Which professionals are exempt from GST?

No profession is exempt as a whole. The GST Act lists health services rather than exempt occupations, so the same practitioner can make a GST-free supply and a taxable one in the same week. A psychologist's consult with a client is GST-free. That psychologist's seminar fee is taxable, because the audience was not assessed and treated.

What services are exempt from GST in Australia?

The term in the GST Act is GST-free rather than exempt. For an allied health practice it means a listed health service, performed by a recognised health professional in that service, generally accepted in that profession as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply. Training, workshops and seminars fall outside that, and a service a practitioner supplies to another business is not usually GST-free either.

Which services have 5% GST?

No Australian service carries that rate. Australian GST runs one rate on a taxable supply, and the alternative is a GST-free supply rather than a reduced rate, so a workshop fee here is either taxable or GST-free. The rate in the question belongs to another country's system.

Is a workshop an educational course for GST purposes?

A workshop is not an educational course on the reading in the sources here. Conferences, short courses and seminars sit outside the definition of an educational course, so fees charged for speaking engagements or seminars are subject to GST. An accredited qualification delivered by a registered training organisation is a different supply, and this page does not answer it.

Is training GST-free when an NDIS plan pays for it?

The templates that were asked say no. Two of the three canonical templates carry an explicit taxable row for scheme funded training, on the same account as private training. The third holds no training row for the scheme, so a plan funded training line falls through to its NDIS plan managed default and posts GST-free, which is a gap in that template rather than a second opinion.

GST answers

GST on training and workshops

A workshop, seminar or training day a practice runs is taxable. The condition it fails is appropriate treatment: nobody in the room was assessed and no course of action was worked out for them. The presenter's registration is a different condition and does not carry it. Where a business commissioned the training, that is a second reason of its own.

Key facts

The condition a workshop fails: Appropriate treatment. Being a recognised health professional in a listed health service is a separate condition, and a registered practitioner presenting a seminar still meets that one²
What appropriate treatment asks: That the practitioner assessed a patient's health, worked out a course of action for that patient, and supplied a treatment their profession accepts as appropriate for them¹
Who the recipient is when a business books the training: Whoever engages the health practitioner to provide the service, which in some cases is a business rather than the patient, and services a practitioner supplies to another business are not usually GST-free⁴
The education reading that does not hold: Conferences, short courses and seminars sit outside the definition of an educational course, so the fees charged for them are subject to GST⁶
Where the canonical templates post training: Account 421 at the GST on Income rate, through a row of its own in every one of the three⁸
How the three charts name that account: Supervision, training and workshops in the allied health and psychology charts, and Training and capacity-building workshops in the NDIS chart⁹
Training the NDIS funds: The NDIS template gives it a taxable row of its own on the same account, even where the scheme funds it as capacity building⁹
What a plan funded item has to clear: A plan in effect, a reasonable and necessary support specified in the plan's statement of supports, a written agreement, and a supply covered by the NDIS Determination⁵
The fallback that reads the other way: A template holding no training row for the scheme answers a plan funded training line from its NDIS plan managed default, at the GST Free Income rate¹⁰
Books and materials sold to attendees: Subject to GST, and worth a line of their own on the invoice⁶

The condition a workshop fails

A practice pricing its first workshop usually checks the wrong half of the test. The presenter is a registered physiotherapist or psychologist. The topic is clinical. The room is full of people who came because of their health. So the fee gets coded the way the consult fees are coded, and the error is invisible until a BAS review finds it. The practitioner's registration is not where a workshop comes apart.

A health professional is supplying appropriate treatment when they use their professional skills to: assess a patient's health; work out a course of action to preserve, restore or improve the patient's physical or psychological wellbeing, as far as the practitioner's training allows; supply a treatment that is generally accepted by their profession as being appropriate for the patient.¹

Read who each verb is about. A patient is assessed. A course of action is worked out for that patient. A treatment is supplied that suits that patient. A seminar audience is none of those things: nobody was assessed at the door, the content was written before anyone booked, and the same material runs whoever turns up. The registration is intact and the supply is still not treatment.

Three things that do not make a workshop GST-free

The presenter's registration. Being a recognised health professional in a listed health service is one condition of three, and it is the one a workshop meets comfortably.
The subject matter. A seminar on managing chronic pain is clinical content, and content is not treatment of the people hearing it.
The room it runs in. A workshop held in the practice's own treatment space takes the same treatment as one held in a hired hall.

This is the part the search results skip. They set out the conditions for a GST-free health service without saying which one a training day fails, so a practice sees its own profession on the listed services list, sees its own practitioner at the front of the room, and stops there.

It is not an educational course either

The second reading a practice reaches for is education. The workshop teaches something, education can be GST-free, so the fee looks GST-free by another route. The accounting note written for Australian psychologists closes that reading in one line, and it is the only plain statement of it in the whole result set.

Speaking and Seminar Fees: Educational courses are GST free but conferences, short courses and seminars are not covered by the definition of educational courses. Therefore, any fees that you charge for speaking engagements or seminars are subject to GST.⁶

So both escapes close. The session is not treatment, because nobody in the room was assessed. It is not an educational course, because a conference, a short course and a seminar are outside that definition. An accredited qualification delivered by a registered training organisation is a different supply and a different question, and this page does not reach it.

Who commissioned the training

A second reason arrives whenever somebody other than the attendees pays. An employer books a manual handling day for its warehouse staff. A school books a session for its teachers. Another practice books a professional development morning for its clinicians. In each case a business engaged the practice, and the people in the room signed nothing.

Medical and other health services supplied to any other third party are not GST-free.³

The carve out at s38-60 does not stretch to any of those buyers. It covers an insurer, an operator of a statutory compensation scheme, a compulsory third party scheme operator and an Australian Government agency, and even those parties can agree not to treat the supplies as GST-free. An employer is none of the four, and neither is a school or another practice. What makes this worth stating separately is that it stands on its own: if somebody argued a particular program was treatment, the buyer would answer the question again. EAP contracts carries the same test for clinical work.

The one row all three templates agree on

Most keys in the derived treatment set need reconciling, because the three canonical templates number their charts differently and one template's silence is another template's explicit row. Training is not one of them. All three give training a row of its own, and all three post it to the same account at the same Xero rate.

Plate 1Training as every canonical template posts it, which is the same account code at the same rate.

The card names the account differently in each chart, and that is a reporting choice rather than a treatment difference. Two charts file training beside supervision. The NDIS chart files it as capacity building work. For the activity statement, what matters is the code and the rate, and those match across the three.

Training a plan pays for

The scheme funded version is where the templates stop agreeing, and the reason is not a disagreement about training. The NDIS funds capacity building supports, so a practice delivering a parent training series under a plan reasonably asks whether the plan's funding changes the answer.

Plate 2Plan funded training, and the one template that answers it from a funding source default instead.

Two of the templates were asked about scheme funded training and answered taxable. The third was not asked. Its NDIS plan managed default answers instead, at the GST-free rate, and the resulting posting looks exactly like a therapy session. That is the trap: the same workshop, billed to the same plan, posts at the opposite rate depending on which template the practice started from. Whether a capacity building item can pass all four parts of the test at s38-38 is a genuine question, and it sits in the open questions rather than being settled here. Non-listed NDIS supports works through the four parts.

One workshop, several lines

How a training line resolves, by who engaged the practice and which template the practice started from⁸⁹¹⁰⁶

The line on the invoice	Who engaged the practice	Where the templates post it	The Xero tax rate
A public workshop or seminar sold as tickets	Whoever bought the ticket	The training row, in all three templates	GST on Income
A training day a school or an employer commissioned	A business	The training row, with the recipient test pointing the same way	GST on Income
A capacity building workshop an NDIS plan pays for	The participant, under a written agreement	The training row, in the two templates that carry one for the scheme	GST on Income
The same plan funded workshop, under the template with no training row for the scheme	The participant	The NDIS plan managed clinical account, reached by the funding source default	GST Free Income
Books and materials the attendees take home	Whoever bought them	A products line in the charts that carry one, rather than the training line	GST on Income
A closed therapy group the participants themselves booked	The people in the room	No template gives that a training row, so it resolves on the funding source it is billed under	Whatever that funding source resolves to

The last row is the boundary with clinical work, and group sessions holds it. The rows above it are the ones that put two rates on one document: a funded program where the therapy hours are GST-free and the workshop half is not, or a training day invoiced with its materials. Xero handles that 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 do not cost the same. A workshop coded at the GST-free rate understates GST on sales, and the shortfall falls on the practice; whether it can go back for the money depends on what the quote or the contract said about GST. A clinical session coded taxable costs the other way, because the practice remits one eleventh of a fee that carried no GST and getting it back takes an amended activity statement.

Workshops make the first error harder to unwind than a consult does. A training fee is usually invoiced to a business, or quoted as a flat price with no mention of tax, so the correction is a credit note and a reissued invoice rather than a quiet adjustment.

Why supervision shares the account

Two of the three charts put supervision and training on one account, and the logic is the same for both: each is a service to somebody who is not a patient of the practice. A supervisee is a practitioner. A workshop attendee is an audience. Neither was assessed and treated.

The two are not equally settled, though. Training is stated plainly in the sources read here. Supervision is not: the corpus records an ATO identification snippet pointing the other way for provisionally registered psychologists in a specific fact pattern, which is why the templates flag it for review. This page does not settle supervision, and GST on clinical supervision is where that question lives. A practice that wants workshop income reported apart from supervision income asks for an item override.

What Ledger Map does with it

Ledger Map holds one standing map for the practice, approved before anything syncs, and the workshop item is mapped once: against the funding source it is billed under and the training category, with an item override where the practice wants workshops on their 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 rates above are read out of the canonical template the practice starts from rather than chosen by the product. A training 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

Which professionals are exempt from GST?
No profession is exempt as a whole. The GST Act lists health services rather than exempt occupations, so the same practitioner can make a GST-free supply and a taxable one in the same week. A psychologist's consult with a client is GST-free. That psychologist's seminar fee is taxable, because the audience was not assessed and treated.
What services are exempt from GST in Australia?
The term in the GST Act is GST-free rather than exempt. For an allied health practice it means a listed health service, performed by a recognised health professional in that service, generally accepted in that profession as necessary for the appropriate treatment of the recipient of the supply. Training, workshops and seminars fall outside that, and a service a practitioner supplies to another business is not usually GST-free either.
Which services have 5% GST?
No Australian service carries that rate. Australian GST runs one rate on a taxable supply, and the alternative is a GST-free supply rather than a reduced rate, so a workshop fee here is either taxable or GST-free. The rate in the question belongs to another country's system.
Is a workshop an educational course for GST purposes?
A workshop is not an educational course on the reading in the sources here. Conferences, short courses and seminars sit outside the definition of an educational course, so fees charged for speaking engagements or seminars are subject to GST. An accredited qualification delivered by a registered training organisation is a different supply, and this page does not answer it.
Is training GST-free when an NDIS plan pays for it?
The templates that were asked say no. Two of the three canonical templates carry an explicit taxable row for scheme funded training, on the same account as private training. The third holds no training row for the scheme, so a plan funded training line falls through to its NDIS plan managed default and posts GST-free, which is a gap in that template rather than a second opinion.

Sources

Open questions

Whether a seminar is a supply of the listed health service at all was not settled by the sources read here. The ATO says a service has to be one of the listed services and cannot just be similar to one, so a reader could argue a workshop fails that condition too. This page rests on the appropriate treatment condition instead, which the cached ATO wording states in full.
Where a psychoeducation series stops being treatment and starts being a short course is not settled by any source read here. The accounting booklet quoted above holds both sides, four paragraphs apart, and does not join them.
Whether a capacity building training item funded in an NDIS plan can pass all four parts of the test at s38-38 is left open. Two canonical templates treat scheme funded training as taxable and the ATO's NDIS guidance is written for supports rather than for training specifically, so both readings are on the page and neither is settled here.
The ATO issues register entry on health services provided to more than one person at the same time was not read. The live path refused an automated fetch on 3 Sep 2026, and the search snippet for it, which says programs targeted at general health only will not be GST-free, is the whole of what this pass saw. Cited unverified, with no key fact resting on it.
The research corpus records an ATO position that attendance at a seminar providing general information is not treatment. The page carrying that wording was not reached on this pass, so this page states the accounting booklet's version instead.
Supervision shares the training account in two of the three charts and is a grey area the corpus leaves open, including an ATO identification snippet pointing the other way for provisionally registered psychologists. This page does not settle it.
Whether the practice is registered for GST at all sits outside this page. The accounting booklet states the $75,000 turnover threshold as at July 2022, and how GST-free clinical income counts toward that threshold was not verified on this pass.

Appropriate treatment, GST and health
Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 12 Jun 2024.
primary
Other health services, 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
Recipient of the supply, 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
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
Allied health by funding source, the canonical template
Ledger Map. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026.
primary
NDIS provider, plan managed, the canonical template
Ledger Map. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026.
primary
Psychology with booking deposits, the canonical template
Ledger Map. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026.
primary

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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