GST answers
GST on group sessions
A group session takes the same GST treatment as the one-on-one version of itself. It is GST-free where a recognised health professional delivers a listed health service as appropriate treatment for each person in the room, and those people engaged the practice. It turns taxable where another business buys the group, unless that buyer is an insurer, a scheme operator or a government agency.
Key facts
- What decides a group session
- Who delivered it, and who engaged the practice to deliver it. None of the three conditions counts the number of people in the room1
- The three conditions
- A listed health service, performed by a recognised health professional in that listed service, generally accepted in that profession as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply1
- Who the recipient of the supply is
- Whoever engages the practitioner to provide the service, which is often the patient and in some cases a business2
- A therapy group the clients booked
- GST-free on the same footing as the consult beside it, where a recognised practitioner delivers it to appropriate standards7
- A wellbeing group an employer bought
- Taxable where the employer engaged the practice, because a health service supplied to another business is not usually GST-free2
- Where the allied health template posts that group
- 409 Employee assistance and corporate contracts, at the GST on Income tax rate9
- Where the psychology template posts it
- 407 Employee assistance program contracts, at the same rate through its own row10
- A private patient group
- No canonical template gives it a row of its own, so it resolves on the private patient default, which all three post at GST Free Income9
- A non-listed NDIS group program
- Taxable in the NDIS template's own row, on 425 Group programs, non-listed supports, with the written agreement left for the reviewer to confirm11
Two facts decide a group session
A practice running its first group program usually asks whether GST changes because there are eight people in the room instead of one. It does not. Nothing in the health services test counts heads. What the test asks is who performed the service and who engaged the practice to perform it, and a group program can change the answer to the second question while leaving the first exactly where it was.
- Who delivers it. A listed health service performed by a recognised health professional in that listed service, the same question a one-on-one consult asks.
- Who buys it. The recipient of the supply is whoever engaged the practitioner, and a group is the easiest place for that to stop being the patient.
- What is being supplied. Treatment worked out for the people in the room, or a session of general content delivered to whoever booked the room.
The listed service test, read for a group
The ATO states the conditions for a health service that is not a medical service, and none of them mentions how many people receive it at once.
Health services that are not defined as medical services, are GST-free, if all the following apply: it is a listed health service; the service is performed by a recognised health professional in that listed health service or, under certain circumstances, their assistant; the service is generally accepted in that listed health profession as being necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply.1
Read the third condition slowly, because appropriate treatment is defined per person. The practitioner assesses that person's health, works out a course of action for them, and supplies a treatment their profession accepts as appropriate. A closed therapy group does that for each participant, so the condition is met for each of them separately. A drop-in session with no assessment behind it does not, and the group format is not the reason either way.
Who bought the group
This is the half the search results skip. A school books a social skills program for its students. An employer books wellbeing sessions for its staff. A community organisation books a parenting course. In each case a business engaged the practice, and the people in the room signed nothing.
The recipient of the supply is whoever engages the health practitioner to provide the service. In many cases, this will be the patient. However, in some cases, it will be a business. Supplies of services by a health practitioner to another business are not usually GST-free.2
There is one carve out and it is narrow. Under s38-60 a service that would be GST-free to the patient stays GST-free when the practice contracts with an insurer, a statutory compensation scheme operator, a compulsory third party scheme operator or an Australian Government agency, and those parties may agree not to treat the supplies that way. A private employer is none of them, and neither is an independent school, a law firm or a community group. The agency limb reads wider than the word suggests: the ATO's own worked example of it is a State body contracting a provider to treat individuals, so a group a government school or a state department contracts for listed treatment of identified students is worth putting to the practice's BAS agent rather than coding taxable on sight.
The group row the templates spell out
So two of the three canonical templates carry a taxable group row, and they carry it where the buyer is a business rather than where the format is a group. The allied health template gives an employer bought group its own row on the employee assistance account at the GST on Income rate, and the psychology template does the same on its own. Neither is saying anything about groups; both are saying the recipient was a business.
The third row on the card is not a third opinion about groups. The NDIS template holds no employee assistance row, so the cascade runs past the funding source and lands on the practice default. A line resolving there has told the practice something useful: the funding source did not match, which is a question rather than a posting. The EAP contracts page and the EAP funder page carry the recipient test.
The group row that does not exist
Here is the part a chart of accounts hides. Across all three canonical templates, a private patient group has no row of its own. The categories that override the private default are reports and training in every template, supervision and products in two of them, and group sessions in none of them. So a private clinical group resolves on the private patient default, which every template posts at the GST Free Income rate. The missing row is the answer.
The allied health template's chart does carry account 425 Group sessions at the GST Free Income rate, and no revenue row in that template posts anything to it. That is a reporting account rather than a treatment decision: the rate matches the private default either way, and reaching the separate account takes an item override on the group item. A practice that wants group revenue on its own line asks for that override.
When a group becomes a workshop
The boundary that actually bites is not the group, it is the line between treatment and a short course. One Australian accounting note written for psychologists puts both sides a paragraph apart: group sessions are GST-free, and speaking and seminar fees are taxable because conferences, short courses and seminars are not educational courses in the GST sense. A psychoeducation series sits between those two sentences, and the document does not join them.
Group Sessions: This is GST free as long as the sessions are provided by a recognised practitioner and that the sessions follow the appropriate procedures and standards.7
What separates the two in practice is whether each participant was assessed and is being treated, whether the practice holds notes for each of them, and who paid. A closed therapy group of assessed clients, billed to those clients, reads as treatment. An open evening on managing anxiety, sold as tickets, reads as a seminar. The sources read here do not settle the middle, so it sits in the open questions rather than becoming a rule here. Training and workshops takes the taxable side.
NDIS group programs are a separate test
An NDIS group program does not get to stop at the listed service test. A supply to a participant is GST-free where the participant has a plan in effect, the support is specified in the statement of supports, a written agreement exists, and the support is covered by one of the tables in the NDIS Determination. A therapy group delivered by a listed professional clears the listed service test anyway. A life skills or community access group does not, so it needs all four.
That card is the clearest picture of why the template a practice starts from matters. The NDIS template treats a non-listed group program as taxable by default and asks its reviewer to confirm the written agreement per support item. The other two templates were not asked, so they answer with their NDIS plan-managed default at the GST-free rate. Non-listed NDIS supports works through the four part test.
One group program, two rates on one invoice
| The group | Who engaged the practice | Where the templates post it | The Xero tax rate on that row |
|---|---|---|---|
| A therapy group of private clients | The clients in the room | The private patient clinical account, through the funding source default | GST Free Income |
| A therapy group under a health fund, WorkCover, TAC or DVA | An insurer or a scheme operator, under s38-60 | That funder's clinical account in the allied health template, a default row elsewhere | GST Free Income |
| A wellbeing group an employer bought | The employer or its employee assistance provider | 409 in the allied health template, 407 in the psychology template | GST on Income |
| A non-listed NDIS group program | The participant, under a written agreement | 425 Group programs, non-listed supports in the NDIS template | GST on Income |
| A public workshop or seminar sold as tickets | Whoever bought the ticket | The training and workshops account | GST on Income |
A program that mixes those rows on one invoice is the case worth planning for. A funded group where the therapy hours are GST-free and the workbooks participants take home are not puts two rates on one document, which Xero handles line by line and a monthly summary journal does not. Invoices with GST-free and taxable lines covers the line level version.
What it costs to get wrong
The two errors are not symmetrical. Charging no GST on an employer bought group understates GST on sales, so the shortfall has to be corrected once it is found; whether the practice can go back to the employer depends on what the contract or the quoted fee says about GST. Charging GST on a clinical group costs the other way. The practice remits one eleventh of a fee that carried no GST, and getting it back takes an amended activity statement.
What Ledger Map does with it
Ledger Map holds one standing map for the practice, approved before anything syncs, and the group item is mapped once: against the funding source it is billed under and the group category, with an item override where the practice wants the group on its own account. Every session on that item resolves the same way afterwards. When the money lands, the payment is posted as one balanced document set per deposit, which leaves one exact match in the bank feed.
The accounts and the tax rates above are read out of the canonical template the practice starts from rather than chosen by the product. A group item the map cannot place becomes a question with the options laid out, and the practice answers it before anything is written to Xero. The other GST answers carry the same treatment record for every funding source in the mix, and how it works shows where the approval sits.
Questions
Is GST charged on group therapy sessions in Australia?
GST is not charged where the group is a listed health service delivered by a recognised health professional as appropriate treatment for the people in the room, and those people are the ones who engaged the practice. It is charged where somebody else bought the group, such as a private employer, an independent school or a community organisation, because a health service supplied to a business is not usually GST-free. A government agency buying the same group can fall inside the third party carve out instead.
Are medical services GST-free?
A medical service is GST-free where a Medicare benefit is payable for it, or where it is another service supplied by or on behalf of a medical practitioner or approved pathology practitioner that is generally accepted in the medical profession as being necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply. Allied health practices rarely make that kind of supply. Their groups are tested as other health services instead, which is the three condition test this page works through.
Is GST charged on consulting services?
Ordinary consulting to a business carries GST. That is the distinction a group program can blur: a clinical group delivered to patients who engaged the practice is a health service, while the same practitioner running a session for an employer is supplying that business. The words on the invoice do not decide it, the contract does.
Does an employer paying for the group change the answer?
An employer paying for the group can change the answer, and in the canonical templates it does. Two of the three carry a group row of their own for an employer bought session and post it at the GST on Income rate. An insurer or a compensation scheme operator paying under s38-60 is treated differently: a service that would be GST-free to the patient stays GST-free when the practice contracts with them.
Is an NDIS group program GST-free?
A group delivered by a professional in a listed health service is tested the same way a consult is. A group that is not a listed health service, such as a life skills or community access program, needs the full NDIS test: a plan in effect, the support in the statement of supports, a written agreement, and coverage by one of the tables in the NDIS Determination. The NDIS template treats it as taxable until those are confirmed.
Where should group revenue sit in the chart of accounts?
The allied health template carries a group sessions account at the same tax rate as private consults, and nothing routes to it automatically, so a practice that wants group income reported separately sets an item override on the group item. A practice that does not care about the split leaves the group posting with the consults at the same rate.
Sources
Open questions
- The ATO issues register entry on health services provided to more than one person at the same time was not read. The live page refused with an HTTP 403 on 3 Sep 2026 and the session's verified copies of the ATO GST and health pages do not cover it, so it is cited unverified and no key fact rests on it.
- Where a psychoeducation group stops being treatment and starts being a short course is not settled by any source read here. The accounting note quoted above puts the GST-free group and the taxable seminar in the same document and leaves the middle alone.
- A DVA fee schedule appears in the search results for this question with a GST-free group therapy line item and a session limit. The schedule itself was not read on this pass, so no figure from it appears on this page.
- Whether a compensation scheme has agreed with a provider not to treat its supplies as GST-free is a per scheme question the ATO leaves to the parties, and it reaches a group session the same way it reaches a consult.
- Group supervision of other practitioners is not a group session in the sense this page uses it. Supervision is a grey area the templates flag in their own review checklists, and this page leaves it there.
- Other health services, GST and health
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- Recipient of the supply, GST and health
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- Appropriate treatment, GST and health
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- Supply of services through a third party, GST and health
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- National Disability Insurance Scheme, GST and health
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 13 Jun 2024.
primary
- Medical services, GST and health
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
- Goods and services tax for self employed psychologists
Sheridans Accountants and Financial Planners. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated Jul 2022.
secondary
- Health industry partnership issues register, health services provided to more than one person at the same time
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026.
unverified
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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