trip, and he topped up at supermarkets when he passed through a town.
- He gave real prices. In 2021 money, breakfast with a coffee ran $25 to $30, a pizza for lunch about $32, and dinner up to $65.
None of that is a receipt. All of it is evidence.
He was also honest about the private bit. He told the Tribunal he sent money to his wife for the shopping, and that perhaps fifty dollars here and there might have gone on the household rather than the truck. That admission did not hurt him. It made everything else believable.
The Federal Court also confirmed something useful. On the evidence Shaw had, he did not have to go through his bank statements and label every transaction work or private, because he had given plenty of other evidence supporting the spending.
The trap: some allowances cannot be claimed against at all
This is the one that quietly costs drivers the most, and almost nobody checks it.
Not every payment on your payslip is the same kind of money. Two of them look almost identical on a payslip and are treated completely differently at tax time.
- A travel allowance is your income. It is taxable, it is meant to cover meals and accommodation on specific overnight work trips, and it is the thing that unlocks the no-receipts rule. You can claim your real costs against it.
- A living-away-from-home allowance is not your income at all. It is a fringe benefit, taxed to your employer rather than to you. No tax is withheld from it, you do not declare it on your return, and you cannot claim a single dollar of deductions against it.
If you have been paid a living-away-from-home allowance and you have been claiming meals against it, you have been claiming against money that was never taxed in your hands. That is the kind of thing an audit finds.
Why payslips get this wrong
Some employers have been reporting ordinary travel allowances through payroll as a “LAFH allowance”, which is the wrong label. Others do the reverse. The label your employer typed into the payroll system does not decide the answer, but it does decide what the ATO sees.
So if your income statement shows something described as a living-away-from-home allowance, do not assume it is right and do not assume it is wrong. Ask payroll what it is actually for, and check what your award or agreement says the payment is compensating you for.
A blank Allowances box is not proof of anything either
Here is the part that catches out people who think they have already checked. A genuine travel allowance for overnight domestic travel, paid up to the ATO reasonable amount, generally does not have to have tax withheld from it and does not have to appear on your income statement.
So an allowance missing from your income statement does not mean you cannot claim. It means you have to find out which of the two situations you are in, and the payslip alone will not always tell you.
What makes an allowance the real thing
For the no-receipts rule to be available, the allowance has to be a genuine travel allowance tied to your actual trips. It is not one if it is:
- a general payment, or compensation for something other than travel costs, such as the inconvenience or isolation of working away
- a token amount, for example ten dollars a day to cover three meals
- folded into your salary rather than shown separately as an allowance
This is exactly where Duncan came unstuck. His allowance turned out to be for accommodation, not meals, so the meal claim had nothing to attach to.
Two more that cost people money
If the boss pays it, you cannot claim it. Where your employer pays a cost directly, or reimburses you for it against receipts, that is their expense and not yours. You cannot claim it as well.
If you are genuinely living away rather than travelling, the living costs are not deductible. There is a real difference between being on the road and being based somewhere else for a stretch. Staying put at one location for a long period, in longer-term accommodation, with family visiting, points to living away from home rather than travelling. A Tribunal decision in 2025 confirmed again that living costs in that situation are not deductible.
Most long-haul drivers moving between destinations are travelling, not living away. But a driver parked at a depot interstate for months is a different case, and it is worth being sure which one you are.
The check. Pull out your latest payslip and your income statement side by side. Find every allowance line, note exactly what each one is called, then look up what your award or agreement says that payment is for. If the wording does not clearly tie it to meals on overnight trips, get someone to look at it before you lodge.
What to keep, starting today
You do not need receipts for meals. You do need to be able to show you were out there and that you were eating. Keep:
- Your work diary or fatigue management records. Most long-haul drivers have to keep one anyway. It shows where you were and when you stopped, and it was part of what carried Shaw.
- Bank and card statements for the whole year. Not to itemise, just to show a pattern.
- A note of your regular runs. Routes, how many nights, which roadhouses and supermarkets you actually use.
- A rough note of what you spend on a typical breakfast, lunch and dinner on the road.
- Your payslips or income statement, showing the travel allowance and what it is for.
- Photos of the setup in your cab if you cook. The fridge, the freezer, the hot plate.
None of that is hard, and it is the difference between Duncan and Shaw.
The Tribunal went further and said what a sensible driver would actually do. Keep full records for a short stretch of each year, rather than trying to keep everything all year. Receipts for meals, receipts showing the groceries you bought for a trip, phone photos of the food actually in the truck, plus bank statements and your diary covering the same period. Do that for a few weeks and you have shown your normal spending pattern, which is what the whole argument turns on.
Worth knowing that even Shaw, who won, was told to do this in future years, and that the same result might not follow if he does not.
Where drivers get into trouble
The most common mistake is treating the daily rate as a sum you are owed, multiplying it by nights away and lodging that number with nothing behind it. That is the approach the Tribunal has told agents to stop using, and if the ATO asks a question it will not hold.
Two others catch people regularly. If you claim more than the reasonable amount, you have to back up the whole claim with receipts, not just the extra above the limit. And the rule only applies to nights you actually slept away from home.
There is a flipside worth knowing, because it works in your favour. If you genuinely spend more than the ATO’s daily amount, you are allowed to choose to cap your claim at the reasonable amount precisely so you do not have to keep the paperwork. That is the ATO’s own position, set out at paragraph 14 of its ruling TR 2004/6, and the Tribunal held the ATO to it in Shaw’s case.
And if you have already lodged a return on the multiply-and-hope basis, that is worth raising with an accountant rather than waiting to see if anyone notices. There are amendment periods. Shaw’s case also indicated relief may be available where a tax agent told you that you did not need receipts, though the Tribunal criticised that advice at the same time, so it is a fallback rather than a shield.
Other truck driver tax deductions, beyond meals
Meals are the biggest single claim for most long-haul drivers, which is why this article spends its time there. They are not the only one. Straight from the ATO guide for drivers, you can generally claim:
- A compulsory uniform, or protective clothing, and the cost of cleaning it
- Sunglasses and sunscreen, if you are out in the sun for long stretches doing your job
- A sleeping bag and pillows, where you use them on your mandatory long rest break sleeping away from home
- The extra cost of renewing a special licence or condition you need for the work, such as a heavy vehicle permit
- Trips between two separate jobs on the same day, or between depots for the same employer
And the ones that catch people, because they feel like they should be claimable:
- Your ordinary driver’s licence. Not the cost of getting it, and not the renewal either, even though you plainly cannot do the job without one. The ATO treats it as a private expense. The initial cost of getting your special licence is out too. Only the extra renewal cost of the special licence or condition gets up.
- Ordinary clothes. Jeans, plain shirts, plain pants. Not deductible even if your employer tells you to wear them and you only ever wear them at work.
- Food and drink during your normal working hours. Different thing entirely from meals on an overnight trip. Your everyday coffee and snacks are private.
- Normal trips between home and work, however far you live from the depot and whatever hour you start.
- Anything your employer paid for or paid you back for. If it was not your money, it is not your deduction.
The full ATO guide is income and work-related deductions for truck drivers, and it is worth ten minutes before you lodge. The same logic that applies to working from home deductions applies here too. You have to have spent it yourself, it has to relate to earning your income, and you have to be able to show it.
If you own your truck, this is a different conversation
Everything above is about employee drivers who receive a travel allowance from a boss.
If you own your truck and run as a sole trader, partnership or company, the no-receipts rule is not built for you and your deductions work differently. Running costs, depreciation on the vehicle, finance and interest, insurance, registration, repairs, tyres, fuel tax credits. There is more to claim, and more that has to be right.
It also brings decisions an employee never has to make. Whether to run through a company or a trust, how to handle GST and your BAS, when the instant asset write-off is worth using, and how you pay yourself. Those decisions are usually worth more than anything on this page. We work with tradies and contractors on exactly this, and an owner-driver is the same problem with a bigger vehicle.
What about the $1,000 standard deduction?
You may have seen that a $1,000 standard deduction for work expenses is coming, with nothing to prove and nothing to keep. Three things about it.
- It is proposed, not law yet, and it would first apply to the 2027 income year, which is the return you lodge next year. It does not affect the one you are doing now.
- It is not extra money on top. The $1,000 is reduced by the work expenses it already covers, and overnight meal costs are one of them. So it is a floor for people with small claims, not a bonus for people with big ones.
- For most long-haul drivers it is beside the point. A driver who is away most weeks and can show what he actually spent will be claiming many multiples of $1,000, so a flat $1,000 does not come close. You would carry on claiming your real expenses, which means Shaw still sets the bar for your records.
Owner-drivers should note it is not aimed at them at all. The proposed deduction applies to wage and salary income. Sole traders, contractors paid under an ABN, and drivers paid through labour hire arrangements are all specifically excluded.
Truck driver tax deductions: the short version
The Federal Court has confirmed that a truck driver can win a large meal claim with no receipts at all. But he won because he could show his working.
Shaw could explain his job, his routes and his eating honestly, and he showed up to say so. Duncan could not, and he lost two thirds of his claim.
Keep the diary. Keep the statements. Check what your allowance is actually for. And be able to describe your own working life, because that turned out to be worth $32,782.
If you drive long-haul and you are not confident your records would hold up, or you own your truck and nobody has looked properly at the structure behind it, get in touch. We will go through a year of your runs with you and tell you straight whether it would hold up. We do tax returns in Albury Wodonga and remotely for drivers anywhere in the country.
About this article. Written by the tax team at Business Edge Advisors, Registered Tax Agent 20651000. We prepare returns for employee drivers and owner-drivers, and we read the Tribunal and Federal Court decisions this article is based on rather than summaries of them. Last reviewed 28 August 2026.
Disclaimer. This article is general information only and does not constitute personal tax advice. The reasonable amounts change every year, and your own position depends on your award, your allowance and how you are engaged. Talk to us or another registered tax agent before you lodge.
