From the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, the Level 1 adult casual rate under the Hospitality Industry (General) Award (MA000009) is $33.05 an hour for ordinary hours, $39.66 on a Saturday, $46.27 on a Sunday and $66.10 on a public holiday.
Every figure below comes from the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review 2026 decision and the Fair Work Ombudsman's published guidance, and applies from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. Where a figure is calculated from those sources rather than quoted directly, the working is shown so you can check it. For your venue's exact obligations, the Fair Work pay guide for MA000009 is the document that counts. This is general information about published award rates, not payroll or legal advice for your venue.
What changed on 1 July 2026
The Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review 2026 lifted minimum award wages by 4.75 per cent, and the National Minimum Wage by 6 per cent to $26.44 an hour, or $1,004.90 a week. It is the first time the national minimum has passed $1,000 a week.
For hospitality venues the award that matters is the Hospitality Industry (General) Award, known as HIGA or MA000009. Its Level 1 adult rate now sits exactly at the new national minimum, so the floor for the industry moved with it.
Two details owners get caught on every year:
- The new rates apply from the first full pay period on or after 1 July, not from 1 July itself. If your pay week runs Wednesday to Tuesday, the new rates started Wednesday 1 July; if it runs Friday to Thursday, they started Friday 3 July.
- If you pay above award or use an annualised salary, the increase still matters: the salary has to keep covering what the award would have paid for the hours actually worked, and a 4.75 per cent rise can quietly push a marginal salary under the line.
Adult hourly rates from 1 July 2026
Ordinary hours, adult employees, Level 1 to Level 4:
| Classification | Full-time and part-time | Casual (includes 25% loading) |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | $26.44 | $33.05 |
| Level 2 | $27.08 | $33.85 |
| Level 3 | $27.97 | $34.96 |
| Level 4 | $29.45 | $36.81 |
As a rough guide, Level 2 covers many food and beverage attendants and kitchen attendants on general duties, Level 3 picks up more skilled floor and bar work, and Level 4 is where trade-qualified cooks usually start. The award's own classification definitions decide it, not this summary, and higher classifications exist above Level 4; check the pay guide if you employ them.
Penalty rates: what a weekend actually costs
HIGA penalties are expressed as a percentage of the ordinary hourly rate. The casual percentages already absorb the 25 per cent casual loading:
| When | Full-time and part-time | Casual |
|---|---|---|
| Monday to Friday | 100% | 125% |
| Saturday | 125% | 150% |
| Sunday | 150% | 175% |
| Public holiday | 225% | 250% |
In dollars, for a Level 1 adult casual (working from the $26.44 base):
- Saturday: $26.44 × 150% = $39.66 an hour
- Sunday: $26.44 × 175% = $46.27 an hour
- Public holiday: $26.44 × 250% = $66.10 an hour
The same arithmetic applies at every level. A Level 3 casual on a Sunday is $27.97 × 175%, about $48.95 an hour. Cent-level rounding in the official pay guide can differ by a cent from a hand calculation, so quote the pay guide, not this page, in a dispute.
What that does to a real roster
One worked example, because percentages hide the money. Say a cafe covers Sunday service with one Level 1 casual for eight hours:
- 8 hours × $46.27 = $370.16 for the shift in wages
- Add the superannuation guarantee, currently 12 per cent and payable on these ordinary-time hours, and the shift's wage cost including super is about $414.58
Run that casual every Sunday for a year and the single shift costs roughly $21,600 including super, or about $19,250 in wages alone. That is the honest comparison point for anything you consider buying to reduce weekend labour, and it is why wage cost percentage is the number most Australian venues watch hardest. If your labour is drifting past the benchmarks in that guide, the award increase did not cause it on its own, but it did make every inefficient rostered hour 4.75 per cent more expensive.
The compliance checklist for August
If you have not done these since the increase landed, they are worth an hour this week:
- Check your payroll actually updated. Payroll software mostly ships the new rates automatically, but "mostly" is doing real work in that sentence. Pull one payslip per classification and check the hourly rate against the table above.
- Re-test any annualised salaries against the hours actually worked in a sample fortnight, at the new rates.
- Check junior and apprentice rates moved too. Most are set as percentages of adult rates, with some exceptions, so they shifted on the same date. The exact percentages are in the pay guide.
- Check allowances against the current pay guide. Some are linked to the standard rate and move with the wage increase; expense-related ones are adjusted separately. Do not assume they all changed by the same amount on the same date.
- Keep the old rates on file. Underpayment questions usually surface months later, and being able to show the rate that applied in a given pay period, and when your system switched, ends most of them quickly.
Getting this wrong is expensive in both directions: back-pay plus penalties if you underpay, and thousands a year in silent overspend if a misconfigured system rounds the wrong way across a big roster.
Where the labour dollars actually leak
The award sets the price of an hour. What owners control is how many priced hours the venue burns on work that does not need a person: the phone that interrupts three staff during Saturday service, the booking that never lands because nobody could answer, the supplier call that eats twenty minutes of a manager's shift. At the new casual rates, every hour of that is $33 to $66 for a Level 1 casual, and more at higher classifications.
That framing matters more than any software pitch. Before spending anything on tools, most venues get further by fixing the roster, and keeping the people they have trained (staff turnover is the other silent labour cost) and stopping the leaks above. The numbers in this post are the ones to build that maths on.