The temporary work location ATO deduction is one of the most valuable — and misunderstood — exceptions to the general rule that commuting is not deductible. If you travel to a workplace that is not your regular place of employment, the cost of getting there may be a legitimate work expense. This guide explains how the ATO defines temporary locations, when the deduction applies, and how to keep records that will hold up under scrutiny.
What is a temporary work location?
A temporary work location is somewhere you travel to for work that is not your usual, regular place of employment. The defining feature is that you do not go there routinely — your regular workplace is a different, fixed location that you normally report to.
Common examples:
- A project site you are assigned to for several weeks or months while your regular office or depot remains your home base
- A client’s premises that you visit for a specific engagement
- A training venue or conference facility
- A court or tribunal location (for lawyers or legal professionals)
- A specialist facility you attend for a particular task
The temporary nature of the location is what distinguishes this travel from a commute. The ATO looks at whether the location is genuinely different from your regular place of work, not just whether you have been there before. Repeatedly attending the same client site over a long period can eventually cause it to become a regular workplace — and at that point, the travel character changes.
When travel to a temporary location is deductible
Travel to a temporary work location is deductible when all of the following conditions are met:
- You have a regular place of work elsewhere. If you have no fixed regular base, you may fall under the itinerant worker rules instead.
- The travel is to a location you do not attend routinely. A site you visit weekly for months may no longer qualify as temporary.
- You are travelling in the course of your work duties. The purpose must be employment-related, not personal.
- The trip is not a disguised commute. If the temporary site simply replaces your regular office for an extended period, the ATO may treat the travel as a commute.
The trip can start from either your regular workplace or your home. If you travel from home directly to the temporary location (bypassing your regular office), the journey from home is generally deductible — because the destination is a work requirement rather than your normal work base.
This distinguishes it from travelling home-to-office, which remains private regardless of how far the office is.
Multiple work locations in a day
When you visit more than one location in a day, the deductibility of each leg is assessed separately. A typical pattern might be:
- Home → temporary job site (deductible — temporary work location)
- Job site → regular office (deductible — between work locations)
- Office → home (not deductible — return commute)
If you make a side trip for a private purpose during the work journey (stopping at a personal errand, for instance), only the work-related portion remains deductible. The ATO expects you to apportion if there is a private component.
See the work-related travel deductions Australia guide for a broader look at how multi-stop days are treated.
Contractors and temporary job sites
Independent contractors and sole traders are particularly likely to work across multiple temporary locations. A tradesperson finishing a bathroom renovation in the eastern suburbs before moving to a kitchen fitout in the north, a consultant moving between different client offices, or an IT technician attending various business premises — all of these fit the temporary work location pattern.
For contractors, the analysis is similar to employees but the context differs. A contractor often has no single fixed base — each project is a temporary engagement. In that case, the travel between home and the project site may be deductible as itinerant-worker travel rather than temporary-location travel, but the practical result is similar: the kilometres are work-related.
Where a contractor does maintain a permanent home office or depot that functions as a business base, travel from that base to each project site is clearly deductible. The home office does not need to be a separate room — it needs to be a genuine place where business is conducted.
For the full picture on sole trader car expenses, see sole trader car expenses and tax deductions.
Keeping records for temporary location travel
The ATO’s substantiation rules apply regardless of the deduction method you use. For car travel, you will use either the cents-per-kilometre method or the logbook method:
Cents per kilometre (88 cents/km, capped at 5,000 km): You need a record of each claimed trip showing the date, starting point, destination, purpose, and kilometres. You do not need fuel receipts, but you do need to be able to explain every trip. A digital log with GPS tracking — such as Tripbook — is ideal because it captures timestamps, locations, and route distances automatically.
Logbook method: A 12-week logbook showing all trips (work and private), plus receipts for every running cost. The logbook establishes your business-use percentage, which then applies to actual costs. See ATO logbook requirements for exactly what the logbook must contain.
For the temporary location exception specifically, your records should also show:
- That you had a separate regular workplace (for example, a regular office address)
- That the temporary site was not visited routinely enough to become a regular location
- The start date and approximate end date of your time at each temporary location
If you receive a travel allowance from your employer for travel to temporary sites, check whether it exceeds the ATO’s reasonable amounts. Allowances within the reasonable limits require less substantiation; those above require full receipts.
Common scenarios: what’s deductible and what’s not
Scenario 1 — Employee seconded to a project site for 3 months. Your employer assigns you to a construction project for 12 weeks while your regular office remains open. Travel from your home directly to the project site: deductible. Travel from the project site to your regular office for meetings: deductible. Travel from the project site directly home at end of day: not deductible (return commute). This scenario is well-supported by ATO guidance.
Scenario 2 — Consultant rotating through client offices. You work primarily from a home office but spend several days a week at different client premises. Each client site is a temporary location. Travel from home to each client site: deductible (home as business base, client site as temporary location). This is a common and well-accepted claim for home-based sole traders.
Scenario 3 — Employee who starts working at a different office of the same employer. Your employer moves your team to a new floor in a different building across town, which is intended to be permanent. This is now your regular workplace, not a temporary one. The ATO would treat travel to this new location as a commute from the point it becomes your regular base.
Scenario 4 — Employee “temporarily” posted to the same site for 18 months. If what started as a temporary posting becomes an extended, open-ended arrangement, the ATO may re-characterise the site as your regular workplace. At that point, the home-to-site travel reverts to a non-deductible commute. There is no bright-line time limit, but longer postings invite scrutiny.
Scenario 5 — Stopping at a temporary site on the way to the regular office. You stop at a client’s building before continuing to your regular office. The distance from home to the client site is deductible. The distance from the client site to the office is deductible (between work locations). The journey home is not.
The temporary work location ATO deduction rewards workers who keep clear records and understand where their regular base of work lies. If your job takes you to different sites, don’t leave those kilometres untracked.
Download Tripbook to log every trip to a temporary work location ATO-ready, with GPS timestamps that back up your claim at tax time.
