The 12-Week Logbook, Step by Step

The car is the biggest deduction a rideshare driver has, and there are only two ways to claim it. One needs no records and caps out quickly. The other takes twelve weeks of work and then runs for five years.

This is how the second one works.

The two methods, briefly

Cents per kilometre. A flat rate for each business kilometre, capped at 5,000 kilometres per car per year. No receipts for running costs, no logbook. The rate for the 2026-27 income year is 91 cents per kilometre, up from 88 cents. At the cap, that is a maximum claim of $4,550.

Logbook. You work out the percentage of the car's use that is business, then claim that percentage of every car expense: fuel, servicing, tyres, insurance, registration, interest and depreciation. No cap.

The decision is usually made by one number. If you drive more than about 5,000 business kilometres a year, the cap on the first method starts costing you real money, and most full-time and regular part-time rideshare drivers pass 5,000 kilometres within a few months.

What the logbook has to contain

For the twelve-week period:

• The start and end dates of the period.
• The odometer reading at the start and at the end.
• For each business journey: the date, the start and end odometer readings, the kilometres travelled, and the reason for the trip.
• The total kilometres travelled in the period, business and private together.
• The resulting business-use percentage.

For each year you use it, you also need the odometer reading at the start and end of the income year, so the percentage can be applied to the year's actual distance.

The rules that trip people up

Twelve continuous weeks. Not twelve weeks of driving spread across a year. A continuous block, and it has to be representative of how you normally use the car. Twelve weeks of nothing but Friday nights, used to justify a whole year, is the version that fails on review.

It lasts five years. Once complete, the logbook is valid for five income years. You do not repeat it annually.

It stops being valid early if your driving changes. Move house, change your pattern from nights to weekdays, or start using the car very differently, and the old percentage no longer describes the car. Start a new one.

A new car needs its own. The logbook attaches to the vehicle, not to you.

You still need the expense records. The percentage is only half the claim. The other half is receipts for the costs it is applied to.

Does the trip count as business?

The line matters, because it sets the percentage.

Counted: driving with a passenger, driving to collect a passenger, and time online and available for fares.

Not counted: the trip from home before you go online, the trip home after you go offline, and anything personal in between.

Kilometres driven while online with no passenger are generally business use. Kilometres driven with the app off are not. A driver who is loose about this ends up with a percentage they cannot defend.

Keeping it without hating it

The traditional version is a notebook in the glovebox and an odometer reading every time you start and stop, which is exactly why most logbooks are abandoned in week three.

The workable version records shifts rather than individual trips: odometer at the start of the shift, odometer at the end, the date, and what the shift was. That is what a rideshare logbook actually looks like, and it satisfies the requirement as long as the private journeys in between are also captured.

DriveWise AI keeps the logbook from your shifts as you record them, and holds the running business-use percentage so you can see it before tax time rather than after.

Which one should you use?

Run both. The cents per km or logbook calculator takes your kilometres and costs and shows what each method claims, so the choice is made on a number rather than a feeling.

As a rough guide: under 5,000 business kilometres a year, cents per kilometre is simpler and often similar. Above it, the logbook usually wins, and the gap widens the more you drive. On a car with finance and full insurance, the difference can be thousands.

For the deduction side more broadly, see tax deductions for Australian rideshare drivers.

This is general information about how the methods work, not tax advice for your situation. A registered tax agent should check anything you lodge.