Your Uber Eats payout has landed, but it’s smaller than the food sales on your statement. For a GST-registered venue, Uber Eats GST is calculated on the full GST-inclusive price of taxable food, not the payout.
Uber’s fee is a separate business purchase. The GST on that fee can be claimed as a purchase credit, so the GST on your sales and the GST on Uber’s fee need separate entries in your books.
We’d record the gross sale and the fee every week, straight from the weekly payment statement. Coding the bank deposit straight to sales hides the delivery cost and leaves your sales reporting wrong, even when the net GST happens to look right.
Do You Pay GST on the Full Uber Eats Sale?
Yes, if you’re GST-registered and selling taxable food, you account for GST on the full menu price paid for your food, before Uber deducts its fee.
Under Uber’s Australian merchant terms, you appoint Uber as your limited payment collection agent. It accepts your customers’ payments on your behalf; it isn’t buying your food from you for the smaller amount that reaches your bank.
The ATO’s agency ruling, GSTR 2000/37, makes the business selling through the agent responsible for GST on those sales. Uber’s terms also say your menu prices must include GST, and it’s your job to tell Uber how much GST is in each item.
GST is 10% of the price before GST. When the taxable menu price already includes GST, the GST component is one-eleventh of that price, not another 10% added on top.
The food classification still matters:
- Hot takeaway food is taxable.
- Food marketed as a prepared meal is taxable.
- Some basic food items are GST-free, subject to exceptions.
You can check your menu against the ATO’s taxable food guidance. Our article on GST on takeaway food explains the distinction for takeaway menus.
You have to register for GST once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, and your Uber Eats sales count towards it along with the rest of the business.
Can You Claim GST on Uber Eats Fees?
Yes, a GST-registered venue can claim the GST on Uber’s business fees as a purchase credit, with the supporting tax invoice.
Uber’s merchant terms say its fees don’t include GST, so Uber adds GST on top of each fee.
Keep the fee tax invoice alongside the weekly payment statement. The ATO requires a tax invoice to claim a GST credit on purchases costing more than $82.50 including GST, so don’t assume the bank deposit or payout summary is enough.
A Takeaway’s Delivery Week
Consider a takeaway selling $4,000 of hot food through Uber Eats in a week, at menu prices including GST. Its weekly payment statement shows a fee of $1,000 plus $100 GST.
Your own weekly statement shows the fee and GST Uber actually charged you, so work from those figures.
| Entry | Amount | How It’s Worked Out |
|---|---|---|
| Menu sales through the app, including GST | $4,000.00 | Full value of the venue’s food sales |
| GST included in those sales | $363.64 | $4,000 divided by 11 |
| Uber fee, excluding GST | $1,000.00 | Fee on the statement |
| GST added to the fee | $100.00 | GST on the fee invoice |
| Payout to your bank | $2,900.00 | Sales less the fee and its GST |
| Net GST from these entries | $263.64 | Sales GST of $363.64 less the $100 purchase credit |
For this takeaway, the platform fee costs $1,000 a week excluding GST, and these delivery entries leave $263.64 of net GST before credits on other business purchases.
What Goes on Your BAS for Uber Eats?
Your full food sales go into G1, the GST on taxable sales goes into 1A, and the GST credit on Uber’s fee goes into 1B.
Your bank payout is what’s left after Uber takes its fee, so it never goes in G1.
If the same sales and fee pattern from the takeaway example repeats across a 13-week quarter, the delivery entries look like this:
| BAS Label | Amount From Uber Eats Entries | What It Represents |
|---|---|---|
| G1: Total sales | $52,000.00 | Full menu sales, including GST (you can choose to report G1 without GST) |
| 1A: GST on sales | $4,727.27 | Quarterly taxable sales divided by 11 |
| 1B: GST on purchases | $1,300.00 | GST on Uber’s fees across the quarter |
That’s only the Uber Eats share of your BAS. Your dine-in sales, other takeaway sales and supplier GST credits go on top.
GST-free food sales also belong in G1, but they don’t create GST at 1A. Under the ATO’s Simpler BAS approach, you report the GST credit on purchases at 1B, not a total purchases amount.
Keep G1, 1A and 1B as separate figures so you can tick the sales off against Uber’s statements and the 1B credit off against the fee invoices.
Why Is Coding the Payout as Sales Wrong?
Coding only the payout understates your sales and leaves Uber’s fee missing as a separate expense, even when the net GST happens to match.
That’s why this error can be hard to spot. In the all-taxable weekly example, treating the payout as a taxable sale can produce the same net GST:
| Check | Amount |
|---|---|
| Payout incorrectly treated as GST-inclusive sales | $2,900.00 |
| GST extracted from that payout, divided by 11 | $263.64 |
| Net GST when the sale and fee are recorded separately | $263.64 |
Over the quarter, though, your sales come up short:
| Quarterly Sales Check | Amount |
|---|---|
| Actual menu sales | $52,000.00 |
| Payouts incorrectly recorded as sales | $37,700.00 |
| Sales missing from G1 | $14,300.00 |
That $14,300 is the quarter’s Uber fees plus their GST, sitting inside your sales instead of on their own expense line.
Your profit in dollars can still come out the same. Your food cost and wage percentages won’t, because they’re measured against sales, and payout-only sales push both up while the $1,000 a week Uber charges never shows as its own line on your P&L.
The GST only matches when every item is taxable and there are no refunds or promotions. Once your menu has GST-free items, or Uber’s statement shows refunds and promo adjustments, you need to check each line.
If everything is coded as taxable, GST-free food gets treated as though its price includes GST. Check the GST setting on every Uber Eats menu item, then check your bookkeeping matches it.
How Do You Record Uber Eats Sales in Xero?
Use an Uber Eats clearing account to record the full sales, deduct the fees and adjustments, and match the remaining amount to the bank payout.
Think of the clearing account as a holding place for money Uber has collected for you.
When we take over a file, we check how each sales channel has been recorded. We’ve seen Square clearing accounts blow out because Xero’s auto-reconcile matched the wrong lines; delivery payouts need the same care.
If you run dine-in and delivery from the same POS, check whether Uber Eats orders already land in your daily sales summary in Xero. If they do, don’t post the sales again from the statement. Only post the fee and adjustments, and match the payout.
Your Weekly Xero Checklist
- Download the weekly payment statement and keep the supporting fee tax invoice with it.
- Post the full menu sales to your Uber Eats sales account, with GST on Income for taxable food and GST Free Income for any GST-free items. Put the amount collected by Uber through the Uber Eats clearing account.
- Record the fee as a separate expense using the GST on Expenses tax code, so its GST flows to 1B. Deduct the fee and its GST from the clearing account, without creating another bank payment.
- Record refunds, promotions and other adjustments from the statement, checking what each relates to and using the same GST code as the sale or fee it adjusts.
- Match the bank payout against the clearing account. Don’t code that deposit to sales again.
- Check that the entries for the fully settled statement clear back to zero, and investigate anything left unmatched.
An overall clearing balance isn’t automatically an error if a statement hasn’t been paid yet. You should be able to point to the statement or payout that explains it.
Don’t force an unexplained difference into sales or fees just to clear it. Find the missing entry, duplicate or unmatched payout while the statement is still easy to trace.
Our article on Square payouts in Xero explains the same clearing-account problem for card takings. Uber Eats works the same way: sale in, fee out, payout matched.
This is what your hospitality accounting should show each week: what you sold, what the platform charged and how much cash is still on its way.
What If Your Past Uber Eats Entries Are Wrong?
Start by comparing the weekly statements with the sales, fees and GST already recorded, then separate bookkeeping corrections from changes needed to a lodged BAS.
Don’t add the gross sales on top of payouts you’ve already coded as income. Move those payouts to the Uber Eats clearing account first, or you’ll count the same income twice.
For the period you’re reviewing, gather:
- Weekly payment statements and fee tax invoices.
- The matching bank deposits.
- Sales and clearing-account entries in Xero.
- Any POS entries covering the same orders.
- The BAS figures already lodged for that period.
Compare G1, 1A and 1B from each lodged BAS with what the Uber statements show for that quarter.
The ATO lets you fix most GST errors on a later BAS within its limits, and it’s usually easier than revising the old one, which can bring penalties or general interest charge.
Unclaimed GST purchase credits also have 4-year time limits. Keep the fee invoices with the review so any credit claimed has supporting records, and fix the weekly process so the same issue doesn’t keep returning.
Key Takeaways
- Record the full GST-inclusive value of your taxable food sales, not just the Uber Eats payout.
- Keep Uber’s fee separate and claim its GST as a purchase credit with the supporting tax invoice.
- Check G1, 1A and 1B separately, even when payout-only coding appears to produce the right net GST.
- Use a weekly clearing-account routine to match sales, fees, adjustments and the bank deposit without duplicating income.
- Review GST-free items individually and investigate unexplained clearing balances before they carry into the next reporting period.
If you’d like help with getting your Uber Eats sales, fees and GST right each week, you can reach us at (02) 9768 5922 or enquiries@getroger.com.au for a free, no-obligations chat.