Nurses Award Penalty Rates
Saturday, Sunday, public holiday and overtime multipliers under the Nurses Award 2020, effective from 1 August 2026.
Award MINIMUM rates — enterprise agreements may differ. Check your classification's exact base rate on the Fair Work pay guide.
Nurses Award 2020 [MA000034] — rates effective 1 August 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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Nurses 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% | 187.5% |
| Sunday | 175% | 218.8% |
| Public holiday | 200% | 250% |
| Afternoon shift | 112.5% | 137.5% |
| Night shift | 115.0% | 140% |
| Overtime — Mon–Sat, first 2 hours | 150% | 187.5% |
| Overtime — Mon–Sat, after 2 hours | 200% | 250% |
| Overtime — Sunday | 200% | 250% |
| Overtime — public holiday | 250% | 312.5% |
This award has its own annual variation cycle, separate from the 1 July Annual Wage Review — these rates are effective from the first full pay period on or after 1 August 2026.
Rates shown are for nurses OTHER than aged care employees (hospital, community and occupational health settings). This award separately covers aged care sector nursing on the same classification structure — check your own setting on the Fair Work pay guide. Non-nursing aged care support workers are covered by the separate Aged Care Award.
Unlike most other awards in this dataset, this award's Saturday/Sunday/public-holiday and overtime loadings are calculated for casuals as the full-time multiplier × the 1.25 casual-loading factor (multiplicative), not an additive stack — but shift loadings (afternoon/night) ARE a flat 25-percentage-point addition on top of the full-time rate. Both patterns are reflected in the figures above.
Casual loading interaction
Casual employees under the Nurses 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 218.8% 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.