In Australia, only donations to DGR-endorsed organisations of $2 or more are tax-deductible. ACNC registration alone is not enough.
- Check your DGR endorsement on ABN Lookup before you configure any receipting or share a donation link.
- Every compliant receipt needs your charity name, ABN, a DGR statement, the gift amount and date, and the issue date.
- Raffle tickets, gala dinner tickets, and auction wins are not tax-deductible because the donor received something in return.
- Turn on automatic receipting before your first donation arrives, not after.
- EOFY (30 June) is the AU giving peak. Donors need individual receipts or bank statements to substantiate their claims, not just an annual summary.
Getting tax-deductible receipts right matters more than almost any other administrative task your not-for-profit does. Donors rely on them to claim deductions at tax time. Your DGR status depends on issuing them correctly. And an error discovered after 30 June is far harder to fix than one caught before you share your donation link.
This guide walks through every step, from understanding whether your organisation can issue tax-deductible receipts at all, to what goes on the receipt, to what donors need when they lodge their return in July.
In this article:
Understand what makes a donation tax-deductible in Australia
Two separate government bodies are involved, and confusing them is the single most common mistake.
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) registers charities under the Charities Act 2013 (Cth) and maintains the public Charity Register. Being registered with the ACNC means your organisation is recognised as a charity. It does not, on its own, make donations to your charity tax-deductible.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) separately endorses organisations as Deductible Gift Recipients (DGRs). Only donations to DGR-endorsed organisations are tax-deductible for the donor (ACNC, DGR and the ACNC fact sheet). Approximately 41.5% of registered Australian charities have DGR endorsement. That means the majority of ACNC-registered charities cannot issue tax-deductible receipts.
The minimum deductible gift is $2. A donation of any amount below $2 cannot be claimed as a deduction by the donor (ATO, DGR endorsement eligibility).
There are 52 DGR categories set out in Division 30 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. From 1 January 2024, the ATO consolidated administration of all 52 categories (ATO, DGR categories). Your Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) endorsement places your organisation in one or more of those categories, and that category must match your charitable purpose.
The donor claims the deduction on their personal income tax return. Your not-for-profit does not reclaim tax on the donor's behalf. There is no mechanism equivalent to UK Gift Aid in Australia.
Check your DGR status before you issue a single receipt
Before you configure receipting in any platform or issue your first receipt manually, confirm your own DGR status using the two public tools the ATO and ACNC provide.
ACNC Charity Register (www.acnc.gov.au/charity) confirms your charity registration status, your registered legal name, and your ABN. This is the name your receipts must match exactly.
ABN Lookup (abr.business.gov.au) confirms your DGR endorsement. Search your ABN and look for "Deductible Gift Recipient" in the "Tax concessions" section. If it is listed, with a "from" date and no "to" date, your endorsement is current (ABN Lookup, DGR Help).
If your DGR endorsement has an end date, or if DGR is not listed at all, you cannot issue tax-deductible receipts until the ATO has granted or renewed your endorsement. Issuing receipts when you are not DGR-endorsed exposes your donors to rejected deduction claims at the ATO.
Check both tools on your own organisation before you proceed. Do this even if you received a letter from the ATO confirming endorsement some time ago. Endorsements can be updated, and ABN Lookup reflects the current position.
Include the seven things every tax-deductible receipt must show
The ATO sets out what a receipt must include to serve as valid substantiation for a donor's deduction claim (ATO, Not-for-profit organisations hub). Your receipt must show all of the following:
- 1. Your charity's full registered legal name (exactly as it appears on the ACNC Register and ABN Lookup).
- 3. A statement confirming your DGR status. For most organisations this is something like "Donations of $2 or more to [charity name] are tax-deductible in Australia" or a reference to the specific DGR fund or authority name where relevant.
- 4. A statement that the payment is a gift (not a purchase, ticket, or fee).
- 5. The amount of the donation (for cash or card donations).
- 6. The date the gift was made.
- 7. The date the receipt was issued.
Do not describe an item or service the donor received on a tax-deductible receipt. If the donor received something, the payment is not a gift and not deductible (see the next two sections).
You can use any format that includes all seven fields. A platform-generated email receipt, a Word document, a PDF, or a printed letter all work as long as all fields are present. There is no single ATO-approved template, and any service claiming to offer one should be treated with caution. Base your format on the ATO guidance directly.
If donors give you a thank-you letter for their donation alongside a formal receipt, make sure the letter does not accidentally describe a benefit received. Keep the acknowledgement and the tax receipt as separate documents, or make the distinction very clear in a combined document.
Know what is NOT tax-deductible
The ATO is clear on this list (ATO, DGR endorsement eligibility). None of the following qualify as deductible gifts, regardless of your DGR status:
- Raffle tickets. The donor paid for the chance to win a prize. That is a purchase, not a gift.
- Gala dinner or fundraising event tickets. The donor received a meal, entertainment, or entry. Not a gift.
- Silent or live auction wins. The donor received the item. Even if they paid above market value, the whole amount is not deductible.
- Sponsorship payments where the donor received a benefit (logo placement, naming rights, signage, corporate hospitality). If the sponsor received something material, the payment is not a pure gift.
- The value of volunteer time or services. Under ATO rules, you cannot claim a deduction for the value of your time. Do not issue a tax receipt for volunteer work, no matter how valuable.
- Gifts to non-DGR charities. Even if the organisation is ACNC-registered and doing excellent work, if it is not DGR-endorsed, donations to it are not tax-deductible.
- Bequests in a will. Gifts under a will are subject to separate estate and probate rules, not the standard donation-deductibility rules.
This list is worth reading out at the start of every campaign planning meeting. Most receipting errors come from issuing tax-deductible receipts for items on this list.
Get the 'gift or purchase' call right
The ATO gift test asks four questions. A payment is a deductible gift if it is:
- voluntary (the donor was not obliged to pay);
- a transfer of money or property;
- made from benefaction (genuine generosity, not for personal gain); and
- free of material benefit to the donor (the donor received nothing of material value in return).
If all four are true, the payment is a gift and a receipt is appropriate. If any one fails, the payment is not a deductible gift (ATO, Not-for-profit organisations hub).
Three worked examples to make this concrete:
Example A: A supporter donates $100 online with no strings attached and no benefit received. All four tests pass. Issue a tax-deductible receipt for $100.
Example B: A supporter pays $100 for a gala dinner ticket where the meal is valued at $60. The donor received a material benefit (the meal). The $100 payment does not pass the gift test. Do not issue a tax-deductible receipt.
Example C: A supporter wins a hamper worth $60 in a silent auction by bidding $100. They paid $100 and received a $60 item. The $100 does not qualify as a deductible gift. Do not issue a tax-deductible receipt for any part of it.
A common question is whether the "excess" in Example C (the $40 above the market value of the hamper) can be treated as a gift. The ATO's position on this is nuanced and depends on the specific circumstances. If you regularly run events where this question arises, get specific advice from a qualified accountant or tax adviser who works with Australian not-for-profits. Zeffy does not provide tax advice.
Turn on automatic receipting before you share the donation link
This is the single most practical rule in the article. Before you publish your donation form or share your campaign link, open your platform settings and confirm that automatic tax-deductible receipts are turned on.
One pattern that creates real work: a coordinator sets up a donation form for an appeal, shares the link before checking the receipting settings, and the first donations come in without a receipt being sent. The coordinator then has to track down each donor's details and issue receipts manually, often days or weeks after the gift was made.
Turning on automatic receipting takes two minutes. Fixing manual receipting for 15 donors after the fact takes hours.
When you configure receipting in your platform, check that:
- The receipting toggle is on (not just the confirmation-email toggle).
- The receipt template includes all seven required fields listed above.
- The charity name in the platform matches your legal name on the ACNC Register exactly (see the next section).
- The DGR statement wording is correct for your endorsement type.
If you run multiple campaigns or events through the same platform, check the settings for each one individually. Campaign-level settings sometimes override account-level defaults.
Handle offline donations: cash at the fete, direct deposits, cheques
Online receipting is straightforward once it is configured. The trickier cases are the ones that happen offline.
Cash donations at fetes, sausage sizzles, and community events are common for AU not-for-profits. When a supporter hands you a $50 note, you cannot send an automatic receipt. Capture the donor's name, email or postal address, the amount, and the date, either in a paper donation register or in a spreadsheet on a phone. Issue the receipt within a few days, by email if possible.
Direct deposits (EFT) show up in your bank account with a reference but often without a full name or contact address. Build a simple intake process: include a short reference instruction on your donation page (e.g. "Reference: your full name") and check deposits against that reference when reconciling weekly. Contact the donor to confirm their details before issuing the receipt.
Cheques remain in use in some community and older-donor segments, though AU banks are phasing them out during the 2024 to 2030 transition period. For new setups, prioritise digital intake. For existing cheque donors, the process is the same as cash: record the details at the time of deposit and issue a receipt promptly.
For all offline donations, the same seven receipt fields apply. The format (printed letter, emailed PDF) does not matter as long as all fields are present.
Match your legal name across every system
The name on your tax-deductible receipt must exactly match your registered legal name on the ACNC Charity Register and your ABN record on ABN Lookup (ACNC, Charity Register).
This matters because downstream verification checks run by donors, payment processors, and receipting tools all match against the same public record. A mismatch, even a minor one, can cause a donor's deduction claim to be queried by the ATO.
Common failure modes include:
- Using a short or trading name ("Riverside Community Trust") when the legal name includes a structural suffix ("Riverside Community Trust Incorporated").
- Entering the name in all capitals or with different spacing than the register.
- Using an outdated name if the organisation has changed its name and not updated all systems.
Check your ACNC listing and ABN Lookup entry now. Then check your receipting platform, your bank account name, and any merchant accounts. They should all be identical.
One specific pattern worth noting: organisations whose registered name includes "Incorporated" or a similar structural suffix sometimes see for-profit misclassification in platform setup flows when the name is entered inconsistently. This can block the tax-receipt workflow entirely until the name is corrected.
Prepare for EOFY: what donors actually need on 1 July
The Australian financial year ends on 30 June. That makes June the peak giving period for most not-for-profits. Donors making final deductible gifts before EOFY need to have their receipts in hand by the time they lodge their return, which for most individuals is between July and October (ATO, Not-for-profit organisations hub).
For information on running your most effective EOFY campaign, see our guide to EOFY fundraising.
What donors actually need to substantiate a deduction claim:
A donor can substantiate a deduction using either:
- A compliant receipt (with all seven fields) for each individual gift; or
- Bank statements showing the payment, where the ATO accepts these as supporting evidence.
An annual giving summary from your not-for-profit is helpful but does not replace individual receipts in all circumstances. The ATO's substantiation rules require the donor to hold evidence for each deduction claimed. If you want to support your donors at EOFY, the most useful thing you can do is ensure every receipt was issued promptly throughout the year, not scramble to issue a consolidated summary in June.
Do not imply that a single end-of-year summary covers the substantiation requirement for all donations made across the financial year. It may not.
If a donor asks for a reissued receipt for a gift made earlier in the financial year, issue it promptly. Use the original gift date on the receipt, not the reissue date.
Timing tip: If you are running an EOFY appeal, note that some payment processors have a cut-off after which settlements are dated to the next financial year. Communicate clearly that donations must be completed (not just initiated) before midnight on 30 June to count for that financial year.
Answer donor questions about who issues the receipt
When a third-party fundraising platform processes a donation, donors sometimes ask a reasonable question: who is actually issuing the tax-deductible receipt, the platform or the charity?
The answer is straightforward. The DGR-endorsed charity is the only entity that can issue a tax-deductible receipt for a gift to that charity. A platform that processes the payment may send the receipt on the charity's behalf as a technical function, but the receipt is issued by the charity, and the DGR endorsement on the receipt is the charity's endorsement.
Check your platform's setup to confirm that:
- The receipt is sent in the charity's name, not in the platform's name.
- The charity's ABN appears on the receipt, not the platform's ABN.
- The DGR statement refers to the charity's endorsement.
Some workplace-giving intermediaries operate as conduit funds with their own DGR endorsement. In those arrangements, the receipt may be issued by the conduit fund rather than the charity directly. If your not-for-profit receives donations through a workplace-giving program, clarify with that program how receipts are issued and what information donors receive.
If a donor contacts you with a receipt query, respond promptly. A donor who cannot substantiate their claim will not give again.
Keep your records to satisfy ATO substantiation rules
Your not-for-profit has record-keeping obligations that run alongside the receipting obligations your donors have (ATO, Not-for-profit organisations hub).
Retain donation records, including copies of receipts issued, for at least five years. This is consistent with the ATO's general record-keeping guidance for business and NFP entities. If the ATO queries a donor's deduction and asks your organisation to confirm the gift, you need to be able to produce the record.
Records should include: the donor's name, the amount and date of the gift, the method of payment, and a copy of the receipt issued.
Privacy obligations:
Donor records contain personal information. If your not-for-profit has annual turnover above $3 million, the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) apply directly. Smaller not-for-profits can opt in to comply, and many do as a trust signal (OAIC, Privacy for not-for-profits).
The core principle is: collect only what you need, store it securely, tell donors how you use it, and delete it when you no longer need it. Post-Pareto Phone breach, the OAIC has emphasised collect-only-what-you-need guidance for the sector.
For donation records, this means: collect the minimum fields required for a compliant receipt and your own reconciliation. Do not collect additional personal data without a clear reason.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum donation amount for a tax-deductible receipt?
The minimum deductible gift under ATO rules is $2. Any donation of $2 or more to a DGR-endorsed charity qualifies for a tax deduction. There is no upper limit. Your not-for-profit should issue a receipt for any donation of $2 or more on request, though automatic receipting for every donation is best practice.
What happens if we issued receipts when we were not DGR-endorsed?
If your organisation issued tax-deductible receipts during a period when it did not hold DGR endorsement, donors who claimed those deductions may have their claims disallowed by the ATO. You should seek advice from a qualified accountant or tax adviser who works with Australian not-for-profits if you believe this has occurred. Zeffy does not provide tax or legal advice. Check your current endorsement status at ABN Lookup and on the ACNC Charity Register.
Can we issue a tax-deductible receipt for part of a gala dinner ticket price?
The ATO's position on split receipting (where part of a payment is treated as a gift and part as payment for a benefit) is nuanced and depends on your specific DGR category and the circumstances of the event. Some DGR categories permit a split, others do not. Get specific advice from a qualified accountant or tax adviser before applying split receipting. Do not assume it is available for your organisation without checking.
How long should we keep donation records?
Retain donation records, including copies of receipts issued, for at least five years. This aligns with the ATO's general record-keeping guidance. If the ATO queries a donor's deduction claim and asks your organisation to confirm the gift, you need to be able to produce the record promptly.
Do donors need to submit their receipts to the ATO when they lodge their return?
No. Donors do not submit receipts when they lodge. They must hold their receipts or other substantiation documents in case the ATO asks for evidence of a deduction they have claimed. Receipts should be kept until at least two years after the relevant tax return is lodged. Your role is to issue a compliant receipt promptly so donors have what they need.
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