ATO logo

Zone or overseas forces tax offset calculator

Work out your eligibility for a zone or overseas forces tax offset and the tax offset amount that you can claim.

Last updated 1 July 2026

Go to the calculator

Zone or overseas forces tax offset calculator 

Our calculator takes between 5 and 20 minutes to use.

What you can do with this calculator

This calculator will help you work out your eligibility for a zone or overseas forces tax offset and the tax offset amount that you can claim. You can use it for the income years 2014–15 to 2025–26.

The results of this calculator are based on the information you provide. You should use these results as an estimate and for guidance purposes only.

From 1 July 2015, to be eligible for the zone tax offset your usual place of residence must be in a zone. If your usual place of residence wasn't in a zone, you're not eligible for the zone tax offset.

For earlier years, you only had to have lived or worked in a remote or isolated area of Australia (zone), not including an offshore oil or gas rig.

You may be able to claim an overseas forces tax offset if you have served overseas as a member of the Australian Defence Force or a United Nations armed force.

If you qualify for both an overseas forces tax offset and a zone tax offset, you can claim only one of them. The calculator will work out which offset gives you the greatest benefit.

From Tax Time 2026, the zone or overseas forces tax offset calculator will be updated to make it easier to use and to help prevent errors.

What's changing:

  • Location search
    • You can now search for eligible locations directly in the calculator. As you type, it will automatically find the location and show the correct zone. The helps reduce mistakes when choosing a zone.
  • Entering dates and days
    • You can enter the dates you were in each location or the number of days spent there. Where dates are used, this makes the calculation faster and means you won't need to calculate the number of days in a zone.
  • Simpler adjusted taxable income (ATI) inputs
    • If you have dependants, the calculator now makes it easier to enter your dependant's ATI, whether it's above or below the relevant thresholds.

What you will need

For the period you are calculating, you will need:

  • The number of days, or the dates, you usually lived or worked in a zone or specified overseas locality.
  • If you maintained a child under 21 or full-time student under 25
  • Your prior year zone and claim details if you're claiming for a zone tax offset and you lived or worked in a zone for less than 183 days.

What else you can do

Find out more about the eligibility for the zone and overseas forces tax offsets.

For income years prior to 2014–15, you can manually calculate the zone tax offset with the step-by-step instructions in the following:

QC17599