If you are an employed midwife in Australia, your 2026–27 tax return has a new headline act: the $1,000 standard deduction for work-related expenses, applied automatically with no receipts needed. But for most midwives it is not the best deal on the table. Between home-visit travel, Australian College of Midwives (ACM) membership, CPD and uniforms, a midwife who itemises will usually save far more — in the worked example below, $922.24 more than the standard route. This guide lists everything you can claim, prices both routes, and flags the traps that catch midwives specifically.
The three ATO rules still sit underneath everything: you must have spent the money yourself without reimbursement, the expense must directly relate to earning your income, and you need a record to prove it. That last rule got sharper this year — more on that below.
First, the midwife difference: you are registered, but you are not a nurse
Every guide that lumps midwives in with nurses misses the details that change a midwife’s return. Midwives are registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) through AHPRA, but on a separate register from nurses, and the registration year runs from 1 June to 31 May, with renewal due by 31 May each year. Miss it and you enter a one-month late period with a late fee on top; miss that and your registration lapses and you cannot practise or use the title at all.
Your annual AHPRA renewal fee is deductible — but your first, initial registration to enter the profession is not. That distinction catches new graduates every year: the fee that got you onto the register is a capital cost of entering the profession, while every renewal after that is a deductible cost of staying in it. One piece of good news for dual-registered midwives: if you hold both nursing and midwifery registration, you pay only one renewal fee, but you must still complete 20 hours of CPD for each registration — 40 hours in total — unless an activity is relevant to both and can be counted for both. Endorsed midwives (scheduled medicines endorsement) need another 10 hours on top.
The second midwife difference is where the work happens. Hospital midwives travel to one workplace; community and privately practising midwives travel between women’s homes, clinics and hospitals all day. That travel pattern is where the biggest midwife claims — and the biggest midwife mistakes — live.
What you can claim: the full list
Registration, memberships and insurance
AHPRA annual renewal — deductible in the year you pay it, even if the registration period spans two financial years. Union fees (ANMF and state branches such as QNMU) and ACM membership are deductible in full. These two categories matter twice over this year, because they sit outside the $1,000 standard deduction: you can claim them on top of the full $1,000, as long as you keep the records. Income protection insurance premiums you pay yourself are also deductible and also sit outside the $1,000. If you are a privately practising midwife, the professional indemnity insurance you arrange yourself is deductible too — hospital midwives are usually covered by their employer’s policy, in which case there is nothing to claim, because you did not pay for it.
Travel: the claim worth the most, and the easiest to get wrong
Car travel between clients’ homes during a working day is deductible — this is the community midwife’s biggest claim. Travel between two unrelated workplaces on the same day (hospital shift, then agency shift, then a home visit) is also deductible. The 2026–27 cents-per-kilometre rate is 91 cents per kilometre, capped at 5,000 business kilometres, which puts a ceiling of $4,550 on the cents-per-kilometre method. Keep a diary or logbook: the ATO wants the work purpose of the trips, not just a total.
What is not deductible is the ordinary trip from home to your primary workplace — even at 3am, even for a call-out, even when the birth cannot wait. That rule surprises on-call midwives more than any other. The grey area is the first trip of the day for a community midwife whose “office” is her car: home to the first client’s house looks like commuting to the ATO, while client-to-client travel clearly is not. If you are a privately practising midwife working entirely from home visits, get a tax agent’s view on your pattern before you claim the first leg — it is the single most-audited line on a midwife’s return.
Uniforms, laundry and equipment
Scrubs, a compulsory uniform bearing your employer’s logo, and protective clothing are deductible, as is washing them: $1 per load for work-only loads or 50 cents per load for mixed loads. What you cannot claim is conventional clothing, even when your employer requires it — the ATO’s own example for nurses and midwives is the white shirt with black pants or skirt: private, no matter how strictly the dress code is enforced. A fob watch, stethoscope, Pinard horn, midwifery bag and Doppler are deductible; items costing $300 or less are claimed outright, anything more is depreciated over its effective life. Gloves, face masks, sanitiser and safety glasses you pay for yourself are deductible too.
CPD, study and conferences
CPD that maintains or improves your skills in your current role is deductible: course fees, conference registration, travel and accommodation for a conference, textbooks and journals. With 20 hours a year to fill (40 if dual-registered, 50 with an endorsement), this adds up fast — and it is fully deductible, not capped. What is not deductible is study for a new role or a different profession: a course that qualifies you as something else is a capital cost, even if it is in healthcare. The boundary case is endorsement study: a postgraduate program leading to scheduled medicines endorsement builds on your existing midwifery practice, so keep the course outline showing the link to your current role.
Phone, internet and working from home
Phone and internet are claimable at the work-use percentage only — rostering apps, on-call messages and client communication count; scrolling does not. Merely checking rosters or payslips on your phone does not make the whole bill deductible. If you do administration from home (notes, rostering, CPD), the fixed-rate method is 70 cents per hour as the series working figure for 2026–27 (the 2026–27 fixed rate is unpublished at the time of writing, so confirm it at lodgement) — but you cannot double-count phone and internet inside it, because the fixed rate already covers them.
Overtime meals and agency fees
An overtime meal is deductible only when you receive an overtime meal allowance under an award or agreement — buying dinner because your shift ran long is not enough on its own. Agency commissions and fees you pay to a nursing agency for shifts are deductible where they relate to earning your income.
Worked example: itemising vs the $1,000 standard deduction, priced both ways
Meet Sarah, a hypothetical employed hospital midwife in Brisbane on a salary of $92,000, in the 30% bracket for 2026–27. With the 2% Medicare levy, every deduction dollar saves her 32 cents. Her year looks like this:
AHPRA renewal (illustrative): $200. ACM membership (illustrative): $350. ANMF union fees (illustrative): $550. CPD course + conference registration: $1,100. Conference travel and accommodation: $850. Car travel between clients and second workplace: 1,800 km × 91c = $1,638. Uniforms and laundry: $420. Fob watch and midwifery kit top-ups: $280. Phone, 25% work use: $300. Working from home: 120 hours × 70c = $84. Textbooks and journals: $150. Total itemised: $5,922.
Itemised route: $5,922 × 32% = $1,895.04 saved. Standard route: $1,000 standard deduction + $2,040 of non-reducing extras (ACM $350 + ANMF $550 + income protection $900 + tax agent fee $240) = $3,040; $3,040 × 32% = $972.80 saved. Itemising wins by $2,882 of extra deductions, worth $922.24 in Sarah’s pocket.
But the standard deduction wins sometimes, and midwives should know when. Take Tom, a part-time midwife working two days a week with only $780 of itemisable expenses and patchy receipts. His standard route is $1,000 plus his memberships and income protection — beating itemising by $220 of deductions, or $70.40 at 32%, with no record-keeping at all. The rule of thumb: if your itemisable total (excluding memberships, income protection and agent fees, which stack either way) is under $1,000, take the standard deduction and stop worrying. If it is over, itemise — but only with records.
The traps that catch midwives
The record-keeping sting. From 1 July 2026 the old $300 work-expense and $150 laundry record-keeping exceptions are gone — written evidence is now required for every claimed work expense. That does not touch the $1,000 standard deduction, which needs no receipts, but it does mean an itemised claim without receipts is now worthless, not just risky. Keep receipts in the ATO app as you go; reconstructing a year of home-visit kilometres in June is how claims die.
The dual-registration CPD trap. Dual-registered nurse-midwives who complete 20 hours and assume they are covered are half short. You need 20 hours per registration, and an activity counts for both only if it is genuinely relevant to both contexts of practice. A neonatal resuscitation update counts for both; a general nursing wound-care module does not count as midwifery CPD.
The private-practice boundary. Privately practising midwives run a business, not just a job, and the tax rules change with it: the $1,000 standard deduction applies to labour income, not business income, so a midwife earning through an ABN cannot use it on that income at all. Business expenses (PII, website, booking software, equipment) are claimed as business deductions instead, and GST registration becomes compulsory at $75,000 turnover — noting that Medicare-rebatable midwifery services are generally GST-free, which does not remove the registration obligation once turnover crosses the threshold. This is the point where a midwife most needs an accountant, not a checklist.
The “my employer requires it” trap. Required does not mean deductible. Conventional clothing, grooming, childcare during night shifts, and the ordinary commute are all private expenses even when the job makes them unavoidable. If the only reason an item is work-related is that work is where you wear or use it, it almost certainly fails the test.
The first-registration trap. The fee that first put you on the register is not deductible, and neither is the cost of the degree that qualified you. Only the costs of staying registered and staying current count.
Tips: get the most out of your return
- Log home-visit kilometres weekly, not yearly. A contemporaneous diary is what survives an ATO review; a June reconstruction is what does not.
- Renew before 31 May and claim it in the year you pay. A renewal paid in May and one paid in June fall in different tax years — if you are near a bracket boundary, the timing is worth a thought.
- Count CPD twice only where it genuinely overlaps. Dual-registered midwives should tag each activity nursing, midwifery or both at the time, not at renewal.
- Compare both routes every year. A quiet year (parental leave, part-time return) can flip you from itemising to the standard deduction — run the numbers before you lodge.
- Keep membership receipts even on the standard route. Union, ACM and income protection stack on top of the $1,000, but only with records.
Frequently asked questions
Can midwives claim car expenses for home visits?
Yes — travel between clients’ homes and between unrelated workplaces is deductible at 91 cents per kilometre up to 5,000 kilometres. The ordinary home-to-work commute is not, and the home-to-first-client leg is the grey area to check with a tax agent.
Is AHPRA registration tax deductible for midwives?
The annual renewal is deductible. The initial registration fee that first admitted you to the profession is not.
How many CPD hours does a midwife need in Australia?
20 hours per year per registration, relevant to your context of practice. Dual-registered nurse-midwives need 20 hours for each registration, and endorsed midwives need an additional 10 hours for the endorsement.
Should a midwife take the $1,000 standard deduction or itemise?
Compare your itemisable total (excluding union, ACM, income protection and agent fees, which you claim either way) with $1,000. Above $1,000, itemise with full records; below it, take the standard deduction and save the paperwork.
Can a privately practising midwife claim professional indemnity insurance?
Yes, if you pay the premium yourself. Hospital-employed midwives are generally covered by their employer’s policy and have nothing to claim. Note that endorsed privately practising midwives may be eligible for the Commonwealth’s Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme, which changes what cover you need to buy — check your eligibility before renewing.
Are scrubs and uniforms tax deductible for midwives?
Scrubs and compulsory uniforms with an employer logo are deductible, plus laundry at $1 per work-only load or 50 cents per mixed load. Conventional clothing such as a white shirt with black pants is not, even when your employer requires it.
Midwives do some of the most demanding shift work in Australian healthcare, much of it at 3am, much of it in other people’s homes. The tax system recognises the real costs of that work — registration, CPD, travel between clients, uniforms and insurance — but only when you can prove them. Price both routes, keep the receipts, and claim the version that pays you more: for most full-time midwives that is still itemising, by a margin worth having.
General information only, not tax advice. Check your award, agreement and personal circumstances, or speak to a registered tax agent, before lodging.
Related reading: Tax Deductions for Nurses Australia 2026-27, The $1,000 Standard Tax Deduction Explained, Car Expenses Tax Deduction Australia 2026-27, Work From Home Tax Deduction Australia. Try the calculators: Income Tax Calculator. Sources: ATO — Standard deduction for work-related expenses, ATO — Claiming deductions, NMBA — CPD FAQ for nurses and midwives.
