GST answers
Is counselling GST-free?
Usually not. Counselling is not one of the 21 health services the GST Act lists, so a counselling session is taxable by default. It can still be GST free where the same hour is a listed service the practitioner is recognised in, such as social work or psychology, where a Medicare benefit is payable, or where it meets the NDIS test.
Key facts
- Why a session is taxable by default
- Counselling is not one of the 21 health services the GST Act lists, and the ATO says a service must be one of the listed services rather than similar to one1
- What the list does carry
- Psychology and social work are both listed health services, so the same hour can be GST free where the practitioner is a recognised professional in one of them1
- What recognised means
- Registered, permitted or approved under a state or territory law for that listed service, or, where no such law applies, a member of a professional association that relates to the service and has the same registration requirements nationally1
- The medical services route
- A service for which a Medicare benefit is payable is a medical service, and medical services are GST free2
- Where counselling is named
- The ATO's table of common NDIS examples names counselling under table 2 item 2 and again under table 2 item 4, each read with the Care Determination5
- Who the recipient is
- Whoever engages the health practitioner to provide the service, which in some cases is a business rather than the patient3
- What the canonical templates post
- All three post a private patient session to account 400, Clinical services, private patients, at the GST Free Income tax rate, each through its private funding source default row6
Counselling is not one of the listed services
The GST Act does not make a profession GST free. It lists health services, and a health service that is not a medical service is GST free only where three things hold together: it is one of the listed services, it is performed by a recognised health professional in that listed service or, in the circumstances the ATO sets out, an assistant they supervise, and it is generally accepted in that profession as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply. There are 21 listed services. Counselling is not one of them.
The service must be one of the listed services and cannot just be similar to one of these services.1
So a counselling hour starts as a taxable supply. For a practice registered for GST that means the fee carries GST, a tax inclusive price gives up one eleventh of itself, and the invoice line belongs on a revenue account at the GST on Income rate rather than on the account most of a clinic's clinical income sits on.
The test asks about the hour, not the job title
The list is worth reading for what it does carry. Psychology and social work are both listed health services, and so are occupational therapy, speech pathology and nursing. A person whose job title is counsellor may hold a registration or a membership in one of those, and where the hour they deliver is that listed service, performed by them as a recognised professional in it, the hour can be GST free. The word printed on the invoice is not what the test asks about.
- The hour is one of the services the GST Act lists, such as psychology or social work, rather than a service that resembles one.
- The practitioner is a recognised professional in that listed service, through a state or territory law, or through a national professional association where no such law exists.
- The listed profession accepts the service as necessary for the appropriate treatment of whoever engaged the practitioner.
Recognised has a definition of its own. Where no state or territory law covers the service, the ATO looks at membership of a professional association that relates to the listed service and sets the same registration requirements nationally. It also sets out what such an association normally looks like, down to admission criteria and enough members to be representative of the profession.
This is why two sessions delivered by the same person in the same room can carry different answers. It is a fact about the hour and about the person delivering it, which is what the accounting write ups on this query set out as a five question test and then leave counselling out of. Is psychology GST free takes the listed service side on its own.
Where a Medicare benefit is payable
The second route out of the default does not run through the list at all. Medical services are GST free, and a medical service is either a service for which a Medicare benefit is payable, or another service supplied by or on behalf of a medical practitioner or approved pathology practitioner that is generally accepted in the medical profession as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply.
For a counselling hour that matters in two places. Where a Medicare benefit is payable for the item, the hour is GST free on the medical services limb whatever the listed services page says about the profession. And the ATO adds a limit that is easy to miss: where the recipient of the supply is not the patient but another business or organisation, the supply is not GST free as a medical service unless a Medicare benefit is payable.
The one place the ATO names counselling
The third route is the NDIS one. A supply to a participant is GST free where all four of these hold: the participant has a plan in effect, the supply is of reasonable and necessary supports specified in the statement of supports in that plan, there is a written agreement between the supplier and the participant or another person, and the supply is covered by one of the two tables in the NDIS determination.
Table 1 holds supports that are GST free on their own. Table 2 holds supports that are GST free only where the item is also covered by one of three other determinations. The ATO's table of common examples names counselling twice: under table 2 item 2, specialised assessment and development of daily living and life skills, and again under table 2 item 4, behavioural support and therapeutic supports. In both rows the other determination is the Care Determination.
That is the strongest footing the word counselling has in the ATO's health guidance, and it is also the narrowest. It is an item level question, so whether a particular support matches one of those two items is left to the practice and its BAS agent. What a written service agreement has to say covers the third requirement.
Who engaged the practitioner
Two of the questions the practice forums keep asking are the same question, and the ATO answers it in one sentence.
The recipient of the supply is whoever engages the health practitioner to provide the service.3
A practitioner contracted by a clinic to see the clinic's patients is supplying the clinic, and a supply by a health practitioner to another business is not usually GST free. The clinic's own supply to the patient is then judged on its own terms. Turn the contract around, with the practitioner engaging the clinic for rooms and administration, and the practitioner supplies the patient while the clinic supplies rooms. The contract decides it, which is why the ATO says a contract should state who is contracting whom. GST on contractor invoices runs that split out.
There is one extension, and it is a closed list. Where a service is GST free supplied to the patient, it stays GST free when the practice contracts instead with an insurer, an operator of a statutory compensation scheme, a compulsory third party scheme operator, or an Australian Government agency. The supplier and that recipient can also agree not to treat the supplies as GST free. Any other third party sits outside it. An employer buying sessions for its staff is none of the four, which is the answer GST on EAP and corporate contracts is built around.
Where a counselling line lands in the canonical templates
None of the three canonical templates carries a counselling funding source or a counselling service category. A private counselling session therefore resolves through the private patient row, and all three templates post that row the same way.
The agreement across all three is the point. Account 400, Clinical services, private patients, at the GST Free Income tax rate. That row was written for the private consults an allied health practice mostly bills, which are listed services, and a practice whose counselling hours are taxable cannot take it on trust for those hours.
The fix is a row rather than a rate typed onto an invoice. A practice that bills both treatments needs somewhere for each of them to land, so a BAS is built from the accounts rather than from memory of which sessions carried GST. Are private patient consults GST free covers the row itself.
What one hour turns on
| Situation | Treatment on the revenue line | What has to hold |
|---|---|---|
| Counselling billed as counselling, private patient | Taxable | Counselling is not a listed health service and no other provision reaches the hour |
| An hour that is psychology or social work | Can be GST free | The practitioner is a recognised professional in that listed service and the profession accepts the service as necessary for appropriate treatment |
| A service for which a Medicare benefit is payable | GST free as a medical service | A benefit is actually payable for the item |
| An NDIS participant's support | Can be GST free | A plan in effect, the support in the statement of supports, a written agreement, and coverage by table 2 read with another determination |
| Sessions bought by an employer | Follows the recipient rule | The employer is not an insurer, a scheme operator or a government agency, so the third party extension does not reach it |
| Sessions billed to an insurer or a scheme operator | Follows the patient's own supply | The same service supplied to the patient would be GST free and the parties have not agreed otherwise |
The two ways a counselling line gets posted wrong
The first is a whole practice set to the GST free rate because clinical income usually is. A counselling hour that meets none of the three routes then sits at that rate, the activity statement understates GST collected, and the correction reaches back over every session posted the same way.
The second runs the other direction and costs the practice its own money. An hour that is a listed service, or an NDIS support that meets all four requirements, billed at the GST on Income rate gives up one eleventh of the fee that did not have to go. Neither error announces itself, because both produce an invoice that syncs and a deposit that reconciles.
A mixed week produces both on one invoice, carrying two lines at two rates with no single rate for the document. Supervision, report writing and training are separate supplies again, answered by GST on supervision and GST on training and workshops.
What Ledger Map does with a counselling line
Ledger Map holds one standing map for the practice, approved before anything syncs. A counselling line resolves through that map to an account and a tax rate, so the decision on this page is made once rather than invoice by invoice.
The product does not choose the treatment. The account and the rate come from the canonical template the practice starts from, the template's own reason travels with the row, and a line the map cannot resolve becomes a question rather than a quiet posting.
On the bank side each deposit is posted as one balanced document set, leaving one exact match in the bank feed for a person to accept. The clearing leg of that set posts BAS excluded in every canonical template, because it settles revenue the practice has already earned and posted. The tax rate question belongs to the revenue lines underneath it. How it works shows the map and the approval step.
Questions
What health services are exempt from GST in Australia?
The GST Act lists the services rather than the professions. A health service that is not a medical service is GST free only where it is one of the listed services, is performed by a recognised professional in that listed service, and is accepted in that profession as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply. The list runs from acupuncture and audiology through nursing, occupational therapy, psychology, physiotherapy and speech pathology to social work.
Which professionals are exempt from GST?
The GST Act does not exempt professions. It makes a listed health service GST free where a recognised professional in that listed service performs it and that profession accepts it as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply. That is why the same practitioner can bill a GST free hour and a taxable hour in the same week, and why the job title on an invoice does not settle the question.
Do counsellors charge GST when a third party hires them?
It depends who engaged them. The recipient of the supply is whoever engages the practitioner to provide the service, and a supply by a health practitioner to another business is not usually GST free. The exception is a closed list: an insurer, an operator of a statutory compensation scheme, a compulsory third party scheme operator, or an Australian Government agency, and only where the same service supplied to the patient would be GST free.
Is NDIS counselling GST free?
It can be. The ATO's own table of common examples names counselling under table 2 of the NDIS determination, read with the Care Determination. Reaching that still takes all four requirements: a plan in effect, the support specified in the statement of supports, a written agreement, and coverage by the determination. Whether a given support matches the table 2 item is a question for the practice and its BAS agent.
Which medical services are GST free in Australia?
A medical service is either a service for which a Medicare benefit is payable, or another service supplied by or on behalf of a medical practitioner or approved pathology practitioner that is generally accepted in the medical profession as necessary for appropriate treatment. Where the recipient is a business rather than the patient, the supply is not GST free as a medical service unless a Medicare benefit is payable.
Sources
Open questions
- Whether a particular counselling hour is a psychology or social work service is a fact about the practitioner's registration or association membership and about the service delivered. It is settled by the practice and its adviser, not by this page.
- An ATO legal database view on psychotherapy and psychoanalysis appeared in the search results as a snippet only. ato.gov.au refuses automated fetches and that page was not read in full, so it is not cited here and no position is taken on those two services.
- PACFA's page on advocacy for a GST exemption covering counsellors and psychotherapists returned HTTP 403 on 3 Sep 2026, so the advocacy position is reported nowhere on this page.
- Whether a given NDIS support matches table 2 item 2 or item 4 of the determination is an item level question. The ATO names counselling in both rows with the Care Determination, and the match itself is for the practice and its BAS agent.
- GST registration is a separate question from treatment. A practice under the registration turnover threshold charges no GST on a taxable session. No ATO registration page was read for this page, so no threshold figure appears above.
- The five ATO pages cited refuse automated fetches and were read through a signed-in browser on 3 Sep 2026. Each carries the last updated date it prints, and a reader checking the wording will need to open them the same way.
- GST and health: other health services
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
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- GST and health: medical services
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
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- GST and health: recipient of the supply
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
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- GST and health: supply of services through a third party
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- GST and health: National Disability Insurance Scheme
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 13 Jun 2024.
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- Is my psychology or allied health service GST free?
Allied Health Accounting. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 18 Sep 2024.
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Review
Last reviewed 3 Sep 2026 by Shane
General information for Australian allied health practices, not tax advice. Confirm a treatment with your BAS agent or accountant before you post it.
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