Hourly Pay Calculator — New South Wales

How PAYG withholding, superannuation and the Medicare levy work

Every pay run starts the same way: hourly rate multiplied by ordinary hours (plus any casual loading, overtime or penalty rates that apply) produces gross pay for the period. From that gross figure, the employer withholds PAYG tax under the ATO's progressive resident rates — 0% up to the tax-free threshold, then rising through several brackets to a top marginal rate of 45% — and remits it to the ATO on the employee's behalf each pay cycle, reconciled at tax time via the employee's annual return.

Alongside PAYG, most taxpayers also have the Medicare levy withheld: a flat 2% of taxable income, reduced or waived below a low-income threshold, that funds Australia's public healthcare system. It's calculated separately from income tax but usually shown as one combined 'tax withheld' figure on a payslip.

Superannuation works differently again. The Superannuation Guarantee (SG) — 12% of ordinary time earnings from 1 July 2025 — is paid by the employer directly into the employee's nominated super fund. It is not withheld from the employee's pay and doesn't reduce take-home pay; it's an additional cost the employer carries on top of gross wages, which is why a true 'cost per hour' figure for an Australian employee needs to add 12% before it means anything.

Worked example: from hourly rate to take-home pay and employer cost

The figures below use Australia's 2026 National Minimum Wage and Superannuation Guarantee rate exactly as published — a national-average illustration of the mechanics, not a substitute for a specific state's payroll tax position (which doesn't affect this employee's own pay at all and is covered on the dedicated state pages).

1. Ordinary hours: 38 hours/week — the full-time benchmark under the National Employment Standards.
2. Base pay: 38 hours × $26.44/hour (the 2026 National Minimum Wage) = $1,004.90/week, as published by the Fair Work Commission.
3. PAYG withholding: on annualised earnings of $52,254.80 (2026–27 resident rates — 0% to $18,200, 15% to $45,000, 30% above that), income tax works out to roughly $6,196/year, or about $119.16/week.
4. Medicare levy: 2% of taxable income ≈ $1,045/year, or about $20.10/week.
5. Net weekly pay: $1,004.90 − $119.16 − $20.10 ≈ $865.64 take-home.
6. Superannuation Guarantee (employer, 12% of ordinary time earnings, paid on top — not deducted): 12% × $1,004.90 ≈ $120.59/week, paid into the employee's super fund.
7. Employer's cash cost for this employee's ordinary hours (before any state payroll tax that may apply at the business level): $1,004.90 + $120.59 ≈ $1,125.49/week — about $29.62/hour, roughly $3.18/hour more than the $26.44 the employee is actually paid.

Overtime and minimum wage: why there's no single national rate

The National Employment Standards set 38 ordinary hours a week as the full-time benchmark, but they deliberately don't fix an overtime rate or trigger point — that's left to whichever Modern Award or enterprise agreement covers the employee's industry and classification. In practice this makes overtime genuinely local to the job: a retail award might apply time-and-a-half for the first two or three hours worked beyond the ordinary span and double time after that, while a manufacturing or clerical award structures it differently again, and many awards layer separate penalty rates on top for weekend, night and public holiday work.

The $26.44/hour National Minimum Wage works the same way in reverse: it's a statutory floor that only directly sets pay for the small number of employees not covered by any award or agreement. The great majority of Australian employees are covered by one of roughly 2,000 Modern Awards, which almost always set a higher minimum for their specific classification and experience level than the bare National Minimum Wage — so $26.44/hour is a useful compliance reference point, not a typical wage.

• No single statutory overtime multiplier — set by the applicable Modern Award or enterprise agreement, not the Fair Work Act itself
• Common pattern: time-and-a-half for the first 2–3 hours of overtime, double time after that (varies by award)
• Separate penalty rates often apply for weekend, night and public holiday work, layered on top of any overtime margin
• National Minimum Wage ($26.44/hour, 2026) is a legal floor for award/agreement-free employees — most workers are covered by a higher award rate instead

What super and payroll tax really add to the cost of an hourly employee

The 12% Superannuation Guarantee is uniform nationally and applies to every employee's ordinary time earnings regardless of state — it's the one large employer cost that doesn't vary by location. State and territory payroll tax is the opposite: it's an employer-side tax on a business's total Australia-wide wage bill, assessed once that bill crosses a state-set threshold (commonly $1 million to $1.3 million a year), at rates that currently range from around 4.75% in Queensland to 6.85% in the Australian Capital Territory, with New South Wales at 5.45% above $1.2 million.

Because payroll tax is levied on the business, not the individual paycheck, it never reduces what an employee actually takes home — it only affects what the employer's total wage bill costs the business, and only once that business is large enough to cross its state's threshold. Most small employers never pay it at all. The exact rate and threshold for each state and territory are covered on the dedicated state payroll tax pages.

• Superannuation Guarantee: 12% of ordinary time earnings, paid by the employer, uniform across all states
• State/territory payroll tax: employer-side only, applies above a wage-bill threshold, ranging from about 4.75% (QLD) to 6.85% (ACT)
• Payroll tax never appears on an individual employee's payslip — it's a business-level obligation, not a personal deduction
• Workers' compensation premiums are a further employer cost that also varies by state and industry

Casual loading and overtime: the detail most calculators get wrong

Casual loading (25%) and overtime margins don't simply stack on top of each other from the base rate — a common source of confusion. When a casual employee works overtime under an award, the overtime multiplier is applied to their casual (already-loaded) hourly rate, not calculated separately from the base rate and then added to the loading. A $26.44 base rate becomes a $33.05 casual rate first; if that casual employee then works overtime attracting a 1.5x margin, the multiplier applies to the $33.05, not to $26.44 with the loading and overtime margin bolted on as two independent additions.

There's a second, less obvious detail that generic pay calculators routinely miss: superannuation is only payable on 'ordinary time earnings' (OTE), and casual loading on ordinary hours generally counts as OTE — so the 12% Superannuation Guarantee does apply to a casual employee's loaded rate for their ordinary hours. Genuine overtime hours, however, are typically excluded from OTE altogether, meaning employers don't owe the 12% super guarantee on true overtime hours (as distinct from ordinary hours simply paid at a higher award rate). Getting this distinction right materially changes an employer's real cost-per-hour figure for any business that regularly rosters overtime.

Worked example: NSW payroll tax on a wage bill above the threshold

Consider a Sydney business with total NSW wages of $1,500,000 for the year — comfortably above the $1,200,000 threshold.

1. Subtract the threshold from total wages: $1,500,000 − $1,200,000 = $300,000 in taxable wages.
2. Apply the flat 5.45% rate to that excess: $300,000 × 5.45% = $16,350 payable for the year.
3. That $16,350 is a cost to the business alone — every employee on the payroll is paid, taxed and superannuated exactly the same as if the business had no payroll tax liability at all.

NSW's flat rate versus its neighbours' more complex structures

NSW keeps things relatively simple: one rate, one threshold, no tiers. Queensland uses a two-tier system that steps up from 4.75% to 4.95% once wages pass $6.5 million, and Victoria applies a much lower 1.2125% rate — around a quarter of its 4.85% standard rate — to eligible regional employers. NSW itself doesn't offer an equivalent regional discount, so a business weighing up a location near the Victorian border may find the payroll tax maths genuinely different depending on which side it sits.