Australia · Overtime & casual loading
Work out ordinary pay, overtime and casual loading from an hourly rate and hours worked.
Pay breakdown: this period
Indicative estimate using the rate you set above. Casual loading is applied to ordinary hours only. Most awards already build a loaded rate into overtime and penalty rates rather than stacking casual loading on top.
The National Employment Standards (NES) don't set a specific overtime rate. Instead, your modern award, enterprise agreement, or employment contract sets both when overtime kicks in (commonly after 38 ordinary hours a week, or outside your rostered daily span) and what multiplier applies. A common pattern across many awards is time-and-a-half (1.5×) for the first two or three overtime hours, then double time (2×) after that, but this varies significantly by industry and award, so treat the default here as a starting estimate, not your specific entitlement.
Casual employees are paid a loading (commonly 25%) on top of the base award rate, in lieu of entitlements permanent employees receive, such as paid annual leave, personal/carer's leave, and notice of termination. The 25% figure is the minimum casual loading set in most modern awards, but some awards or enterprise agreements set a different rate, so check yours if precision matters. Loading is normally calculated on ordinary hours; overtime and penalty rates in most awards are already a standalone loaded rate rather than casual loading stacked on top of them.
Penalty rates for working outside standard hours vary widely by award and industry. These are commonly seen ranges, not a single authoritative figure:
| When | Typical multiplier range |
|---|---|
| Weekday overtime: first 2–3 hours | 1.5× (time and a half) |
| Weekday overtime: beyond that | 2× (double time) |
| Saturday | 1.25× – 1.5× |
| Sunday | 1.75× – 2× |
| Public holiday | 2.5× (common, some awards higher) |
For your exact entitlement under a specific award, use the Fair Work Ombudsman's free Pay and Conditions Tool. It calculates award-specific pay, including penalty rates and allowances, based on your actual award and classification.
Got your gross pay for the period? Estimate what you'll actually take home with the Income Tax Calculator, or check what Super Guarantee your employer owes on it with the Super Guarantee Calculator. Remember, OTE for super purposes generally excludes the overtime component you've calculated here.
Under the National Employment Standards, you have the right to be absent from work on a public holiday, and any request from your employer to work one has to be reasonable, with a right to refuse on reasonable grounds. If you're a non-casual employee who'd normally work on a day that falls on a public holiday, you're paid your base rate for those ordinary hours even if you take it off. If you don't normally work that day, there's no public holiday payment for it.
The NES itself doesn't set a specific penalty rate for actually working a public holiday, that comes from your award, agreement, or contract, commonly in the 2x-2.5x range shown in the table above.
Full-time employees typically start accruing overtime once they exceed their award's standard weekly hours, commonly 38. Part-time employees usually have their own agreed hours in their contract, and the overtime trigger genuinely varies by award: some apply overtime once a part-timer exceeds their own agreed hours, others only once they exceed the full-time standard for their classification. Casual employees generally follow the same standard-hours trigger as full-time employees for overtime, on top of casual loading applied to their ordinary hours.
Because this genuinely varies by award rather than following one fixed national rule, check the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool for your specific entitlement rather than assuming any of the above applies exactly to you.