Australian tax · FY2025-26
Instant asset write-off calculator
For 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 a small business can deduct the full cost of an asset costing less than $20,000, in the year it is first used or installed ready for use. Enter what the asset cost and this says whether it qualifies and what the deduction is worth.
FY2025-26Other years
Calculator
At or above the $20,000 threshold. The asset does not get the instant write-off — it goes into the small business pool and is depreciated, which is a deduction spread over years rather than lost.
This is an estimate, not advice. It applies the published rate to what you enter; whether the method suits your circumstances, and whether your records support the figures, is a question for your tax agent.
The threshold is per asset
There is no annual cap on the total. A business can write off any number of assets that each cost less than $20,000 — six $3,000 assets are six deductions, not one that stops at the threshold.
It is the cost of the asset that is tested, not what was paid this year. An asset bought on finance is tested on its full cost, and one bought part-way through the year is not apportioned: the deduction is the whole cost in the year it is first used or installed ready for use.
An asset over the threshold is not a deduction lost
It goes into the small business pool and is depreciated there. The deduction is spread over years instead of taken at once — worth less in present-value terms, but not forgone.
That is why the answer above changes shape rather than going to zero when you type a larger number: the question is when the deduction lands, not whether it exists.
GST, and which number to type
The threshold is tested on what the business actually bears. Registered for GST and claiming the credit back? Test the cost excluding GST. Not registered? The GST is part of what you paid, so test the full amount.
On a threshold of $20,000 this decides real cases: an asset invoiced just above it can fall under once the GST credit is taken out.
Who can use it, and what this page assumes
A small business with aggregated turnover under $10 million, using the simplified depreciation rules. Aggregated turnover counts connected and affiliated entities, not just the one buying the asset.
The tax saved above uses a resident individual’s marginal rate — right for a sole trader or a partner. A company’s deduction is worth its own rate instead, and the deduction itself is the same either way. It also assumes the asset is used wholly for business: private use is apportioned out, and the write-off applies only to the business share.
Preparing returns, not just your own?
BeforeMay builds the working paper behind the return from the client’s own documents — including the asset purchases, and which of them the threshold reaches.
Start a case freeWhere does client data go?
Three returns free. No card.
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