Budget and prices
What a home office actually costs per year
Spread the desk, chair, monitor and arm over the years you keep them, add the electricity, and see which line moves. Worked in AUD with GST included.
A home office looks like a one-off purchase and behaves like a subscription. The purchase price is divided by the years you keep the equipment, and then there is a running cost that arrives on the power bill without ever being itemised as a home office.
This guide puts both into one number: cost per year. Every price here is an example chosen to show the arithmetic, and Australian consumer prices are advertised GST inclusive, so the figures below already include GST. Put your own numbers into the cost-per-year and running-energy calculators on this site to replace ours.
The kit divided by the years you keep it
Take an example kit: a $450 desk, a $600 chair, a $350 monitor and a $120 arm, for $1,520 all up. Kept for 5 years that is $304 a year. Kept for 3 years it is $507 a year, and kept for 8 years it is $190 a year. The equipment has not changed; only the denominator has.
That is the whole argument for serviceability, and it is why the gas lift and the castors matter more than the upholstery colour. A chair with a replaceable gas lift reaches year eight. A chair with a sealed mechanism usually does not, and the $600 then lands in the 3 years column instead of the 8 years one.
Resale and hand-down both change the division. If the monitor goes to a family member after 5 years rather than to the kerb, its $350 is spread over the time it actually works, not the time you personally used it. The cost-per-year calculator on this site takes a residual value for exactly this reason.
| Kit total | Over 3 years | Over 5 years | Over 8 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| $800 | $267 | $160 | $100 |
| $1,520 | $507 | $304 | $190 |
| $3,000 | $1,000 | $600 | $375 |
Each cell is the kit total divided by the number of years, with no residual value subtracted. The $1,520 row is the example desk, chair, monitor and arm used throughout this guide.
Electricity is smaller than people expect, and rising faster
A laptop and one external monitor draw roughly 70 W between them in normal use. Working 8 hours a day for 5 days a week across 48 weeks is 1,920 hours a year, which at 70 W is about 134 kWh. At an assumed 35 cents a kWh that is $47 a year, or about 15% of the $304 the kit costs in the 5 years column.
A desktop with two monitors roughly doubles it: about 140 W over the same 1,920 hours is 269 kWh and about $94 a year. The line that overtakes both is heating. A 1,500 W column heater run for 2 hours a day across 60 cold days is 120 hours, 180 kWh and about $63 — more than the computer, from a device nobody counts as office equipment.
Use your own tariff rather than ours. The Australian Bureau of Statistics monthly CPI indicator for September 2026 put electricity up 12.8% over the preceding 12 months against an all-groups CPI rise of 4.3%, so an electricity assumption written down a year ago is already wrong by a wide margin.
| Load | Hours a year | kWh a year | Cost a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 70 W laptop and one monitor | 1,920 hours | 134 kWh | $47 |
| 140 W desktop and two monitors | 1,920 hours | 269 kWh | $94 |
| 1,500 W heater, 2 hours a day for 60 days | 120 hours | 180 kWh | $63 |
1,920 hours is 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year. Rated power is a ceiling and real draw is lower, so a plug-in meter will usually read under these figures; they show the ranking, not your bill.
Buying from overseas: the two numbers that change the total
A chair or a monitor arm ordered from an overseas seller is quoted without the two additions that land later. business.gov.au states that most imports are subject to 10% goods and services tax, and that most goods valued up to A$1,000 can be imported without a formal import declaration. Above A$1,000 the reporting and clearance requirements step up and the paperwork itself has a cost.
On an example $900 chair bought overseas, the 10% GST is $90, which takes the landed figure to $990 before freight. Add an example $160 of freight and the chair that looked cheaper than a $1,000 local one is not. The landed-cost calculator on this site adds GST and freight to a quoted price so the comparison is like for like.
The second number is the one that arrives in year three: a warranty claim on an overseas purchase means freight in both directions, and consumer guarantees under Australian law are easiest to enforce against a seller who is in Australia. On a $90 GST saving that is not a close call for a $900 chair.
- 10% GST applies to most imported goods, so a $900 quote is $990 before freight
- Goods up to A$1,000 generally need no formal import declaration; above that the clearance process steps up
- Freight on a boxed chair is the largest single variable and is quoted per consignment, not per item
- Return freight on a faulty item is the cost people forget, and it applies in both directions
- Put the quote, the GST and the freight into the landed-cost calculator before comparing with a local price
Putting the year together
On the example figures used throughout this guide — a $1,520 kit kept 5 years, a laptop and one monitor run for 1,920 hours a year, and no heater — a home office costs about $351 a year: $304 of equipment and $47 of electricity. Add the heater case and it is $414.
The ranking almost never changes. Equipment is first, heating is second, computers are third. That is why the single most effective cost decision is keeping the chair for 8 years rather than 3, which saves $317 a year on its own — more than the entire electricity line in every row of the table above.
Household spending context is worth a glance before you assume everyone else is spending more. The Australian Bureau of Statistics monthly household spending indicator for August 2026 recorded total spending up 6.8% on August 2025, with furnishings and household equipment down 0.6% on the month and recreation and culture down 1.4%.
Before you buy
- Write down what you paid for each item and the year you expect to replace it, then divide
- Read the rated power from the label on each device rather than from the product page
- Count your real working hours per year, including weeks you take off, before multiplying
- Take the electricity rate from your own bill, not from a national average
- Add 10% GST and freight to any overseas quote before comparing it with a local price
- Price the gas lift and the castors as spare parts, because they decide whether the chair reaches year eight
Questions readers ask
- Does leaving the computer on overnight cost much?
- A laptop and monitor left on for a further 16 hours a day add about 4,160 hours a year at 70 W, roughly 291 kWh and about $102 at an assumed 35 cents a kWh. That is more than double the $47 the working hours cost. Sleep settings and a switched power board remove almost all of it without any change to how you work.
- Is a second monitor worth $350 on these numbers?
- In running cost it is trivial: the step from 70 W to 140 W adds about $47 a year at the assumed tariff. In capital cost it adds $70 a year over 5 years. The honest comparison is $117 a year against whatever the second screen saves you, and that is a decision about your work rather than about the hardware.
- Can I claim any of this against tax?
- Australia has a working-from-home deduction regime with record-keeping requirements that change between income years, and the rate and the eligible expense list are published by the Australian Taxation Office rather than by a retailer. We have not reproduced the current rate here because we could not open the ATO page during this update, so treat every figure in this guide as a pre-tax cost.
- Why use 48 weeks rather than 52 in the electricity sum?
- Four weeks covers annual leave and public holidays, which is when the desk draws nothing. Using 52 weeks would overstate the laptop and monitor line by about 8%, which is $4 a year on the $47 figure. It is a small error, but it is the kind that compounds when the same spreadsheet is reused for a heater or an air conditioner.
Sources
- Australian Bureau of Statistics — Monthly consumer price index indicator, September 2026 (CPI up 4.3% over 12 months; electricity up 12.8%; furniture and household equipment up 0.8%) — checked 2026-11-03
- Australian Bureau of Statistics — Monthly household spending indicator, August 2026 (total spending up 6.8% on a year earlier; furnishings and household equipment down 0.6% on the month) — checked 2026-11-03
- business.gov.au — Importing and your business (10% GST on most imports; goods up to A$1,000 generally need no formal import declaration) — checked 2026-11-03
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