TPAR for tradies: who lodges and what to report

If you run a building or trade business and pay subcontractors, there's a report the ATO expects from you once a year: the taxable payments annual report, or TPAR. It's due by 28 August, it's easy to forget, and it's much easier if you've kept the right records all year. Here's what TPAR is, who has to lodge it, what to report, and how to have the numbers ready.

What is TPAR?

The TPAR is a yearly report of the payments your business made to contractors for certain services. For each contractor you list who they are and how much you paid them. The ATO compares that with what the contractors declare, which is why it exists. It also pre-fills the payments into the contractors' own tax returns. It isn't a tax you pay. It's a report, covering the financial year from 1 July to 30 June.

It covers five kinds of service: building and construction, cleaning, courier and road freight, IT, and security, investigation or surveillance. This guide is about the first one. The ATO's TPAR pages cover the rest.

Who has to lodge a TPAR

According to the ATO's building and construction rules, you must lodge if you have an ABN, you pay contractors or subcontractors for building and construction services, and your business is primarily in building and construction. You are, if any one of these is true:

• 50% or more of your business income this financial year comes from building and construction services
• 50% or more of your business activity this year relates to them
• 50% or more of your business income last financial year came from them

That last test means a quieter year doesn't get you out of it. Contractors can be sole traders, companies, partnerships or trusts. Being a sole trader yourself doesn't take you out of it: the tests are about your work, not your structure.

"Building and construction services" is a broad list. It includes electrical, plumbing and gas work, carpentry, cabinet making for installation, concreting, tiling, flooring, painting, plastering, roofing and guttering, fencing, landscaping construction, solar and hot water installation, heating and cooling, demolition, excavation, scaffolding, surveying and project management. Hiring a machine with an operator counts; hiring one without an operator doesn't. Testing and tagging your own tools doesn't count either.

TPAR requirements: what to report

For each contractor, the ATO's list of contractor details is:

• their ABN, if known (and every ABN they used, if it changed during the year)
• their name (business name or individual's name)
• their address
• the gross amount you paid them for the year, including GST and any tax withheld
• the total GST included in those payments
• any tax you withheld because they didn't quote an ABN

Amounts are in whole dollars, with no cents. If an invoice covers both labour and materials, you report the total payment.

What you don't report

The ATO's page on reportable payments leaves out:

• payments for materials only, and labour that's only incidental to selling materials
• invoices still unpaid at 30 June. It's what you paid by 30 June that counts, not what you were billed
• wages to your own employees, which are reported through payroll instead
• workers supplied through a labour-hire arrangement
• payments to contractors who didn't quote an ABN. You may have to withhold tax from those, and the amount withheld goes on either the TPAR or a separate annual report, not both
• private and domestic work, such as paying someone to work on your own home

The TPAR due date for 2026

The TPAR for the 2025–26 financial year was due by 28 August 2026. The next one, covering 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, is due by 28 August 2027. If yours is late, lodge it now rather than waiting for a letter. In August 2023 the ATO said it had issued more than 16,000 penalties to businesses that hadn't lodged earlier TPARs, despite reminders.

If you've worked out you don't need to lodge this year, the ATO has a Non-lodgment advice you can submit instead.

How to lodge

Paper TPARs haven't been accepted since 28 August 2025. According to the ATO's lodgment page, you can lodge:

• through business software that can lodge a TPAR
• in Online services for business (you'll need your Digital ID set up)
• in Online services for individuals and sole traders, through myGov
• through your registered tax or BAS agent

Keeping records so the TPAR takes minutes, not days

The pain of a TPAR is almost always the records, not the form. In late August, nobody wants to dig through a year of emails for a subbie's address or their GST. The ATO says your records should include each contractor's invoices, written contracts, any reimbursements, and evidence of how and when you paid. Keep them for five years. The ATO also publishes a free worksheet if you track payments by hand.

A simple routine that works:

• When you take on a new subbie, record their ABN, legal name and address, and check the ABN.
• Keep every bill against the job it belongs to, with the GST shown.
• Record the date you actually paid each bill, because that's what the TPAR counts.
• At 30 June, total the payments for each contractor and leave out anything unpaid or materials-only.

Where BizzMate helps, and where it doesn't

BizzMate records supplier bills, the money going out, under Supplier bills on the Invoices screen. Each bill is filed against a job and holds the supplier's own invoice number, the amount, the GST in it, and, once you mark it paid, the date and payment reference. A subcontractor you add to your team as a Supplier can upload their own bills from the job. The Supplier bills report downloads as CSV or a spreadsheet with all of those columns. That puts each contractor's bills, GST and paid dates in one place, which makes the TPAR easier to prepare.

To be clear about the limits: BizzMate doesn't store a contractor's ABN or address with their bills, and it doesn't build or lodge a TPAR. The report lists bills by the date they were filed, so sort by the paid date and keep only payments made by 30 June. Then add each contractor's ABN and address from your own records, and lodge through the ATO or your accountant.

Running out of time for paperwork generally? See tradie tax deductions for what you can claim, and what sole traders must pay for the rest of the yearly obligations. Thinking about whether your structure still fits? Read sole trader vs company. And for the invoices going the other way, see what the ATO expects on a tax invoice.

This guide is general information, not legal or financial advice. Whether you must lodge a TPAR depends on your business, so check the ATO's guidance or ask your registered tax or BAS agent.