How to Write a Tax Invoice in Australia: Every Field, Explained

Most sole traders write their first invoice by copying one they found online, without knowing which fields the ATO actually requires and which are just habit. That gap shows up later: a client's bookkeeper bounces the invoice, a GST credit gets rejected, or a slow-paying customer has an excuse to sit on the money a bit longer.

A correct Australian tax invoice needs the words "Tax Invoice", your identity and ABN, the date, a description of what you sold with quantity and price, and the GST amount, shown per line or as a statement that the total includes GST. Sales of $1,000 or more also need the buyer's identity or ABN. Get those on the page and the document is valid, whatever it looks like otherwise.

A few terms first. The ATO is the Australian Taxation Office. GST is the goods and services tax, the 10% added to most sales by businesses registered for it. An ABN is an Australian Business Number, the 11-digit identifier every business needs. A BAS is a Business Activity Statement, the form GST-registered businesses lodge to report the GST they have collected and paid.

Tax invoice or plain invoice: which one you need

Whether you head the document "Tax Invoice" comes down to one thing: are you registered for GST.

If you are registered, you must give a tax invoice for any taxable sale over $82.50 including GST, and you have 28 days to provide one whenever a customer asks for it, on any amount. If you are not registered for GST, you do not charge GST and your document should say "Invoice", never "Tax Invoice". That distinction, and what to put on an invoice when you are not registered, is covered in full in the guide to invoicing without GST.

The rest of this guide assumes you are GST-registered and need the tax invoice fields right.

Every field a tax invoice needs

Field	What it must show
The words "Tax Invoice"	Prominent, usually as the document heading
Your identity and ABN	Business or trading name plus your 11-digit ABN
Issue date	The date you create or send the invoice
Description of the sale	What you sold, with quantity and price for each line
GST amount	Shown per line, or as a clear statement that the total price includes GST

Those five apply to every tax invoice, whatever the amount. Two more apply only above $1,000.

Under $1,000 vs over $1,000

This is where most homemade templates fall short, because the extra requirement above $1,000 is easy to miss.

Sale amount (including GST)	What the tax invoice needs
$82.50 or less	Not required to be a tax invoice unless the customer asks for one
Over $82.50, up to $1,000	The five core fields above
$1,000 or more	The five core fields, plus the buyer's identity or ABN

The buyer's identity can be their name or their ABN. It does not need to be both, and it does not need to be a formal address. For a $9,600 kitchen renovation invoice to a business customer, the customer's name or ABN sitting under the job description is enough to meet the requirement.

A worked example

Here is a tax invoice for a $1,200 job, laid out against the checklist above.

Line	What it shows
Heading	Tax Invoice
Business name and ABN	Riverside Electrical, ABN 45 123 456 789
Invoice number and date	INV-0142, 25 September 2026
Customer	Coastal Property Management (required because the total is over $1,000)
Line items	Switchboard upgrade, 6 hours at $110 per hour: $660. Materials, breakers and cabling: $440
GST	$110 (10% of the $1,100 subtotal)
Total	$1,210

Every line answers one requirement: the heading tells the reader what kind of document it is, the ABN identifies the supplier, the customer's name satisfies the over-$1,000 rule, and the GST line shows how the total was built rather than leaving the customer to work it out.

Recipient-created tax invoices, briefly

Usually the seller issues the tax invoice. In a recipient-created tax invoice, the buyer issues it instead. The ATO only allows this in specific industries or business arrangements where both parties agree and meet its conditions, such as supply chains where the buyer, not the seller, sets the price. Most sole traders will never need to issue or accept one. If a client's paperwork mentions an RCTI, it means they are handling the tax invoice on your behalf under one of those arrangements, not that anything is wrong with your own invoicing.

Invoice numbering and record keeping

A tax invoice does not have to carry a sequential number to be valid, but keeping one is the difference between a tidy set of records and a folder you cannot search. Pick a numbering pattern, INV-0001 and up is the simplest, and never reuse a number in the same financial year.

Whatever numbering you use, keep every tax invoice you issue and every one you receive for at least five years. That covers the ATO's record-keeping requirement for both your GST and income tax records. A dated folder of PDFs is enough for most sole traders; what matters is being able to produce the right one if asked.

Separately, a receipt is owed for any purchase over $75, or whenever the customer asks, regardless of the sale amount. That is a different obligation from the tax invoice rules above, but the two often get confused: an invoice and a receipt are not always the same document, and a customer can ask for either.

Common mistakes

Forgetting the buyer's ABN or name over $1,000. The most common gap on hand-built templates. Add a customer field to your template and use it whenever the total crosses the line.

Writing "Tax Invoice" while not registered for GST. That heading tells the customer they can claim a GST credit that does not exist. If you are not registered, head the document "Invoice" instead.

Showing GST as a flat guess. GST is 10% of the GST-exclusive price, worked out per line or clearly stated against the total. Rounding it to a nice number instead of calculating it is an easy way to be wrong by a few cents on every invoice, which adds up over a BAS quarter.

No invoice number, or numbers that repeat. Two invoices sharing a number in one financial year is a mess to untangle at tax time, and it looks careless to a client's bookkeeper.

Treating a quote as an invoice. A quote is an estimate before the work starts. A tax invoice is a request for payment after a taxable sale. Keep the wording and the document separate so nobody pays twice or disputes the total.

Building one without starting from a blank page

Typing these fields into a blank document every time is where mistakes creep in. The free tax invoice generator builds the tax invoice fields automatically, switches to the plain "Invoice" heading if you mark yourself as not registered for GST, and works out the GST per line so you are not doing the maths by hand. If you want a ready-made layout for your trade first, the sole trader invoice template comes as a PDF in both a Tax Invoice and a no-GST version, so you can see the fields filled in before you build your own.

Getting the fields right once, in a template or a generator you reuse, means you stop thinking about invoice format altogether and get back to the job.