Contents
- What the ATO says
- What the ATO looks for
- How Global Teacher approaches PL
- Can a provider guarantee it?
- Program fees
- Flights
- Accommodation
- Meals
- Sightseeing
- Adding a holiday
- School visits during a holiday
- Employer approval
- School holidays
- Becoming a teacher
- Maximum claim
- Records and evidence
- The bottom line
It is one of the most common questions around international teacher professional development:
Can I claim an overseas professional-learning program or study tour on tax?
For Australian teachers, the answer is yes — international professional learning can be tax deductible when it is directly connected to your current work as an educator.
Importantly, the Australian Taxation Office specifically recognises study tours, including overseas study tours, as a form of self-education.
That doesn’t mean putting the words “study tour” on an overseas itinerary automatically makes a trip deductible.
What matters is what you are actually doing, why you are doing it and how the learning relates to the work through which you currently earn your income.
We’ve created this guide to make the rules easier to understand — whether you’re travelling with Global Teacher or simply researching international professional learning.
The short answer
If you’re a practising teacher undertaking genuine international professional learning that maintains or improves the knowledge and skills you use in your current role, the ATO’s self-education rules can apply.
This can include program fees, international airfares, accommodation and meals associated with overnight professional travel.
A professional trip can also include cultural experiences, sightseeing and downtime without automatically becoming private travel.
If you add a substantial private holiday, however, some shared expenses — particularly airfare — may need to be divided between professional and private purposes.
What does the ATO say about overseas study tours?
The main ATO ruling is Taxation Ruling TR 2024/3: Income tax: deductibility of self-education expenses incurred by an individual.
For teachers considering international professional learning, one part is especially relevant:
The ATO expressly includes study tours undertaken in Australia or overseas as a form of self-education.
The central rule is relatively straightforward.
Where your employment depends on professional skills or specific knowledge, expenditure on education that maintains or improves those skills or knowledge can be deductible.
For a practising teacher, this creates a clear pathway.
If you are already earning your income as an educator and undertake professional learning that develops knowledge or skills relevant to your current role, there can be a direct connection between that learning and your employment.
That is fundamentally different from taking a holiday and fitting a school visit into the itinerary.
The professional purpose and substance of the trip matter.
What does the ATO look for in an overseas study tour?
The ATO identifies several factors relevant to overseas study tours.
These include whether:
- your time overseas is genuinely directed towards developing work-relevant knowledge
- you are already employed in the relevant profession
- the journey is distinguishable from ordinary recreational travel
- your employer requests, supports or recognises the professional learning
Employer support can help, but it isn’t the deciding factor.
The broader question is:
Is this genuinely professional learning connected to the work you already do?
A well-designed professional-learning program should be able to demonstrate that clearly.
How Global Teacher approaches professional learning
This is something we have considered deliberately.
Global Teacher programs are designed around genuine professional learning, with the ATO’s self-education framework firmly in mind.
Professional learning isn’t something we add to an overseas itinerary so that we can call it a study tour.
It sits at the centre of our educator programs.
Depending on the program, this can include sustained engagement with partner schools, classroom observation, collaboration with local educators, professional discussion, workshops, sharing of teaching practice, structured reflection and consideration of how international learning can be applied back in participants’ own professional contexts.
Our Professional Exchange Programs go further again, creating opportunities for educators to work alongside local teachers, exchange professional knowledge and contribute to professional-learning activities.
We also document professional-development hours, provide certification and, where relevant, map learning against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST).
APST alignment doesn’t create a tax deduction. What it does do is help demonstrate the professional knowledge and practice being developed through the program.
We genuinely believe our programs offer some of the most meaningful international professional-learning opportunities available to teachers.
We’re confident in the professional purpose, structure and substance of what we provide.
Can a provider guarantee that its study tour is tax deductible?
No provider can give you a blanket ATO guarantee that an overseas study tour is tax deductible for every participant.
The ATO does not give a blanket “tax-deductible” status or approval to a tour provider or professional-learning program. Self-education deductions are determined according to the circumstances of the individual taxpayer and their particular expenses.
If you want greater certainty about your own circumstances, you can apply to the ATO for a private ruling on the tax treatment of your overseas self-education expenses. A private ruling relates to the individual taxpayer and the circumstances put to the ATO — it is not an approval of the program for every participant.
Your current employment, the connection between the learning and your work, the expenses you personally incur, any reimbursements and any private component of your travel can all affect your claim.
That means statements such as “this tour is tax deductible” — or that previous participants have claimed it without issue — should not be treated as a guarantee that another participant will receive exactly the same tax treatment.
What a professional-learning provider can do is design its program around the ATO’s self-education principles and clearly document the professional learning undertaken.
That’s the approach Global Teacher takes.
For a normal tax return, you generally keep the records supporting your deduction rather than submitting a full evidence pack with the return. If the ATO later asks you to substantiate the claim, those records are what allow you to clearly show the expenses incurred and the professional purpose of the travel.
Can I claim the Global Teacher program fee?
Yes, where the program relates to maintaining or improving the skills and knowledge you use in your current work.
Course fees and other qualifying self-education costs are recognised by the ATO.
For a practising teacher undertaking a Global Teacher professional-learning program relevant to their current educational role, the program fee forms part of the self-education expenses you would consider in preparing your claim.
If an employer or another organisation reimburses some or all of the cost, the reimbursed amount cannot also be claimed.
Can I claim my international flights?
Yes. Airfare can be a deductible self-education expense.
The ATO’s current ruling specifically recognises airfare incurred to participate in qualifying self-education.
If the primary purpose of your international travel is genuine professional learning, your airfare can form part of the relevant self-education expenses.
If you add a substantial private holiday, however, the same airfare may serve both professional and private purposes and may need to be apportioned.
As a point of interest, the ATO does not say deductible airfare must be economy class. The ruling refers to airfares generally, so there is no specific rule preventing someone from choosing premium economy or business class.
What about accommodation?
Accommodation required while travelling away from home overnight for qualifying professional learning can be deductible.
For Global Teacher participants, accommodation during the core program is generally already included within the program package.
If professional travel requires you to stay additional nights — for example because of flight schedules or program logistics — those nights don’t automatically become private simply because they sit immediately before or after the formal program.
The purpose of the additional stay is what matters.
What about meals?
Meals can also form part of deductible overnight self-education travel expenses.
The ATO distinguishes these from ordinary everyday meal costs.
For self-funded professional travel, keep records of what you actually spend rather than assuming the ATO’s published overseas “reasonable amounts” are an automatic daily deduction. Those figures operate within separate travel-allowance and substantiation rules.
Does sightseeing make the trip a holiday?
No.
A genuine professional-learning trip does not suddenly become private because there is sightseeing, a cultural activity, free time or recreation within the itinerary.
The ATO’s own current guidance includes an overseas professional trip containing sightseeing and recreational activities where the broader professional travel remains deductible because those activities are incidental to the main purpose.
That distinction matters for Global Teacher.
We include cultural experiences because education doesn’t exist in isolation from the communities and cultures in which it operates.
Understanding another country provides context for understanding its schools, teachers and students.
And sometimes participants are simply going to enjoy themselves.
Professional learning is allowed to be enjoyable.
The real tax distinction is between recreation that is incidental to a genuinely professional journey and travel that has a substantial separate private purpose.
Can I add a holiday before or after my Global Teacher program?
Absolutely.
Adding private travel does not retrospectively turn your professional-learning program into a holiday.
What it can change is the treatment of expenses that relate to both parts of the journey.
For example, if you participate in a Global Teacher program and then spend another two weeks travelling privately, your private hotels, meals, tours and transport are personal expenses.
Your professional-program expenses remain associated with the professional component.
Your airfare is different because the same ticket may now facilitate both professional and private travel.
In that situation, the ATO may consider part of the airfare a personal expense and require the cost to be apportioned on a fair and reasonable basis.
So yes — extend the trip and enjoy being overseas.
Just keep the professional and private parts clearly documented.
What if I visit a school while I’m already on holiday?
This is where the distinction works in the opposite direction.
Visiting a school doesn’t automatically make your holiday tax deductible.
If you book a private overseas holiday and then attend a relevant seminar, professional workshop or school visit while you’re away, that particular activity may have its own tax treatment.
But it doesn’t automatically convert your original holiday airfare and accommodation into professional expenses.
This is why teachers should look beyond the label “study tour” when comparing overseas programs.
Questions worth asking any provider
- What genuine professional engagement is involved?
- What are the learning objectives?
- How does the program connect with my current professional practice?
- Is the professional learning documented?
- Could the provider clearly demonstrate what participants actually do?
A genuine professional-learning program should have clear answers to those questions.
Do I need my principal to approve it?
No. Employer approval is not a requirement for self-education to be deductible.
Teachers can identify, organise and fund their own professional learning.
Employer support can, however, provide useful additional evidence connecting the program with your current employment.
So if your principal or employer approves professional-development leave, contributes funding or confirms that the learning relates to your current role, keep that documentation.
What if I travel during school holidays?
That’s fine.
There isn’t a rule saying deductible professional learning must occur during paid working hours or during school term.
Teachers undertake professional development on weekends, during leave and throughout school holiday periods.
The relevant question remains whether the learning maintains or improves skills and knowledge relevant to your current work.
What if I’m studying to become a teacher?
This is where the position changes.
The ATO’s self-education rules focus on your current income-earning activities.
If you’re already working as a teacher and undertake professional learning to improve your current practice, that connection is clear.
If you’re undertaking education principally to qualify for or enter teaching for the first time, the expenditure is directed towards a new income-earning activity and is treated differently.
Is there a maximum amount I can claim?
There is no general dollar cap on qualifying self-education expenses.
The former $250 reduction for self-education expenses was removed for expenditure incurred from 1 July 2022.
The amount you claim therefore comes back to the qualifying expenses you actually incur, less anything reimbursed and any private component that needs to be excluded.
What records should I keep — and how can Global Teacher help?
Good records make an international self-education claim much easier to explain.
Ideally, you should be able to show both:
what you spent, and what professional learning you undertook.
That means keeping relevant invoices, payment records, flights, receipts and other expense documentation, along with evidence showing the professional purpose of the program.
For longer overseas trips, a travel diary can also be important. A useful diary simply records what you did each day and helps distinguish professional activities from any private travel.
If your school supports your participation, it can also be useful to get that support in writing before you travel. Global Teacher can provide participants with a simple employer confirmation template on request.
Professional Learning Evidence Pack
Global Teacher participants can request a Professional Learning Evidence Pack.
Depending on the program, this can include:
- a detailed professional-learning itinerary
- program learning objectives
- professional-development hours and certification
- relevant APST alignment
- a summary of school and educator engagement
- confirmation of participation
- a professional-learning travel diary template
The pack is designed to give participants a clear record of what they did, what they learnt and how the program was structured as professional learning.
So if the ATO ever asks for further information, you know that the professional side of your Global Teacher experience can be quickly gathered and clearly presented.
If you need supporting documentation, simply ask us.
The bottom line
International professional learning is not excluded from Australia’s self-education rules because it happens overseas.
The ATO expressly recognises overseas study tours as a form of self-education.
For practising teachers, the key question is whether the learning maintains or improves the skills and knowledge used in their current work. Where it does, qualifying expenditure can include program fees, international airfare, accommodation and meals associated with overnight professional travel.
A professional trip can include sightseeing, cultural experiences and downtime. You can extend your journey with a holiday. You can organise your own professional learning without your employer directing you to attend. Where professional and substantial private travel overlap, some shared expenses may simply need to be apportioned.
For Global Teacher, the professional-learning side of this isn’t an afterthought. We’ve considered the ATO’s framework, the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and the professional evidence teachers need when designing our Professional Learning Programs.
We believe some of the most powerful professional learning happens when educators step outside their familiar environment, engage meaningfully with educators somewhere else and bring that thinking back into their own professional practice.
That’s why our programs are built around genuine professional engagement rather than simply visiting educational sites — and why we’re confident in the professional learning we provide.
Ultimately, the tax treatment of an individual claim rests with the ATO and depends on the teacher’s own circumstances. But the distinction at the heart of the rules is actually quite simple:
A holiday doesn’t become deductible because somebody adds a school visit and calls it a study tour.
But genuine professional learning doesn’t become a holiday simply because it happens overseas and you enjoy yourself while you’re there.
A final note
Tax law isn’t famous for being exciting. International professional learning should be.
This guide provides general information for Australian educators based on current ATO guidance and isn’t individual tax or financial advice.
If your circumstances are unusual, your private travel is substantial or you’re unsure how to treat a particular expense, speak with a registered tax professional.
Otherwise, the principles are pretty straightforward:
Choose professional learning that is genuinely professional. Keep good records. Understand how it connects to your current work. And don’t assume learning stops being professional simply because it takes you somewhere extraordinary.
Key ATO reference
The principal ATO guidance behind this article is:
It covers self-education including courses, professional and industry programs, conferences and seminars and, importantly for international educators, study tours undertaken within Australia or overseas.
This guide also draws on current ATO guidance relating to:
Last reviewed: August 2026