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Australia · not registered for GST

Sole trader invoice template

Free in Word, Excel or PDF. Most sole traders under the GST threshold need a plain invoice — no GST, never headed “tax invoice” — with their ABN on it. One rule decides which document you need, and it is not quite the one most people assume.

Checked against the Act

Checked against the legislation — how we check.

Download the template

Not registered for GST

The usual sole trader invoice: headed Invoice, no GST line, your ABN on it. The Excel version adds up the lines.

Registered for GST

A tax invoice, with a Taxable or GST-free mark on every line and the customer’s details once the total reaches $1,000.

Rather fill it in on screen? Fill it in below: it starts set up for a business that is not registered, and saves the invoice as a PDF.

Or fill one in here

Set up for a sole trader who is not registered for GST: headed Invoice, with no GST line. If you are registered, tick the box: it is headed Tax invoice and checked against section 29-70. Save it as a PDF or print it. Nothing is uploaded or kept.

Your details

Logo (optional)

PNG, JPEG, WebP or SVG. Your browser reads it here; it is never uploaded.

Your customer
The invoice
How you get paid (optional)

Printed under the totals as “How to pay”, with the invoice number as the reference. Terms set the due date from the issue date. None of this is required on a tax invoice, and none of it leaves your browser.

What you supplied
DescriptionQtyUnit priceGST

Mark a line GST-free if it is basic food, most health and medical, an education course or an export. The invoice then shows the split, because “total includes GST” is only accurate when every line is taxable.

Invoice

No. 0001

Your business name

ABN

Billed to

—

Issued

—

Due

—

DescriptionQtyUnit priceAmount

Invoice checklist

This checks what is on the document. It cannot check that the details you typed are correct, and no invoice can be “ATO-approved” — the Act asks for enough information to be clearly ascertained, not a prescribed form.

Not registered is not the same as no GST

The GST Act counts a sale as taxable if you are registered for GST or required to be— section 9-5. Unregistered and under the threshold, you are neither, so your sales carry no GST and your invoice shows none. That part is what everyone knows.

The part that catches sole traders out is the other half. Once your GST turnover reaches $75,000 you are required to register, and from then on your sales are taxable whether or not you have got round to registering. Leaving GST off an invoice does not keep it off the sale; it means GST you did not collect may still be owed. If you are near the line, the registration test works it out from your own turnover.

What goes on it

No GST law sets out what an ordinary invoice must say. The list in section 29-70 is for tax invoices, which only a registered business issues. What a sole trader invoice needs is what lets the customer pay it and file it:

  • your name or trading name, and your ABN
  • an invoice number and the date
  • who it is for
  • what you did or supplied, with quantities and prices, and the total
  • a line saying no GST has been charged
  • how to pay you

Supporting NDIS participants? The NDIS invoice template adds the participant, their NDIS number and a support item number on every line, which a plan manager needs to claim.

The ABN is the item with legal weight. Without it, a business that pays you more than $75, excluding GST, generally has to withhold the top rate of tax from the payment and pay it to the ATO — their obligation, under the ATO’s no-ABN withholding rules, and your money tied up until you lodge.

Once you are registered

Once you are registered, a business customer generally needs a tax invoice from you to claim back the GST on your sales. That document says so at the top, shows the GST, and marks which lines are taxable; at $1,000 or more it must also identify your customer. The tax invoice template marks every requirement on a real example, and the registered version in the downloads above is laid out the same way.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an ABN to invoice as a sole trader?
Not to send the invoice — but leave it off and a business customer generally has to hold back the top rate of tax from a payment of more than $75, excluding GST, and send it to the ATO instead of to you. The ABN is the one line on a sole trader invoice with money riding on it.
Should the invoice say "not registered for GST"?
Nothing requires it. It is still worth one line: an accounts team checking your invoice wants to know why there is no GST before they will pay it, and the sentence answers the question before anyone has to email you. The no-GST template above already carries it.
Can I add GST if I am not registered?
Not until you are registered or required to be. Until then nothing you sell is a taxable supply, so there is no GST to charge — adding 10% and calling it GST tells your customer they can claim a credit that does not exist. Once your turnover reaches $75,000, the opposite applies: you have 21 days to apply, and your sales carry GST from the date you were required to register.
A customer wants their own reference on my invoice. Does the template change?
No. A plan manager, a head contractor or a larger business may ask for a number of theirs — a purchase order, a job or participant reference — so their accounts system can match your invoice to their records. Put whatever they ask for in the description or under the invoice number. It changes nothing about whether the invoice is valid, and the ABN stays on every one.

Sources

Read from the legislation and the ATO, not from a summary of them. Who makes a taxable supply is GST Act section 9-5, and the tax invoice requirements are section 29-70, both in C2026C00081 (Compilation No. 96), in force 1 January 2026. The withholding rule is the ATO’s Withholding if ABN is not provided (QC51682). The methodology page explains how this site verifies figures.