Hybrid Work: Claiming Office and Home Days Correctly
Which hours count if I work hybrid?
Only the hours you work from home count. Under the ATO’s fixed rate method you claim 70 cents for each hour you work from home, so hours at the office, at a client’s site or on the train add nothing to the claim.
That sounds obvious, but hybrid weeks are messy. Some days are fully at home, some fully in the office, and some are both. The rule doesn’t change: count the time you were at home doing your job, and nothing else.
You also need to be working from home to fulfil your employment duties. Taking the odd call or checking email at home in the evening doesn’t make it a work-from-home hour. Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2023/1 treats minimal tasks like those as not enough.
Can I work out my hours from my usual office and home days?
No. Since 1 March 2023 the ATO has asked for a record of the actual hours you worked from home across the whole income year. A pattern like “home Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 7.6 hours each” is an estimate, and the ATO doesn’t accept estimates for the fixed rate method.
Hybrid patterns rarely hold for a full year anyway. There are public holidays, leave, sick days, team days that move, and weeks you go in more often for a project. A record kept at the time catches all of that. A pattern written up in June doesn’t.
The record can be a timesheet, a roster, a diary, or logs from a time-tracking app, as long as it’s kept at the time (PCG 2023/1 para 58). For a hybrid worker, the important thing is that it shows which hours were at home.
How do I record a split day?
Record only the part of the day you worked at home. If you work from 8:30 to 12:00 at home, travel in, and work from 1:00 to 5:00 at the office, your work-from-home hours for that day are 3.5.
A few common shapes of split day:
| Day | What happened | WFH hours to record |
|---|---|---|
| Morning at home, afternoon in the office | 8:30–12:00 at home, travel, 1:00–5:00 at the office | 3.5 |
| Office day, then evening work at home | 9:00–5:00 at the office, 7:30–9:30 at home on a report | 2 |
| Early start at home, then in to the office | 7:00–8:30 at home on calls, 9:30–5:00 at the office | 1.5 |
| Full office day, checked email once at night | 9:00–5:00 at the office, 5 minutes of email at home | 0 (a minimal task) |
| Full home day | 8:30–5:00 at home, with a lunch break when you stopped work | The hours you worked, without the break |
The evening example is a judgement call on how substantial the work is. Two hours on a report is real work. Glancing at your inbox isn’t. If you’re not sure whether a short stretch is substantial, look at it the way the ATO does: were you doing your job, or just keeping an eye on things?
For breaks during a home stretch, see do breaks count as WFH hours.
Do commuting days or travel time count?
No. Travel time is not time worked from home, so it never adds to a fixed rate claim. The fixed rate is about the running costs of your home while you work there.
The commute itself is a separate question, and the answer is usually also no. The ATO says you generally can’t claim trips between home and your regular place of work, and doing some work at home doesn’t change that. There are limited exceptions, for example where your home is a base of employment and your duties start there. Those depend on your situation, so read the ATO’s trips guidance or ask a registered tax agent before you claim any travel.
Put simply: a split day gives you some work-from-home hours, but it doesn’t turn the trip into the office into a deduction.
What should my diary look like as a hybrid worker?
It should show, for each day, when you worked at home. Office days can be blank or marked as office days. What matters is that every hour you claim can be traced back to a day and a time.
Good habits for hybrid weeks:
- Record on the day. A split day is easy to remember at 5 pm and hard to remember in June.
- Note the office part. You don’t claim it, but a note like “office from 1 pm” explains why the home hours stop at noon.
- Leave out laptop time at the office. If your record comes from your work laptop, the time you used it at the office isn’t home time. Remove it before you total the year.
- Keep leave and public holidays as zero. They break up your pattern, which is exactly why a pattern-based estimate is wrong.
- Check weekly. Five minutes on a Friday catches anything you missed.
If you use an automatic tracker, check how it handles location. WFH Diary, for example, records when your Mac is in use but doesn’t know where you are. You confirm each day was at home and can leave out any session that was at the office. Any tool that tracks your work computer needs the same check, because the computer goes to the office with you.
The WFH diary template has columns for home and office time if you’d rather keep it on paper or in a spreadsheet.
Is the fixed rate still worth it for a hybrid worker?
Maybe not, from 2026–27. A new $1,000 standard deduction applies automatically to people with labour income from 1 July 2026. It’s reduced by the work-related expenses you itemise, so in effect you get the higher of $1,000 or your itemised work expenses.
A hybrid worker at home three days a week (7.6 hours a day over 48 weeks) logs about 1,094 hours, which is $766 at 70 cents. On its own, that’s less than $1,000. Add other work expenses, such as decline in value of a desk, chair or monitor, and the itemised total may pass $1,000. You won’t know until the year ends.
That’s the case for keeping the diary anyway. You can’t itemise above $1,000 without records for the full amount, and you can’t create a record of actual hours after the fact. The $1,000 standard deduction guide walks through the maths, and the deduction calculator does it for your hours.
What else do hybrid workers need to keep?
The same records as anyone using the fixed rate. That’s the hours record for the whole year, plus at least one bill or document for each running expense the rate covers that you incur: energy, phone and internet. For stationery and computer consumables, keep a receipt. Keep everything for five years from when you lodge.
The rate already covers energy, phone, internet, stationery and consumables, so don’t claim those separately. Decline in value of equipment and furniture you use for work is claimed on top. See which bills to keep and the ATO’s WFH record rules for the detail.
Questions
Can I claim my office days under the fixed rate method?
No. The fixed rate method is 70 cents for each hour you work from home. Hours worked at the office, at a client site or while travelling don’t count. On a split day, record only the hours you spent working at home.
Can I multiply my usual home days by my weekly hours?
No. The ATO asks for a record of actual hours worked from home for the whole income year, kept at the time. An estimate based on your usual hybrid pattern isn’t accepted, because it misses leave, public holidays and weeks that change.
Is my commute deductible on a day I also worked from home?
Generally not. The ATO says trips between home and your regular workplace usually can’t be claimed, even if you do some work at home. There are limited exceptions, so check the ATO’s trips guidance or ask a registered tax agent.
Does checking email at home after an office day count?
Usually not. PCG 2023/1 treats minimal tasks, such as occasionally checking email or taking a call, as not enough to count as working from home. A real stretch of work at home, such as two hours on a report, does count.
Sources
This is general information, not tax advice. Check your own situation with the ATO or a registered tax agent. WFH Diary is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Australian Taxation Office.