Every June, the same question comes through our phone line: is office furniture tax deductible, and can we get it delivered before the financial year ends? Short answer: for most businesses, yes, office furniture is a deductible business expense. The longer answer depends on how you buy it, what it costs, and which depreciation rules apply to your business that year.
We're not accountants, and this isn't tax advice. We build and fit out offices, so we know what furniture businesses buy, roughly what it costs, and what our clients' accountants have told them over the years. If you're planning a purchase around EOFY, talk to your accountant about your specific situation before you commit. This article is here to help you ask them the right questions.
Why this comes up every EOFY
Office furniture is a capital asset, not a running cost like electricity or stationery. That means it generally isn't fully deductible in the year you buy it — it gets depreciated over its "effective life," which the ATO sets differently for desks, chairs, partitions and so on.
The exception that gets everyone excited is the instant asset write-off. In years where it applies, eligible businesses can claim the full cost of an asset in the year of purchase instead of spreading it out. The threshold and eligibility rules change from year to year, and sometimes mid-year, so whatever number you heard at a barbecue last EOFY might already be wrong. Check the current ATO threshold, or better, ask your accountant, before you plan a big order around it.
What we actually see clients do
A few patterns come up again and again in our showroom and on fitout jobs:
The EOFY chair order. A business with 15-20 staff decides in May that half the chairs are past their working life. They want new ergonomic seating delivered and invoiced before June 30 so it lands in this year's tax return, not next year's. We can usually turn around a stock chair order (say, 20 units of something like the Sidiz T50 or similar) within 5-10 business days if it's in stock locally. Custom fabric or backorder items can push out to 3-4 weeks, so early May is genuinely the last safe window to start that conversation, not late June.
The pre-fitout furniture spend. Businesses doing a full office fit-out often want to know whether the furniture line item and the construction/fit-out line item get treated differently for tax purposes. They usually do — loose furniture (desks, chairs, storage) depreciates differently to fixed fit-out elements like partition walls or built-in joinery. That's a conversation for your accountant and quantity surveyor, not us, but it's worth raising early in project planning so your finance team isn't surprised later.
The "can I just expense it" question. Smaller purchases — a handful of task chairs, a meeting table — sometimes fall under a lower-value asset threshold that lets a business expense them outright rather than depreciate them. Where that threshold sits depends on your business structure and the current ATO rules for that year.
What generally affects the tax treatment
None of this is advice for your specific business, but here's the shape of what usually matters:
- Whether you're a small business entity under the ATO's definition
- The cost of each individual item (some rules apply per-asset, not per-order)
- Whether the instant asset write-off is currently in effect and what the threshold is
- Whether the furniture is new or second-hand — this doesn't usually change deductibility, but it can affect the value you're depreciating from
- Whether the purchase is for a home office versus a commercial premises, which has different rules again
- Your business structure (sole trader, company, trust) — depreciation and write-off eligibility can differ
A practical decision framework
If you're weighing up an office furniture purchase around tax time:
- Talk to your accountant first about your current-year eligibility and threshold, not last year's rules.
- Get a real quote with lead times, not just a rough budget number, so you know if delivery and invoicing can realistically land before June 30.
- Separate "must replace now" items (broken chairs, safety issues) from "would be nice" items, so the tax conversation doesn't drive decisions that don't actually need to happen yet.
- If you're doing a bigger spend, ask whether staging the order across two invoices makes sense for your cash flow and depreciation schedule — sometimes it does, sometimes it complicates things unnecessarily.
The Melbourne and Geelong angle
Lead time is the real constraint most years, not the tax rule itself. If you're in Melbourne or Geelong and want furniture landed before June 30, the practical cutoff for stock items is usually late May. For anything custom — specific fabric colours, non-standard desk configurations, larger fit-out furniture packages — you want that conversation happening in April. We keep a reasonable stock buffer of common chairs and desks specifically because EOFY demand spikes every year, but backorders on manufacturer-specific items are outside our control.
If your furniture purchase is part of a broader office upgrade rather than a standalone chair or desk order, it's worth looking at the fit-out picture as a whole — see our office fit-outs Melbourne page for how furniture and fit-out timelines usually interact.
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Thinking about an EOFY furniture purchase? Get a quote with real lead times so you know what's achievable before June 30 — browse new office furniture Melbourne or check our office furniture Geelong range, and we'll tell you straight if your timeline works. For the tax side, that conversation belongs with your accountant.
FAQ
Is all office furniture tax deductible in Australia? Most office furniture used for business purposes is deductible in some form, either depreciated over its effective life or claimed in full under an instant asset write-off if your business is eligible that year. Whether it applies fully to your situation depends on your business structure and the current ATO rules — check with your accountant.
What's the difference between depreciating furniture and using the instant asset write-off? Depreciation spreads the deduction over the item's effective life, so you claim a portion each year. The instant asset write-off, when it applies, lets an eligible business claim the full cost in the year of purchase. Eligibility and thresholds change year to year.
Does buying second-hand office furniture change how it's taxed? Deductibility generally still applies to second-hand furniture used for business, but the depreciable value is usually based on what you paid, not the original retail price. Ask your accountant how this applies to your specific purchase.
How late can I order office furniture and still have it delivered before June 30? For stock items we hold locally, we can usually manage 5-10 business days. For anything custom or backordered, plan for 3-4 weeks, which means starting the conversation in April or early May rather than late June.
Is furniture for a home office treated the same as furniture for a commercial office? No, home office furniture typically falls under different rules than furniture for a dedicated business premises, and the deduction can depend on how much the space is used for work versus personal use. This is one to run past your accountant specifically.
