Restaurant Industry Award Pay Rates 2026-27

Restaurant award pay rates 2026-27 by level

Each level has a weekly rate for 38 ordinary hours and an hourly rate. Every classification on a level earns the same, so a Level 2 cook and a Level 2 waiter are paid alike. The last two columns show a full-time week after the ATO weekly tax table.

The Restaurant Award has no managerial salary level. Managers either sit at the level that matches their duties or are paid above the award altogether.

How much tax comes out of restaurant pay

Your employer withholds tax each pay from the ATO Schedule 1 tables. On a full-time Level 1 week of $1,004.90, that is $139 when you have claimed the tax-free threshold. You can only claim it with one employer, so a second cafe job is withheld at the higher rate: $250 on the same week, leaving $754.90. The second job tax calculator works out any pair of jobs.

Paid fortnightly? Here is the full-time fortnight at each level, withheld on the ATO fortnightly scale:

Weekly withholding runs a little ahead of the real yearly bill at these incomes. A full-time Level 1 year of $52,254.80 carries $7,025.36 of tax and Medicare levy for 2026-27, but 52 weeks of withholding comes to $7,228, so about $203 comes back when you lodge. The tax refund calculator works out your own figure.

Employer super of 12% is paid on top, $6,270.58 a year at full-time Level 1. For a salary that is not on this table, the PAYG calculator gives the same breakdown for any amount.

Casual restaurant and cafe rates 2026-27

Casual rates include the 25% casual loading (clause 11.1), and the weekend and public holiday percentages for casuals already include it. One split is unique to this award: casual Sunday is 150% of the base rate at Introductory to Level 2, but 175% at Level 3 to Level 6 (clause 24.2). Casuals must be paid for at least 2 hours each time they start, and can work up to 12 hours a shift.

That split makes the step from Level 2 to Level 3 worth more on a Sunday than any other day: a trained casual waiter moving up to Level 3 earns $8.33 more for every Sunday hour ($48.95 against $40.62).

Three common Level 2 casual weeks, after tax. The second-job columns apply when another employer has your tax-free threshold.

A casual on 25 hours every week of 2026-27 has $4,732 withheld against $4,376.10 of actual tax, so about $356 comes back at tax time, because the weekly table does not build in the whole low income tax offset. The casual pay calculator shows how loading, penalties and tax combine for your own roster.

Weekend, public holiday and overtime rates

For full-time and part-time staff, Saturday is 125% of the base rate, Sunday 150% and a public holiday 225%. Overtime is 150% for the first 2 hours Monday to Friday, 175% for the first 2 hours on a Saturday, and 200% after that, all day Sunday and on a rostered day off (clause 23.4).

Casual overtime uses the same dollar figures: it is a percentage of the minimum hourly rate without the casual loading. Only one penalty applies to any hour, the highest (clause 24.3). The overtime pay calculator handles time and a half, double time and time off in lieu.

Public holidays and Christmas Day

Full-time and part-time staff who work a public holiday are paid for at least 4 hours; casuals for at least 2. You can agree to take 125% for the day plus an equal amount of paid time added to annual leave or a day off within 28 days, instead of the 225% rate (clause 24.4(d)). When Christmas Day falls on a weekend and is not itself the public holiday, full-time and part-time staff who work it get 125% and a substitute day off, which is $33.05 an hour at Level 1.

Late night loadings: 10pm to 6am

Monday to Friday work from 10pm to midnight earns a flat $2.95 an hour on top of the hourly rate, and midnight to 6am earns $4.42, paid for each hour or part of an hour (clause 24.2). Casuals and juniors get the same dollar amount. Before 10pm a weeknight is ordinary time, and weekends and public holidays take their own rate instead.

As a second job, $205 is withheld instead and $660.69 lands. Work the same shifts as a Level 2 casual in a pub, under the Hospitality Award, and the week grosses $924.01 ($811.01 after tax): $58.32 more, from the earlier 7pm loading and the 175% casual Sunday. The payslip generator lays out each line the way your payslip should.

Which level am I?

Your level comes from your duties, not your job title. The classifications are in Table 3 of the award and defined in Schedule A; the typical jobs column is our reading of those definitions. For waiting and bar staff the Level 2 and Level 3 split turns on training: food and beverage attendant grade 2 is someone who "has not achieved the appropriate level of training".

Waiters and bar staff

Level 2 at $27.08 ($33.85 casual) while you are still being trained, Level 3 at $27.97 ($34.96 casual) once you have the appropriate training and serve both food and liquor. Taking bookings and seating guests is listed at both grades. A waiter with a trade qualification doing specialised work in a fine dining room is Level 4 at $29.45.

Cooks and chefs

Cook grade 1 (breakfasts, snacks, baking, pastry or butchering) is Level 2 at $27.08; a trained cook grade 2 is Level 3 at $27.97. Trade-qualified cooks start at Level 4: commis chef $29.45, demi chef $31.30 and chef de partie $32.13. Cooks who supply their own knives and tools get the tool allowance below.

Kitchen hands and new starters

Kitchen attendant grade 1 (cleaning, dishes, prep and pantry work, helping the cooks) is Level 1 at $26.44. A new starter can be held at the Introductory rate of $25.74 for up to 3 months while training, then moves to Level 1 unless both sides agree to up to 3 more months (Schedule A.1).

Restaurant Award junior rates

Employees under 21 who are not apprentices are juniors, paid a percentage of the adult weekly rate: 50% under 17, 60% at 17, 70% at 18 and 85% at 19, then the full rate from 20 (clause 18.2). The junior weekly figure is rounded to the nearest 10 cents and then divided by 38, so some cells are a cent different from the Hospitality Award's, which works from the hourly rate. Liquor service employees (anyone selling or serving alcohol in a bar or bottle shop, including cellar work) are paid the adult rate at any age, and under-18s cannot be made to work more than 10 hours in a shift.

The Fair Work Commission's junior rates decision of 31 March 2026 does not reach this award; it covers the Fast Food, General Retail and Pharmacy awards only, so these percentages stay as they are. Most junior weeks also sit under the tax-free threshold: nothing is withheld on a weekly pay of up to $364 when the threshold is claimed.

Apprentice cook rates

Apprentice cooks are paid a percentage of the standard rate, the Level 4 weekly rate of $1,119.10 (clause 18.3, Table 5). Where progression is competency based, the same percentages apply by stage.

Adult apprentices who started on or after 1 January 2014 get at least 80% of the standard rate in first year, then at least the lowest adult rate in the award (clause 18.5):

Restaurant Award allowances

The allowances most restaurant and cafe staff will see, 2026-27 amounts:

Black and white attire, shoes and socks are not special clothing unless they are part of a uniform. Annual leave is 4 weeks for full-time and part-time staff with a 17.5% loading (clause 25.3); the annual leave loading guide covers how it is taxed.

Restaurant Award or Hospitality Award?

The business decides the award, not your job. Clause 4.2 defines the restaurant industry as "restaurants, reception centres, night clubs, cafés or roadhouses", including catering by a restaurant business, but not a restaurant run in or with premises covered by the Hospitality, Clubs or Fast Food awards. So the same waiter is on this award in a standalone cafe and on the Hospitality Award pay rates in a pub bistro.

Base rates are the same at every level of the two awards. What differs is when the extras start: the Hospitality Award's weeknight loading begins at 7pm, this award's at 10pm, and Hospitality casuals get 175% on Sunday at every level where restaurant casuals at Introductory to Level 2 get 150%. Saturday overtime here is 175% for the first 2 hours. The rates apply in every state and territory, because this is a national award covering employers "throughout Australia" (clause 4.1).

Annualised salaries for chefs and full-time staff

A full-time employee can agree in writing to an annualised wage that replaces the award's minimum rates, split shift allowance, overtime, penalty rates and annual leave loading. It must be at least 25% above the award weekly rate times 52 (clause 20.1). It stops covering you past an average of 18 penalty-rate ordinary hours a week (10pm to midnight excluded) or 12 overtime hours a week in a roster cycle; hours past either limit are paid separately.

To see what a salary like this leaves after tax each fortnight, enter it in the PAYG calculator.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Fair Work Ombudsman: Pay guide, Restaurant Industry Award 2020 [MA000119] (published 24 June 2026; every rate, junior, apprentice and allowance figure on this page)
• Fair Work Commission: Restaurant Industry Award 2020 (coverage clause 4, casual employment 11, juniors 13 and 18.2, apprentices 18.3 and 18.5, annualised wages 20, allowances 21, overtime 23, penalty rates 24, classifications Schedule A)
• Fair Work Commission: Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 (coverage clause 4.2, the 7pm weeknight loading and the casual Sunday rate)
• Fair Work Commission: Junior rates decision issued (31 March 2026; covers the Fast Food, General Retail and Pharmacy awards)
• ATO: Schedule 1, statement of formulas for calculating amounts to be withheld (NAT 1004, the weekly and fortnightly withholding figures)

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