Starting out
Do I need an ABN as a personal trainer?
Almost certainly yes, and the application itself is short. The parts worth slowing down for are the ones nobody mentions: what a gym can do to your invoice without one, whether you're really a contractor, and why your second year's tax bill can arrive twice.
If you're training clients for money on your own account — contracting at a gym, running clients in a park, coaching online — you're carrying on a business and you need an ABN. It's free through the Australian Business Register and often issued on the spot.
Without one, a business paying you can be required to withhold tax from your invoice before you see the money. And an ABN doesn't make you a contractor — that's a separate test, and it's the one gyms get wrong.
Do you actually need one?
The question isn't how many clients you have. It's whether you're carrying on an enterprise — something repeated, organised and commercial, done with the intention of making a profit. Setting your own rates, invoicing for your services and running at a profit ticks every box. A contracting trainer at a gym is running a business. So is someone with four clients and a set of bands in the boot. Training a mate's wedding party for a case of beer isn't. For the grey zone in between, the ATO publishes an entitlement tool.
Applying is free at abr.gov.au. You'll need your tax file number, identity details, a start date and a description of what the business does. Most come back with a number immediately, but the register can decide to look harder — don't leave it until the day before your first session.
Some sites hope you don't know that. Search "apply for ABN" and several of the top results are commercial services charging a fee to submit the same free government form for you. Legal, not a scam, and an unnecessary cost at the exact moment you have no revenue. Anything wanting a card number for an ABN is charging you for typing.
What happens if you invoice without one
This is the practical consequence, and it's a big number. When one business pays another for services and the supplier doesn't quote an ABN, the payer is generally required to withhold tax from the payment and send it to the ATO. The rate is the top marginal rate plus the Medicare levy — near enough to half the invoice. Check the current figure, because it moves with the tax scale.
You get it back eventually, through your return. "Eventually" means after 30 June, which is not a plan when rent is due in eleven days. Most gyms never get that far — they refuse to process the invoice until you send an ABN, and your pay sits there while you sort it out. There's a narrow exception for suppliers who genuinely aren't carrying on an enterprise, but if you're training paying clients regularly, that path isn't yours.
Employee or contractor: the bit gyms get wrong
Plenty of trainers work under an arrangement the gym calls contracting, and a fair share of those would not survive a close look. The answer decides who owes superannuation, who should have been withholding tax, and whether you've been accruing leave without knowing it.
Having an ABN does not make you a contractor. An ABN is a registration. Status is decided by the substance of the relationship, and a gym cannot convert an employee into a contractor by asking for a number and an invoice. The signals that actually matter:
| The question | Points toward contractor | Points toward employee |
|---|---|---|
| Who controls how the work is done? | You decide the programming, the method, largely the hours | The gym directs your approach and your roster |
| Can you send someone else? | You can subcontract to another qualified trainer | The work is personally yours |
| Who carries the commercial risk? | You do — you can make a loss and you fix problems at your own cost | The gym does. You're paid either way |
| Who supplies the equipment? | You bring your own gear, or you're paid for it separately | Everything you use is theirs |
| What are you paid for? | A result, or your own rate to your own clients | Hours on a roster, at a rate they set |
| Whose business is it? | Yours. The gym is a venue | Theirs. You're part of how it runs |
No single line decides it — it's the whole picture, and a mixed arrangement can land on different sides for different parts of the work. Two more things. A contractor engaged wholly or principally for their own labour can still be entitled to superannuation from the payer, ABN or no ABN. And the test used for tax and super isn't identical to the one used in workplace law; both have moved in recent years. If yours is unclear, the ATO has a decision tool and can give a formal answer. Better to resolve it than have it resolved for you.
Sole trader or company?
Almost every trainer starts as a sole trader, and for most it's still the right answer three years later. What matters is what each structure buys you, not who told you a company sounds more professional.
| Sole trader | Company | |
|---|---|---|
| Setting up | ABN is free. A business name is a small ASIC fee if you need one | An ASIC registration fee, plus an accountant to set it up properly |
| Every year after | Nothing beyond your own return | ASIC annual review fee, a company return, financial statements |
| How it's taxed | Profit is your income, taxed at your marginal rates | Company rate on company profit. Franking credits then offset that tax when the profit is paid out to you, so the total generally lands near your own marginal rate |
| Getting at the money | The profit is already yours | It's the company's. Taking it out has its own rules |
| Liability | You and the business are the same legal person | Separate entity — but guarantees and your own negligence cut through it |
A company becomes worth looking at when your income is high enough that the tax difference outweighs the extra cost, or when you're taking on commitments a sole trader shouldn't carry personally — a studio lease, staff, equipment finance. Most of that tax difference comes from profit you leave in the company rather than draw out, so it does little for a trainer who spends what they earn. Short of that, it's a solution to a problem you don't have. ASIC's fees are indexed, so check the current figures on their site rather than trusting a number in a blog post. Nobody indexes their blog posts.
A company is often pitched to trainers as protection. Be clear about what it protects against. It can limit some commercial exposure. It does not stop a negligence claim landing on the person who ran the session, and lessors and lenders routinely ask a sole director for a personal guarantee, which puts your own assets straight back on the table. What protects you if a client is injured is insurance.
Registering a business name
Trade under your own legal name and nothing else, and you register nothing. Trade under anything else — "Northside Strength", or your own name with words added — and you generally need a business name registered with ASIC. Small fee, one or three years, minutes once you have an ABN.
Two things people misread. A business name is not a trade mark and gives you no exclusive right to the words. And it creates no separate legal entity: you're still a sole trader with a trading name on your ABN. Check the domain and the social handles at the same time, because finding out later is a rebrand.
The rest of the setup list
- Your TFN stays as it is. A sole trader uses their own tax file number and reports business income in their personal return. There's no separate business TFN. A company needs its own.
- Open a separate bank account. Not legally required for a sole trader, and the
single highest-leverage habit in this list. One account, one card, and you pay yourself out of it
rather than buying groceries with it. Everything downstream gets easier, including the question your
accountant will ask about a $412 line that just says
SPORTSDIRECT. - Insurance before your first session. Public liability and professional indemnity. Gyms usually want a certificate of currency and often specify a minimum level of cover, so ask before you buy a policy that doesn't meet theirs.
- Industry registration. AUSactive or equivalent — frequently a condition of insurance and gym access rather than an optional badge, and the fee is generally deductible.
- A record-keeping system on day one, not day 400. Starting is free. Catching up is not.
- GST — probably not yet. A separate registration with its own trigger. When trainers need to register for GST →
Separating business from personal is the whole reason this exists
A separate bank account draws the line. Something has to keep it drawn — every session against a client, every expense against a category, the part-private ones apportioned, receipts attached while you can still read them. Momentum Tracking does that as you go and turns it into a BAS-ready summary your accountant can use. Built around the Australian financial year, ABN invoicing and GST.
See how it works → Built by an Australian PT of 12 years. Free 30-day trial.PAYG instalments, and why year two hurts
In your first year, nobody withholds tax for you. Every payment arrives whole, feels like income because it looks exactly like income, and quietly gets spent. Then you lodge, and a full year's tax arrives as one number. That's the first surprise, and the smaller one.
The second is PAYG instalments. Once a lodged return shows business or investment income above a certain level, and enough tax payable on it, the ATO generally puts you into the instalment system: regular prepayments, usually quarterly, toward the tax on the income you're earning right now. Which means there can be a twelve-month stretch where you pay last year's bill and this year's instalments at the same time. The thresholds move, so check the current ones rather than assuming.
None of it is a penalty. It's timing catching up with you, and it only bites once — after that you're paying tax roughly as you earn it, like anyone who ever had it taken out of a payslip. The fix is boring and it works: move a percentage of every payment into a separate account the day it lands, and treat it as though it isn't yours, because it isn't. What that percentage should be depends on your total income, so ask your agent for a figure. It's the most useful number you'll get all year.
From here it's the money questions that matter — what has to appear on your invoices, what you can claim, and what you do with money clients have paid for sessions they haven't used. Invoice requirements → · How BAS works → · Tracking prepaid packs →
Common questions
Does it cost anything to get an ABN?
No. Applying through the Australian Business Register is free. Plenty of commercial sites rank above the government one and charge a fee to fill in the same form for you. Go to abr.gov.au directly.
Do I need an ABN if I only train a few clients on the side?
It depends on whether you are carrying on a business, not on how many clients you have. If you set your own rates, invoice for your services and intend to make a profit, that is a business even if it is two clients on a Saturday. A genuine one-off favour is different, and the ATO publishes an entitlement tool for the grey area.
Does having an ABN make me a contractor rather than an employee?
No. An ABN is a registration, not a classification. Employment status is decided by the substance of the working relationship — who controls how the work is done, whether you can delegate it, who carries the commercial risk, who supplies the equipment. A gym asking for an ABN and an invoice does not change any of that.
Do I need a separate TFN as a sole trader?
No. As a sole trader you use your own individual tax file number and report business income in your personal return. A company is a separate legal entity and needs its own TFN, ABN and return.
Should I set up a company instead of being a sole trader?
For most sole-trader personal trainers, not yet. A company costs money to register, costs money every year, and adds a company return you will almost certainly need an accountant for. It becomes worth looking at when your income is high enough that the tax difference outweighs the cost, or when you are signing a lease or hiring staff. It is not what protects you if a client is injured.
Do I need to register for GST when I get an ABN?
They are separate registrations. GST is compulsory once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, measured on a rolling 12-month basis looking both back and forward at what you reasonably expect. Below that you can register voluntarily, but for most trainers with individual clients it just adds paperwork.