GST and BAS for Rideshare Drivers: What You Actually Have to Lodge
Most Australian businesses do not have to register for GST until they turn over $75,000 a year. Rideshare is the exception. If you drive passengers for a fare, you have to be registered for GST from your first trip, no matter how little you earn.
That single rule catches more new drivers than anything else in rideshare, and the bill arrives months later when the money has been spent.
Why rideshare is different
The GST law treats taxi travel as a special case, and ride-sourcing falls inside that definition. It does not matter whether you drive forty hours a week or four hours a month. If you are carrying passengers for a fare, you need:
- an ABN, and
- GST registration, from the day you start.
Food delivery is not caught by the same rule. If you only deliver food, the ordinary $75,000 threshold applies. Drive passengers as well, and you are registered from the first fare.
What GST actually costs you
GST is one eleventh of the fare, not a tenth. On a $44 fare, the GST inside it is $4.
Divide by 11, not by 10. Getting that wrong overstates what you owe by about 10%, which is a pleasant direction to be wrong in until you rely on the number.
The rough working rule: set aside about 9% of every fare and do not touch it. That covers the GST on the fare itself. What you can claim back then reduces the bill when you lodge.
What you claim back
You paid GST on things you bought for the business, and you get that portion back. The usual list:
- The platform's service fee. Uber and DiDi charge GST on their commission, and it is one of the biggest credits most drivers have.
- Fuel.
- Servicing, tyres, repairs and car washes.
- Insurance, on the business-use portion. Note that stamp duty inside the premium has no GST in it.
- Phone and data, on the business-use portion.
- Accessories bought for the car.
Two catches worth knowing. You can only claim the business-use share, so if the car is 70% rideshare then 70% of the fuel GST is yours. And registration and CTP have almost no GST in them, so claiming a full eleventh there is an error the ATO sees often.
What a BAS is, in plain terms
A Business Activity Statement is the quarterly form where you tell the ATO how much GST you collected and how much you are claiming back. You pay the difference. If your credits are larger, you get a refund.
Most drivers lodge quarterly. The quarters and their standard due dates:
| Quarter | Period | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | July to September | 28 October |
| Q2 | October to December | 28 February |
| Q3 | January to March | 28 April |
| Q4 | April to June | 28 July |
A due date landing on a weekend or public holiday moves to the next business day. Lodging through a registered BAS or tax agent usually buys extra time, which is one of the reasons using one is worth the fee.
PAYG instalments arrive next
Once the ATO sees a year of business income with no tax withheld from it, it generally puts you into PAYG instalments. That means paying income tax quarterly in advance rather than in one lump after your return.
It feels like a new tax. It is not, it is the same tax paid earlier. The problem is timing: the first year can land a full year's income tax bill and the first instalments close together. Knowing it is coming is most of the defence.
A set-aside that actually works
The drivers who get caught are almost never the ones who earned too little. They are the ones who treated the whole fare as income.
A simple structure that holds up:
- Open a second bank account that has no card attached to it.
- Move a percentage across every week, not every quarter. Around 9% covers the GST. Add a slice for income tax, which depends on your total income from all sources.
- Reconcile when the BAS comes around, not before. The account will usually be ahead, because the GST credits on fuel and commission come back to you.
DriveWise AI calculates the GST set-aside on each logged shift as you go, so the number is already there at the end of the quarter instead of being reconstructed from bank statements.
Records to keep
Keep the platform's monthly tax summaries, your own record of every shift, and receipts for anything you claim. The ATO receives data directly from the rideshare platforms, so what you report against the fare side is already known. The part you have to be able to prove is the deduction side.
Five years is the standard retention period, and a logbook has its own rules on top. Our cents per km or logbook calculator shows which car claim is worth more for your kilometres before you commit to keeping one.
The honest summary
GST from the first dollar, one eleventh of each fare, about 9% held back weekly, four lodgements a year, and PAYG instalments after the first return. None of it is complicated. All of it is expensive to discover late.
This is general information about how the rules work, not tax advice for your situation. A registered tax agent should check anything you lodge.