GST answers
Is allied health GST-free?
Usually yes, when three things hold together. A private allied health consult is GST free where the service is one of the health services the GST Act lists, the practitioner is a recognised professional in that listed service, and the profession accepts the service as necessary for appropriate treatment of the person who engaged them. Reports, supervision, training and product sales on the same invoice usually carry GST.
Key facts
- 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 appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply1
- How closed the list is
- The service has to be one of the listed services and cannot just be similar to one of them1
- The separate medical services route
- A service for which a Medicare benefit is payable is a medical service, and medical services are GST free on that basis rather than on the listed services basis2
- What appropriate treatment means
- Assessing the patient, working out a course of action to preserve, restore or improve their wellbeing, and supplying a treatment the profession accepts as appropriate, including preventative care and routine check-ups3
- Who the recipient is
- Whoever engages the practitioner to provide the service, which is often the patient and is sometimes a business4
- What the canonical templates post
- Every canonical template sends a private patient consult to account 400, Clinical services, private patients, at the Xero tax rate labelled GST Free Income7
- The lines that carry the other rate
- The canonical allied health template gives reports, supervision, training and products rows of their own under the same private patient funding source, each at the GST on Income rate7
The three conditions, read in order
The GST Act does not make allied health GST free as a sector. It makes a supply GST free, and a health service that is not a medical service reaches that treatment only where three conditions hold at once. It has to be a listed health service. It has to be performed by a recognised health professional in that listed health service, or under set conditions by their assistant. And it has to be generally accepted in that listed profession as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply.
Reading them in that order matters, because each fails differently. The first is a question about the service, the second about the person delivering it, the third about the particular appointment. A practice that answers only the first has answered the easiest third of the test.
The list is closed
There are 21 listed health services, and the ATO writes them as services rather than as job titles. Being close to one of them does not help.
The service must be one of the listed services and cannot just be similar to one of these services.1
The ATO's own worked example is a remedial massage therapist who belongs to a national association. Her work may resemble physiotherapy, and remedial massage is still not physiotherapy, so it is not a listed service. The same sentence is why is exercise physiology GST-free and is remedial massage GST-free both answer no by default, while an occupational therapy or speech pathology hour beside them clears that first condition.
What makes a practitioner recognised
A recognised health professional is a person registered, permitted or approved under a state or territory law to provide the listed health service. Where no such law exists, the test moves to membership of a professional association that relates to the listed service and has the same registration requirements nationally.
- A state or territory registration is the first path, and where such a law covers the listed service it settles who is recognised.
- Where there is no registration law, a national professional association can stand in, but a territory based association cannot.
- The association has to be representative of the profession, so a small specialist subgroup body does not carry a member across.
- A practitioner recognised in more than one listed service supplies GST free work to the extent that it is those listed services.
This is the condition a practice cannot answer from the appointment book. It is answered from the practitioner's registration or membership, and it is settled once per practitioner rather than once per invoice.
Appropriate treatment is a low bar with a hard edge
The third condition asks whether the practitioner used their professional skills to assess the patient's health, work out a course of action to preserve, restore or improve their physical or psychological wellbeing as far as their training allows, and supply a treatment the profession generally accepts as appropriate for that patient. Preventative medicine and routine check-ups are included, so a screening appointment is not knocked out for being routine.
The hard edge is at the other end. Running a workshop is not treatment of a patient, so it fails this condition before the list is reached, and the templates give those hours an account of their own. Supervision is read the same way by default. The project's own research also records an ATO interpretative decision reading a narrow supervision fact pattern the other way, so both readings stay open at the foot of this page.
Where a private consult posts
The answer only becomes useful when it lands somewhere. All three canonical templates hold their own row for a private patient, and all three send it to the same place at the same rate, so nothing here is reached by a fallback row.
That single card is the piece the search results leave out. They settle the treatment and stop, which leaves a bookkeeper guessing at the revenue account and the Xero tax rate. The rate on this row is a rate on a revenue line rather than a property of the practice.
Four categories cut out of the default
A private patient row is a default, and a default is only as good as the exceptions filed under it. Under the same private patient funding source, the allied health and psychology templates each give four categories a row of their own, and the plan managed template gives two. Those rows are where a practice's own invoices break the rule the search results stop at.
| Category | Why it leaves the default | Where the canonical templates send it |
|---|---|---|
| Reports | The ATO writes its report rule for a medical practitioner's report: GST free only where a Medicare benefit is payable for it, or where it is an ordinary and natural part of the GST free medical service | Account 420 at the GST on Income rate in all three templates. Two of them call it Reports, assessments and medico-legal and the plan managed one calls it Reports, assessments and progress notes for third parties |
| Supervision | Supervising another practitioner is treated as a service to that practitioner rather than treatment of a patient, a default the open questions below qualify | Account 421, Supervision, training and workshops, at the GST on Income rate in the allied health and psychology templates. The plan managed template holds no supervision row, so the hour falls to account 400 at the GST Free Income rate |
| Training | A workshop or seminar is not appropriate treatment of a patient, whoever pays for it | Account 421 at the GST on Income rate in all three templates. Two of them call it Supervision, training and workshops and the plan managed one calls it Training and capacity-building workshops |
| Products | Goods a patient takes home are taxable unless they are a necessary part of the service supplied at the same time and place, or the item qualifies separately as a listed medical aid or appliance | Account 422, Products and equipment sales, in the allied health template and account 424, Products, in the psychology one, both at the GST on Income rate. The plan managed template holds no product row, so a product falls to account 400 at the GST Free Income rate |
Where the three part company is worth reading twice. A practice on the plan managed template that bills a private supervision hour or sells a product gets the account 400 posting at the GST Free Income rate, because that template holds no row for either. One invoice, GST free and taxable lines walks what a mixed invoice looks like on a single document.
Who engaged the practitioner
The third condition names the recipient of the supply, and the ATO defines that as whoever engages the practitioner to provide the service. Usually that is the patient. Sometimes it is a business, and a supply by a practitioner to another business is not usually GST free.
The ATO's clinic example splits one appointment into two supplies. Where a clinic contracts a practitioner to treat the clinic's patient, the practitioner's supply to the clinic is not usually GST free, while the clinic's supply to the patient is, if the requirements are met. Where the practitioner instead contracts the clinic for rooms and administration, the clinic's supply to the practitioner is taxable and the practitioner's supply to the patient is GST free. The ATO says only the contract settles which way round it is, which is why GST on contractor practitioner invoices is a separate question from this one.
Goods handed over in the room
Goods follow the service only while they stay inside it. A supply of goods is GST free where it is both a necessary part of providing the GST free health service and supplied at the same time and place, and the goods are either specific to treating that patient's illness or disability or essential for treating them during that consultation.
The ATO's example is a bandage applied during a GST free consultation, which is GST free, against the extra bandages, dressings and antiseptics the patient takes home, which are not. Optometrists and pharmacists have their own rules, and so do herbal medicine practitioners and naturopaths. A resistance band sold at the desk sits outside that test. A brace can take a second route, because a medical aid or appliance listed in the GST Act is GST free where it is specifically designed for people with an illness or disability and is not widely used by people without one. That is why the allied health template posts products taxable by default and asks the practice to set an item level override for the aids that qualify.
The deposit side of a GST free week
A week of private consults still settles as a handful of bank lines: a card terminal batch, a health fund settlement, a transfer from a plan manager. None of those deposits says anything about the tax rate on the sessions inside it.
The two legs stay separate postings. A clearing leg posts BAS excluded in every canonical template, because it holds a settlement the practice has already earned and posted as revenue. The tax rate question belongs to the revenue lines underneath, which is where the three conditions on this page are answered.
What Ledger Map does with it
Ledger Map holds one standing map for the practice, approved before anything syncs. A private patient line resolves through that map to an account and a tax rate, and the category rows live in the same map, so a report or a product is decided once rather than invoice by invoice.
Nothing here is a treatment the product chose. 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 silent posting. Each deposit is then posted as one balanced document set, leaving one exact match in the bank feed for a person to accept. How it works shows the map and the approval step.
Questions
Are medical services GST-free?
Yes, and they get there by their own route. A medical service is either a service for which a Medicare benefit is payable, or any other 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.
Which allied health services are on the ATO's list?
The GST Act names services, not professions. Occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, speech pathology, speech therapy, dietary, podiatry, chiropractic, osteopathy, chiropody, optometry, nursing, social work, audiology or audiometry, acupuncture, naturopathy, herbal medicine, dental, pharmacy, paramedical and Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander health services are the listed ones. A service has to be one of those and cannot just be similar to one.
Is occupational therapy GST-free?
Occupational therapy is on the list, so the first condition is met. The other two still have to hold: the hour has to be performed by a recognised professional in occupational therapy, and it has to be generally accepted in that profession as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the person who engaged them. Being on the list settles one condition of the three.
Do I charge GST on a report for a private patient?
All three canonical templates give reports a row of their own at the GST on Income rate, because a report's treatment turns on its purpose and its recipient rather than on the funder. The ATO writes its own report rule for a medical practitioner's report: it is GST free only where a Medicare benefit is payable for it, or where it is an ordinary and natural part of the GST free medical service. The category is decided in the standing map rather than on the invoice, and a report written for an insurer or a court sits further from the treatment than one written for the patient's own care.
Does a GST free consult mean the practice is not registered for GST?
No. GST free is a treatment of a supply, and registration turns on turnover, so a practice whose clinical income is entirely GST free can still be registered and still lodge a BAS. That is also why the taxable categories matter: they are the lines that put an amount at 1A rather than only at G1 total sales.
Read next
Sources
Open questions
- The GST registration turnover threshold is not printed here. The ATO's registering for GST page returned HTTP 403 on 3 Sep 2026 and no signed in copy was captured, so no threshold figure appears above even though several of the top results lead with one.
- Supervision of a private patient practice is unresolved and both readings are live. The allied health and psychology templates post it taxable, the plan managed template holds no supervision row at all, and two of those accounts carry a note saying so: one bookkeeping source treats supervision as taxable, while an ATO interpretative decision snippet reads supervision of provisionally registered psychologists as not carrying GST in a specific fact pattern. Which fact pattern a practice is in is a question for its BAS agent.
- Whether a product sold at the desk is taxable is open in the same way. The templates hold products taxable by default and ask for an item level override, because a medical aid or appliance listed in the GST Act can be GST free on its own footing. Which of a practice's own products qualify is a question for the practice.
- Whether a given practitioner is a recognised professional in a listed service is a fact about their registration or their association membership. The test is stated above and the answer belongs to the practice.
- NDIS report writing, therapy assistant supports and gift vouchers are recorded as unresolved in the project's own research. None of them is answered here, and each belongs to the page that owns it.
- Every ato.gov.au page refuses an automated fetch. The six ATO pages cited here were read in full on 3 Sep 2026 through a signed in browser session. Five carry a last updated date of 12 June 2024 and the medical aids and appliances page carries 8 October 2025. 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: appropriate treatment
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: goods supplied as part of a GST-free health service
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
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- GST and health: medical aids and appliances
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 8 Oct 2025.
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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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