A mid-size Australian restaurant budgets A$80,000 to A$150,000 for kitchen equipment alone, and Skai Solutions found the buy-or-lease question turns on tax: A$19,999 is fully deductible in year one and A$20,000 is not.
Those planning bands come from an Australian supplier cost guide published 16 June 2026 and cover equipment only, not the lease, the build or the trades. The more useful part of this page is what sits underneath the price tag. Australia and New Zealand treat new and second-hand gear in opposite ways, which changes the right answer depending on which side of the Tasman you trade on.
The most useful published bands come from an Australian catering equipment supplier's cost guide dated 16 June 2026. They are planning ranges rather than quotes, and they cover equipment only, not the lease, the build, joinery, council approvals or the fit-out trades.
A canopy and duct system is the overhead nobody budgets until the first invoice arrives. Commercial kitchen exhaust cleaning costs A$230 to A$900 a visit in Sydney, and the number of visits is set by what is cooking rather than by the size of the room.
| Venue | Equipment budget | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Small cafe or espresso bar | A$30,000 to A$50,000 | Espresso setup, compact refrigeration, small cooking line, one display unit, warewashing |
| Mid-size restaurant | A$80,000 to A$150,000 | Full cooking line, combi or convection oven, multiple fridges and freezers, dishwasher, prep benches |
| Large, high volume | A$200,000 and over | Heavy duty cooking suite, walk-in cold storage, multiple combis, blast chillers, passthrough warewashing |
Individual pieces move a long way inside those bands. Australian dealer listings read in September 2026 put entry to mid combi ovens in the A$5,000 to A$16,000 range and premium ten-tray models well above A$20,000, while used convection ovens advertise from a few hundred dollars up to about A$10,000 depending on condition. Date any figure you take from a dealer, because a stale price is a false claim about the market.
Four categories, and they suit genuinely different situations. Nobody's answer is right for everyone.
| Approach | Upfront cash | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy new | Highest | Refrigeration, primary cooking line, warewashing: the gear that fails expensively | Ties up the cash you need for the opening float |
| Buy used | Low | Benching, smallwares, secondary cooking, a second fridge | No warranty, unknown service history, and parts for older models can be slow |
| Lease or finance | Low | A full fit-out at opening when cash is the binding constraint | Total cost over the term exceeds the purchase price, and you are committed for the term |
| Rent | Lowest | Seasonal capacity, a trial menu, covering a breakdown | The most expensive per month, so it punishes anything you end up keeping |
The rule of thumb that survives contact with reality: buy new where a failure closes you for a night, buy used where a failure is an inconvenience, and finance only when the alternative is opening under-equipped. Refrigeration and the dishwasher are the two nobody regrets buying new.
This is where the decision stops being about the gear. Under the ATO's simplified depreciation rules, a business with aggregated turnover under A$10 million can immediately deduct the full cost of an asset under the instant asset write-off limit of A$20,000, for assets first used or installed ready for use on or after 1 July 2023. It applies per asset, so several items each under the limit each qualify, and it covers new and second-hand assets equally.
At the limit there is a cliff. An asset costing A$20,000 or more cannot use the write-off at all and goes into the small business pool instead, which deducts 15% in the allocation year and 30% each year after. Our arithmetic on the ATO's own rule: A$19,999 gives you a A$19,999 deduction this year, A$20,000 gives you A$3,000. One dollar of purchase price defers A$16,999 of deduction.
The ATO's own worked example makes the trap explicit: a A$40,000 vehicle used 40% for business, so A$16,000 of business portion, still cannot use the write-off, because the test is the total cost of the asset rather than the business-use share. Applied to a kitchen, that is the difference between specifying a A$19,500 combi and a A$21,000 one. Note also that you must apply the entire set of simplified depreciation rules, not just the write-off. This is general information, not tax advice.
New Zealand has no comparable immediate write-off. Inland Revenue's low value asset threshold is NZ$1,000, so anything above that is depreciated. What New Zealand has instead is Investment Boost: a 20% deduction on the cost of new business assets, or assets new to New Zealand, bought or finished on or after 22 May 2025, with normal depreciation then claimed on the remaining 80%. Inland Revenue states there is no limit on the value of new investments you can claim it for.
Read those two regimes side by side and the new-versus-used question flips across the Tasman. In Australia a second-hand A$19,999 combi oven is fully deductible in year one, exactly like a new one, so the tax system is neutral between them and you can buy on condition alone. In New Zealand a locally bought second-hand oven attracts no Investment Boost, while a new one attracts 20% of its cost as an immediate deduction. Imported second-hand gear can qualify where it is new to New Zealand.
That is not a reason to buy new gear you do not need. It is a reason to price the two options after tax rather than before it, in whichever country you trade, and to get the number from your accountant rather than from a page like this one.
Fifteen minutes, your numbers, and the bookings that rang out while the kitchen ran.
Book a Free DemoOne running cost that never appears in a fit out quote is what each machine costs you when it stops. The worst of them on a hot Saturday is an ice machine that will not make ice, and the fix is usually free.
Before you buy, it is worth knowing how the expensive items fail and what the repair is actually gated on. Gas cooking equipment can only be serviced by a licensed Type A servicer, which is set out on our page about a commercial oven not heating up.
One item is worth treating separately, because it is the one most often financed rather than bought outright. Our page on leasing against buying a commercial coffee machine compares the two over the life of the machine.
Set all of it against the rest of the model. Rent runs 11% to 17% of turnover for a small Australian venue, food cost and labour take the bulk of what is left, and survival data says the businesses that do not make it are usually the ones that opened with no cash buffer. Equipment is the one big cost you can genuinely stage.
One way to avoid most of this spend is not to own the kitchen at all. Ghost kitchen costs in Australia compares an advertised A$2,500 to A$5,000 a month for shared dark kitchen space against the A$200,000 or more a traditional fit-out was advertised at, and explains what the saving costs you on the revenue side.
Equipment is the biggest line but it is not the whole job. Australian contractors put it at roughly 40% to 60% of a hospitality fit out, with the balance going to services, joinery and compliance. The per square metre bands for the whole build, and the ABS construction escalation behind them, are on our page about what it costs to fit out a cafe in Australia.
Fryers and chargrills are what put a kitchen in the high risk bracket. Restaurant first aid requirements covers the hydro gel and polythene burn sheets the Code adds once that risk is present.
The espresso machine is the one piece of cafe equipment worth owning outright. Lease or buy a commercial coffee machine puts the median A$8,414.15 price against the A$20,000 instant asset write off threshold.
The one line on that list where the running cost outweighs the purchase price is warewashing. See what a commercial dishwasher costs to buy and to run.
Your appliance list is what decides your ventilation obligation, because a hood is required once cooking appliances pass 8 kW electrical or 29 MJ/h of gas. See commercial kitchen ventilation requirements before you finalise the line, including which appliances were reclassified in 2024.
Does the instant asset write-off cover second-hand gear? Yes, the ATO states it covers new and second-hand assets, subject to the limit and the eligibility rules.
What if an asset costs exactly the limit? The ATO's test is equal to or more than the limit, so an asset at exactly A$20,000 goes to the pool rather than the write-off.
Can I claim Investment Boost on a second-hand oven in New Zealand? Only where it is new to New Zealand, which in practice means imported. Inland Revenue excludes assets already used in New Zealand.
Does any of this apply to a phone system? Hardware can be an asset. A subscription is an operating expense rather than a depreciating asset, which is one reason venues short on capital reach for software first. Phone system costs covers the hardware side.
Tax rules change and thresholds move. Every figure here is dated and general information, not tax advice. Confirm your own position with your accountant before you buy.