Business vehicle finance planner

How the planner works

Business vehicle finance comes in a handful of structures, and the right one depends less on the vehicle's badge than on a few practical facts: who's selling it, whether your business is registered for GST, how long your ABN has been active, how the vehicle will be used and whether there's property in the background. The planner weighs those facts the way an experienced vehicle-finance specialist would and ranks the structures that usually fit.

It never asks for or shows an interest rate. Rates depend on the lender, the vehicle and your business, and a made-up figure would only mislead you. Instead, the planner focuses on what you can actually plan around: ownership, GST timing, the paperwork you'll need and what to do next.

What each structure means in plain English

• Chattel mortgage — your business borrows to buy the vehicle and owns it from day one; the lender holds security over it. GST-registered buyers can usually claim the GST in a dealer's price, capped for passenger cars by the car limit.
• Commercial hire purchase — the financier owns the vehicle until your final payment. For agreements from 1 July 2012, the ATO allows the GST to be claimed up front, even on a cash basis.
• Finance lease — the financier owns the vehicle and leases it to you, with a residual at the end. GST is in each lease payment.
• Operating lease — rental-style, hand the vehicle back at the end; most common for fleets.
• Sale and leaseback and refinancing — ways to release cash from vehicles your business already owns.
• Property-backed loans — business loans from $20,000 to $5,000,000 secured by property, useful for fleets, older vehicles or harder deals.

The tax figures behind the notes

The notes in your result use figures published by the ATO and checked in October 2026. For 2026–27, the car limit is $69,883, so the most GST credit you can claim on a passenger car is $6,353. Luxury car tax applies above $80,809, or $91,661 for fuel-efficient vehicles. The instant asset write-off threshold is less than $20,000 per asset for businesses with aggregated turnover under $10 million. Utes, vans and trucks designed mainly to carry goods often sit outside the car limit — your accountant can confirm your specific model. See our tax and GST pages for the detail.

Getting the most from your result

Treat the result as a starting point for a conversation, not a final answer. If two structures come out close, that's normal — the better choice often comes down to your accountant's preference or a specific lender's policy. Print or screenshot your documents list and start gathering them; that's the step that speeds up approval more than any other. Our documents checklist guide has more detail for each situation.

When you're ready, start a 60-second enquiry. There's no credit check when you first enquire, your details stay with one specialist instead of being sent to a long list of lenders, and a real person calls you to confirm what's possible. Please answer the form as accurately as you did here — it's how we match you with the right lender first time.

Want to check your business-use figure first? Try the business-use percentage helper.