Staff Christmas gifts and tax: the $300 rule explained

By Sarah Lewis· 1 September 2026

What the $300 rule means for staff Christmas gifts: the FBT minor benefits threshold, what counts towards it including GST and delivery, why it is all or nothing, and how client gifts are treated differently.

By Sarah Lewis, Corporate Sales Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

A staff gift that costs your business under $300 a person, given only now and then, can fall inside the FBT minor benefits exemption: no fringe benefits tax, the cost generally still deductible, and the GST credit generally still claimable. Count what you actually paid, GST and any delivery charge included. It is all or nothing at $300.

Three The Gourmet Pantry hamper boxes in three sizes stacked on a boardroom table in an office

General information only, current at September 2026. We sell hampers, we are not registered tax agents, and none of this takes account of your circumstances. Please check your own position with your accountant or a registered tax agent before you order.

The same questions arrive every November, usually from the person who has to justify the gift spend to finance, and most gifting blogs either skip them or get them wrong. Here is the plain version, drawn from the tax section we already publish on corporate gifting at The Gourmet Pantry. If you are choosing while you read, Christmas hampers for business is the range our account managers work from.

What the $300 rule actually is

The $300 figure is the FBT minor benefits threshold. Keep each staff gift under $300 a head, and give gifts like this only now and then, and the minor benefits exemption can apply. Where it does, there is no FBT on the gift, the cost is generally still deductible, and if you are registered for GST you can generally still claim the credit.

Three things follow from that wording, and each one catches somebody out.

It is not a budget rule. Nothing stops you spending more; the threshold only decides whether that particular exemption is available. It is not a Christmas rule either: the March work anniversary and the July welcome pack are on the same terms. And infrequency is genuinely part of the test: the ATO weighs the total of similar gifts to the same person across this year and earlier years, and whether the gift is really a reward for performance. One hamper at Christmas is a very different question from a quarterly gifting program.

It is a cliff, not a taper

This is the part the promotional-merchandise blogs leave out. The threshold is all or nothing. At $300 or more the exemption is gone, and FBT can apply to the full value of the gift, not just the part above the line. Going ten dollars over does not cost you ten dollars of headroom. It costs you the exemption on the whole gift.

Which is why the difference between a gift at $290 and a gift at $310 is a good deal bigger than $20. Worth knowing before somebody rounds a budget up in a meeting.

What counts towards the $300

What the gift costs your business, GST and any delivery charge included, rather than the shelf price. That is not always the number on the purchase order: a hamper quoted at $290 excluding GST is $319 once GST goes on, which is the wrong side of the line. So compare the threshold against a GST-inclusive figure, and check which basis your own gifting budget is written on before you set a per-head number.

On our range that trap closes at $100, because standard delivery is free on every hamper over $100 anywhere in Australia, including hampers shipped one at a time to home addresses. Under $100 the freight is charged, and it counts.

The test is also per person. A hamper for an employee and a hamper for their partner are assessed separately, which surprises people who read the household as one line on the spreadsheet. If you are still choosing, our staff range sits on hampers for staff.

A hamper is a gift. The party is entertainment.

Two very different things get called a gift at tax time, and the difference is worth money. A hamper you send for someone to open in their own time is a gift, and that holds even when there is wine or spirits inside: the ATO's own worked example treats a food hamper and a bottle of wine given that way as gifts rather than entertainment. Food and drink you host and share is entertainment, and entertainment gets no deduction and no GST credit.

The same bottle can fall either side of that line. Sent to someone's door it is a gift. Opened and poured at the work party it is part of the party. The wine in a hamper and the wine at the venue are not the same line item.

Client gifts have no $300 cap and no FBT

FBT applies to what you give your own employees and their families, so gifts to clients sit outside it entirely, and there is no $300 ceiling on them. What matters instead is why you sent it. The ATO says a gift to a current or former client is deductible where it is made for the purpose of producing future assessable income, and its own example of a deductible client gift is a bottle of champagne sent to a client after a job. If you are registered for GST, the credit is generally claimable as well.

Two limits sit around that. A gift sent for personal reasons is not deductible even if the person also buys from you, so a hamper for a friend or a family member sits outside this. And event tickets, along with anything else that counts as entertainment, miss out on both the deduction and the credit. That is the practical reason hampers for clients and customers and a pair of finals tickets are not interchangeable at tax time.

The three cases side by side

What you send	Is the $300 test in play?	Deduction and GST credit
Hamper to a staff member, opened in their own time	Yes. Per person, counted including GST and delivery, and only where gifts like this are infrequent	Where the minor benefits exemption applies: no FBT, cost generally still deductible, GST credit generally claimable
Hamper to a client, customer or referral partner	No. No $300 cap, and no FBT	Deductible where made for the purpose of producing future assessable income, GST credit generally claimable
Food and drink you host and share, including the work party	Not a gift at all. This is entertainment	No deduction and no GST credit

Timing: which financial year it lands in

For income tax, what counts is when your business becomes committed to the cost, not when you pay and not when the box arrives. Order and get invoiced before 30 June and the cost has generally been incurred in that financial year, even if the payment goes out in July. Ordering in good time before 30 June is still the simplest way to keep it tidy.

Two wrinkles worth raising with your accountant rather than settling from a blog. A large order placed in June for delivery in the new financial year can land in the following year instead. And FBT runs on its own calendar, 1 April to 31 March, so the tests above are counted against that year rather than the 30 June one. On that calendar, a thank-you sent in June and a hamper sent the following December sit inside the same FBT year, while two Christmases in a row do not.

Where our range sits against the threshold

Our hampers run from $59.95 to $299.95, so every hamper we sell sits under $300 on price alone, and standard delivery is free above $100, which keeps freight out of the count on all but the smallest boxes. That is a fact about our pricing rather than an answer about your position: the exemption also turns on how often you give and on what the same person has already received.

The Gourmet Pantry hampers in French Blue boxes across the size range, from the smallest to the largest

We hand-pack all of them in Corio, Victoria. Three picks along that range, and why each earns its place.

Gourmet Bites Hamper, $59.95. Valley Produce Co. artisan crackers with sea salt, sweet and savoury bites, no alcohol in the box. The version of a staff gift you can send to a whole list without asking anyone anything first.
Gourmet Snack Box Hamper, $99.95. Caramelised cashew brittle and a sweet and savoury selection in our French Blue box with a gold ribbon. Note the five cents: at $99.95 it sits just under the free-delivery line, so freight is charged and joins the per-person number.
Ultimate Gourmet Hamper with G.H.Mumm Champagne & Château Tanunda Grand Barossa Shiraz, $299.95. The top of our range: Mumm Cordon Rouge and a Barossa shiraz with the artisan selection packed around them. Delivery is free at that price, so what it costs your business is what you see. Enjoy responsibly.

When one hamper for everyone is the hard part

If choosing one hamper for everyone is the hard part, we also do gift vouchers at set values so each recipient picks their own, though how a voucher is treated is a different question from a hamper and not one we can answer for you. For the ordering mechanics rather than the tax, our guide to corporate Christmas hampers covers the three ordering routes, logo gift cards, multi-address dispatch and invoicing, and the wider Christmas hampers range covers the part of your list who are not staff.

Questions the corporate team gets asked

What is the $300 rule for staff gifts?

It is shorthand for the FBT minor benefits threshold. A gift to an employee that costs the business under $300, given infrequently and irregularly, can be treated as a minor benefit, which means no FBT, with the cost generally still deductible and the GST credit generally still claimable. It is applied per person and per gift, and it is not limited to Christmas.

Does the $300 limit include GST and delivery?

Yes. What counts is what the gift costs your business, including GST and any delivery charge, rather than the price on the shelf. On our range, standard delivery is free on every hamper over $100, so freight only adds to the number on hampers under that. Work from the invoice total per recipient, not the product price.

Is a hamper with wine in it entertainment?

Not where it is sent for the recipient to open in their own time. The ATO's own worked example treats a food hamper and a bottle of wine given that way as gifts rather than entertainment. Food and drink you host and share is entertainment, which gets neither a deduction nor a GST credit. The same bottle can sit on either side of that line.

Which financial year does a June gift order fall into?

For income tax, generally the year your business becomes committed to the cost, so an order placed and invoiced before 30 June usually sits in that year even if you pay in July. A large June order for delivery in the new financial year can land in the following year instead. FBT is counted on its own year, 1 April to 31 March. Confirm both with your accountant.

Send us the list and we will quote it

Tell us the occasion, roughly how many recipients, your budget per head and when you need them to land. Email corporate@thegourmetpantry.com.au or call 1300 936 406, and your account manager comes back with a quote, usually within one business day. Phones are answered 9am to 5pm AEST, Monday to Friday. If you would rather see the range before you talk to anyone, start with Christmas hampers for business.

Early Bird Special, order before 19 November: A FREE bottle of G.H.Mumm Champagne for every $1,000 of hampers ordered. PLUS 10% off orders of 10+ hampers.