They describe two different things
“Fully maintained” describes what the lease budget covers: fuel or charging, tyres, servicing, registration and so on, bundled into your deduction alongside the lease payment. “Self-managed” describes who arranged the finance underneath it. One is about the running costs, the other is about the loan.
So a self-managed lease can be fully maintained. Most are. You arrange the finance, and your salary packaging provider still budgets and pays the running costs exactly as they would on any other novated lease.
Fully maintained is about
- Whether running costs are budgeted into your deduction
- Fuel or charging, tyres, servicing, registration
- How much administration the provider does for you
- Chosen when you set the lease up, with your provider
Self-managed is about
- Who provides the loan on the car
- What interest rate that loan carries
- Whether that rate was ever shown to you separately
- Permitted, or not, by your employer’s arrangement
What actually changes if you self-manage the finance
Less than people expect. The administration side is untouched, which is the whole point of the arrangement.
- Your salary packaging provider stays the same — your employer appointed them and that is unaffected.
- Your pre-tax deductions continue through payroll exactly as before.
- Your running-cost budget, fuel or charging card and claims all work the same way.
- FBT reporting is unchanged.
- The novation itself is the same instrument, signed by the same three parties.
What changes is that the loan comes from a financier you chose, at a rate you were shown before you agreed to it.
Why the finance is the part worth looking at
A bundled quote gives you one periodic figure covering finance, running costs and administration together. The running-cost side is reasonably easy to sanity-check — you know roughly what you spend on fuel and tyres. The finance is not, because the interest rate inside that figure is usually not broken out.
That asymmetry is the reason this arrangement exists. You are not being asked to distrust the budget; you are being asked to look at the one component you were never shown.
The practical question
Ask what interest rate is inside the quote you have been given, and what the residual is. If both come back clearly, you can compare properly. If the rate is not disclosed, that on its own tells you something worth knowing.
Is one cheaper?
Not inherently, and anyone who tells you otherwise without seeing your quote is guessing. Fully maintained versus not is a question about convenience and cash flow. Self-managed versus bundled finance is a question about the rate, and whether yours is competitive depends entirely on the rate you were quoted.
The only way to answer it is with your actual numbers, which is what a comparison does.