Aged Care Award Penalty Rates
Saturday, Sunday, public holiday and overtime multipliers under the Aged Care Award 2010, effective from 1 July 2026.
Award MINIMUM rates — enterprise agreements may differ. Check your classification's exact base rate on the Fair Work pay guide.
Aged Care Award 2010 [MA000018] — rates effective 1 July 2026
Casual employees get a 25% loading, included automatically in the results below.
Your award classification's ordinary hourly rate — check the exact figure on the Fair Work pay guide for your role, then enter it here.
Select an award and enter your base hourly rate to see the full penalty-rate table
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Aged Care Award penalty rate multipliers
Multipliers apply to your OWN base hourly rate (find it on the Fair Work pay guide for your classification) — they are not full wage tables.
| Rate type | Full-time / part-time | Casual |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday | 150% | 175% |
| Sunday | 175% | 200% |
| Public holiday | 250% | 275% |
| Shift starting 10am–1pm | 110.0% | 135% |
| Shift starting 1pm–4pm | 112.5% | 137.5% |
| Night shift (starts 4pm, before 4am) | 115.0% | 140% |
| Early shift (starts 4am, before 6am) | 110.0% | 135% |
| Overtime — Mon–Fri, first 2 hours | 150% | 187.5% |
| Overtime — Mon–Fri, after 2 hours | 200% | 250% |
| Overtime — Saturday | 200% | 250% |
| Overtime — Sunday | 200% | 250% |
This award covers Aged Care Employee classification levels 1–7 (personal care workers, catering, cleaning and other support roles in residential aged care) and its own most-senior-food-services stream. Registered/enrolled nurses working in aged care are covered by the separate Nurses Award.
Saturday, Sunday and public-holiday loadings stack additively for casuals (full-time rate + 25 percentage points), but overtime loadings are calculated as the full-time overtime rate × the 1.25 casual-loading factor — both patterns are reflected in the figures above.
Casual loading interaction
Casual employees under the Aged Care Award get a 25% casual loading on their base hourly rate, in exchange for not receiving paid annual leave, personal/carer's leave or notice of termination. That loading generally stacks additively on top of weekend and public holiday penalties — e.g. a Sunday penalty of 175% for full-time staff becomes 200% for casuals under this award.
Check the notes in the table above — some awards (Hospitality, Restaurant) pay casuals the SAME overtime rate as full-time/part-time staff, with no extra casual loading stacked on overtime specifically.
Worked dollar examples
Illustrative examples only — NOT classification minimum wages. Use your own base rate in the penalty rates calculator for an accurate figure.
$24.50/hr base rate
$28.00/hr base rate
$32.00/hr base rate
Public holidays
Public holiday penalty rates apply on the gazetted public holidays for your state or territory, which differ from the standard national list in some years. See the full, current list on Fair Work: Public holidays.