Travel & Vehicle Allowance Rates
When employees use their private vehicle for work duties, the SCHADS Award entitles them to a per-kilometre allowance to cover fuel, depreciation and wear-and-tear. Travel time during the working day is also paid as ordinary working time. The vehicle allowance and the travel-time pay are separate — workers receive both when applicable.
Quick Facts
- Vehicle Allowance
- $1.01/km minimum (cl.20.7(a))
- Provider Discretion
- Rate set by provider, must not fall below SCHADS minimum
- Motorcycle
- No separate SCHADS rate
- Travel Time
- Paid at hourly rate (ordinary rate or applicable penalty)
- Commute
- Home to first client / last client to home — generally not paid
- Clause
- cl.20.7(a) SCHADS Award
Tools & Resources
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When is it paid?
1. Traveling between different client locations during a shift.
2. Transporting a client in your own car (e.g. for shopping or appointments).
3. Traveling from the office to a client.
Any kilometres recorded against authorised work-related vehicle use should trigger the travel allowance. If a timesheet shows km > 0 and no travel allowance has been paid, that's a default fail under standard SCHADS auditing — pay records need to show either the allowance was paid or that it has been handled in a downstream payroll system.
2. Transporting a client in your own car (e.g. for shopping or appointments).
3. Traveling from the office to a client.
Any kilometres recorded against authorised work-related vehicle use should trigger the travel allowance. If a timesheet shows km > 0 and no travel allowance has been paid, that's a default fail under standard SCHADS auditing — pay records need to show either the allowance was paid or that it has been handled in a downstream payroll system.
Is travel to work paid?
Generally, travel from your home to your first client (and from the last client to home) is **not** paid time and does not attract km allowance, unless specific roster clauses in the Home Care stream apply. The distinction that catches providers out: travel from home to the first client is the **commute** (not paid); travel between two clients during the working day is **work** (paid at the hourly rate, plus km allowance). Many providers either pay nothing for travel at all, or pay everything including the commute — both are wrong.
Provider rate vs SCHADS minimum
The vehicle allowance rate is **set by the NDIS provider but must not fall below the SCHADS minimum of $1.01/km** (clause 20.7(a)). Some providers pay above this rate (for example $1.05–$1.10/km), and that's fine — the floor is the issue. Paying below $1.01/km is a breach regardless of contract terms or what the worker has agreed to. The SCHADS Award sets a single per-km rate under clause 20.7(a) — there is no separate motorcycle rate.
Travel time vs km allowance
These are two separate payments and they stack. **Travel time** is paid at the applicable hourly rate (ordinary, weekend penalty, or overtime, depending on when the travel occurs). The **km allowance** is a reimbursement for vehicle running costs. A 30-minute drive between two Saturday clients covering 25km should result in: 30 minutes paid at the Saturday rate (150%, or 175% casual) **plus** 25 × $1.01 = $25.25 in vehicle allowance.
Common compliance traps
From our roundup of the seven most common NDIS payroll mistakes, this is Error 7. The recurring patterns:
- Not paying travel time between clients at all. Workers are paid only for time inside a client's home — the drive between two clients during a working day is unpaid. This is a clear breach.
- Paying km allowance but not travel time (or vice versa) — the two are separate entitlements and both apply.
- Paying the commute. Less common, but some providers pay km from home to the first client. That's overpayment, and removing it later creates a dispute.
- Paying below the $1.01/km floor. Often happens when a legacy rate hasn't been indexed.
- Km recorded with no allowance line item. If a timesheet shows kilometres traveled but no corresponding allowance expense, payroll has either missed it or processed it in a separate downstream system — either way it needs to be reconciled.
How this interacts with overtime
Travel time counts as working time for the purposes of triggering overtime under cl.28.1. If a worker is rostered for a 9-hour shift plus 1.5 hours of inter-client travel, that's 10.5 hours of work in the day — the 0.5 hour beyond the 10-hour daily threshold is overtime (150% first 2 hours, then 200%). Many providers track travel as a separate line item and forget to include it when calculating overtime triggers.
Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is the allowance taxed?
- Vehicle allowances up to a certain threshold set by the ATO are generally tax-free (withheld), but check with your accountant.
- What is the minimum km rate under the SCHADS Award?
- The SCHADS minimum is $1.01 per kilometre under clause 20.7(a). Providers may pay a higher rate, but cannot pay less — the cl.20.7(a) figure is a floor, not a guideline.
- Is travel between clients paid as working time?
- Yes. Travel between participant appointments during a working day is working time and is paid at the applicable hourly rate. This is separate from the per-km vehicle allowance — both apply to the same trip.
- Does travel from home to the first client get paid?
- Generally no. The commute from home to your first client and from your last client back home is unpaid and does not attract the km allowance. Travel between clients during the shift is what attracts both travel-time pay and the km allowance.
- What happens when a support worker travels between two clients in one day?
- Two entitlements apply: the travel time between the clients is paid working time at the applicable rate, and the kilometres in the worker's own car attract the vehicle allowance ($1.01/km from 1 July 2026). If there is an unpaid gap between the two engagements instead of continuous travel, the day may be a broken shift — adding the $21.81 broken shift allowance and a minimum payment for each portion.
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