National Minimum Wage

A real, national wage floor

Unlike some countries, Australia has a genuine statutory minimum wage, reviewed each year by the Fair Work Commission and applying nationally. It sets the lowest hourly rate an award- or agreement-free employee can be paid — a floor beneath every gross-pay figure the calculator works with.

Full-time, casual, and what it means for take-home

The weekly figure is the full-time minimum, based on a standard 38-hour week — the basis Fair Work uses. It is shown here derived from the hourly rate, so it may differ by a few cents from the published weekly figure because the hourly rate is rounded. Casual employees are paid a higher hourly rate instead of paid leave: the casual minimum adds the standard casual loading on top of the base rate, which is why it sits well above the full-time hourly figure.

The minimum wage is a gross floor — it’s the pay before any tax comes out. At a full-time minimum-wage income, income tax is modest and the Low Income Tax Offset reduces it further, while the Medicare levy is reduced or nil through the low-income shade-in, so the take-home share of a minimum-wage salary is relatively high. Enter a minimum-wage figure into the calculator on the home page to see the take-home behind it.

Is the minimum wage different in each state?

The National Minimum Wage is not set state by state. The Fair Work Commission reviews it once a year for the whole country, and the figure above is that one figure — so there is no separate Queensland, Victorian, Melbourne or Brisbane version of it to look up. Which minimum actually applies to a particular job is a different question, and the answer to it is usually the award rather than the state.

What genuinely does differ from job to job is the award, and that is a difference of occupation and industry rather than of postcode. A retail worker and a hospitality worker in the same street can be on different minimums; two retail workers in different states are usually not.

Awards and agreements can set more

The National Minimum Wage is the baseline. Most employees are covered by a modern award or an enterprise agreement that sets a higher minimum for their role, along with penalty rates, overtime and allowances. If an award covers your work, its rate — not the National Minimum Wage — is your floor. The calculator estimates take-home pay from the gross figure you enter; it doesn’t look up award rates.

Reviewed every year, from 1 July

The Fair Work Commission reviews the National Minimum Wage each year in its Annual Wage Review, and any change takes effect from the start of the new financial year on 1 July — the same date the tax year turns over. The figure shown here is the one that applies from 1 July 2026. Because the wage floor and the tax scale both reset on that date, a take-home estimate is always tied to a single financial year; this site models the current one. If you’re checking a rate for an earlier period, use the figure that applied in that year, not this one.