I drive rideshare and deliver food on the side — do I have to declare it, and does the platform tell the ATO?

You picked up a bit of platform work to make the week stretch further — a few late shifts driving for Uber or DiDi, or most weeknights out on the bike for Uber Eats and Menulog. The money arrives in your account in small, irregular amounts, so it never quite feels like a wage. And somewhere in the back of your mind is the hope that a side gig this small might slip under the radar. That hope is exactly where a lot of otherwise careful people get themselves into trouble.

The rule doesn't care that it's a side gig

All the money you earn from ride-sourcing or delivery is assessable income, and it has to go on your tax return — full stop. It doesn't matter that it's part-time, that it's on top of a regular job, or that the amounts are small. When you drive for a platform you're treated as running your own business as a sole trader: you report what you earned, you claim your legitimate costs, and you pay tax on the profit.

One point trips people up here. The $18,200 tax-free threshold applies to your total taxable income for the year, not to each source separately. So if you already have a full-time job, your side earnings sit on top of that income and can be taxed from the first dollar — and because the platform doesn't withhold PAYG tax for you the way an employer does, that tax can land as a bill at the end of the year rather than something already taken care of.

The platforms now report you — the SERR

The reason 'they won't know' no longer works is a system called the Sharing Economy Reporting Regime (SERR). Under it, the platforms themselves report your transactions straight to the ATO. Ride-sourcing and short-term accommodation platforms have been reporting since 1 July 2023; from 1 July 2024 it expanded to cover food delivery, task-based services and asset sharing as well. The platforms report twice a year, and the ATO matches that data against what you put on your return.

In practice that means the ATO often already has a figure for what you earned before you lodge. If your return leaves it off, or reports less than the platform did, that mismatch is precisely what generates a 'please explain' letter. The safest return isn't the one that hides the income — it's the one that matches the data and claims your costs properly.

The GST trap that catches rideshare drivers

This is the part most people get wrong, and it splits along a line that isn't obvious. If you carry passengers — Uber, DiDi, taxi — you must have an ABN and be registered for GST from the day you start, regardless of how much you earn. There is no $75,000 turnover threshold for ride-sourcing; the only exception is if you're an employee. GST then applies to every dollar of your fares, so a slice of what feels like your income is actually GST you have to set aside and pay.

Pure food delivery is different. Dropping off meals for Uber Eats, Menulog or DoorDash isn't ride-sourcing, so the special rule doesn't apply and the normal GST rules do — you generally only have to register for GST once your turnover reaches the $75,000 threshold. The catch is the mix: the moment you do any passenger rides alongside the delivery, the ride-sourcing rule pulls you in and you need to be registered from dollar one. Assuming the delivery threshold protects your rideshare work is a common and expensive mistake.

The other belief that gets people caught

The second trap is 'it's under the tax-free threshold, so there's nothing to do.' Even where no tax ends up being payable, the income still has to be declared — and treating it as invisible usually means the deductions get missed too. Platform work comes with real, claimable costs: fuel, a share of your phone and data, car running costs, platform service fees, and depreciation on your equipment. Left unclaimed, you can end up paying more than you actually owe.

For the car itself, you generally choose between the cents-per-kilometre method and a logbook — the same choice we walk through in our piece on claiming car expenses — and either way you can only claim the work-related share, backed by records. The ATO expects you to keep those records for five years, so a running note of your shifts, kilometres and expenses through the year is far easier than reconstructing it the night before you lodge.

So the practical version is ordinary. Get your ABN and, if you carry passengers, your GST registration sorted from the start; keep a simple record of what you earn and spend through the year; reconcile your figure against what the platform reported before you lodge; and claim the costs you're genuinely entitled to. If an earlier year's return left platform income off, correcting it voluntarily generally works out far better than waiting for the data-match to reach you.

This is general information current as at July 2026, not advice for your situation — how these rules apply depends on which platforms you use, whether you carry passengers, and how the work sits alongside the rest of your income. If your side gig has quietly grown into real money, or you're not sure whether you should be registered for GST, that is exactly the thing worth sorting before you lodge rather than after. That is what our sole trader and side business service is for.