The national minimum wage rose to $26.44 an hour from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, following the Fair Work Commission's 2026 Annual Wage Review. Modern award minimum rates rose too, by 4.75%, with the lowest classification in every award lifted to match the new $26.44 floor.
What the Fair Work Commission decided
Each year the Fair Work Commission reviews minimum wages across the economy and hands down a decision that applies from 1 July. The 2026 review lifted the national minimum wage by around 6%, and modern award minimum rates by 4.75%. The gap between those two figures matters: it means the lowest-paid classification in most awards now sits at, or very close to, the standalone national minimum wage, even though award rates as a whole rose by a smaller percentage.
The national minimum wage applies to employees who are not covered by any award or registered agreement — a relatively small group, since most employees are covered by an industry award. For everyone else, the award minimum wage for their classification is what actually applies, and it is usually higher than the bare national minimum once you account for the classification structure.
What $26.44 an hour means in real terms
For someone working a standard 38-hour week at the national minimum wage:
- Weekly gross (Fair Work's own published figure): $1,004.90
- Annual gross (52 weeks): $52,254.80
- Annual take-home pay after income tax, the low income tax offset and the Medicare levy: $45,564.44
That works out to $876.24 a week after tax.
One small thing worth knowing, because it trips up a lot of pay software: $1,004.90 is not $26.44 × 38. That multiplication gives $1,004.72. Fair Work publishes the weekly figure in its own right and it is 18 cents higher, so take the published number rather than deriving it. Over a year the difference is $9.36 — trivial for one person, less trivial across a payroll.
The rise was not the only thing that changed on 1 July
This is the part almost every summary of the decision leaves out. Two separate things landed on the same day: the wage rise, and the legislated income tax cut that dropped the lowest marginal rate from 16% to 15%.
Untangling them changes the story:
| 2025-26 | 2026-27 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | $24.95 | $26.44 | +$1.49 |
| Weekly gross | $948.00 | $1,004.90 | +6.00% |
| Annual gross | $49,296.00 | $52,254.80 | +$2,958.80 |
| Annual net | $42,993.84 | $45,564.44 | +$2,570.60 |
| Weekly net | $826.80 | $876.24 | +$49.43 |
So a 6.00% gross rise arrives as a 5.98% net rise — almost all of it survives the trip. Two legislated changes landed the same year and between them they offset nearly the whole tax bite: the cut to the lowest rate, and the $1,000 standard work-expense deduction that applies from 2026–27 whether you claim anything or not.
And of that $2,570.60 net gain, $603.00 has nothing to do with the pay rise at all. That is what the two legislated changes are worth together on a $52,254.80 income — the cut to the lowest rate and the $1,000 standard deduction: the same gross would have netted $44,961.44 under last year's rates. The pay rise contributed $1,967.60; legislation contributed the rest. A minimum wage worker would have been $603 better off this year even if the Commission had awarded nothing.
Your own numbers
How much of the rise do you keep?
Gross
+$2,944
a year, up 5.97%
In your hand
+$2,561
a year, up 5.96%
Two separate things moved on 1 July. $1,958 of that came from the pay rise itself, and $603 from the income tax cut that started the same day — which you would have received without any pay rise at all.
Each side taxed under its own year's rates, resident, with hospital cover and no study loan. Gross is your rate times your hours, so it can sit a few dollars under a published weekly award figure. Full breakdown in the Salary Tax Calculator.
A note on the two numbers you'll see on this page. The table above uses Fair Work's own published weekly figures ($948.00 and $1,004.90), which is the precise, sourced answer: a $2,958.80 annual gross rise. The calculator above instead works out gross pay as rate × hours × 52 weeks — it has to, since it needs to handle any rate you type in, not just the national minimum wage — so its own default numbers show an annual gross rise of about $2,944 rather than $2,958.80. That $14.56 gap is the rounding quirk explained above, and it runs both ways: $26.44 × 38 is $1,004.72, eighteen cents under the published $1,004.90, while $24.95 × 38 is $948.10, ten cents over the published $948.00. Neither year's weekly figure is the hourly rate times 38, which is why deriving it is the wrong move in either direction. Treat the table as the precise figure and the calculator as the tool for exploring your own hours and rate.
Run your own hours and see the full breakdown, including super, with the Award & Fair Work Pay Calculator — or check any hourly rate against annual take-home pay on the hourly wage pages.
The minimum wage now sits in the worst part of the tax scale
Here is the uncomfortable arithmetic. A full-time worker on $52,254.80 faces an effective marginal rate of 33.5% — 30% tax, 2% Medicare levy, and 1.5 cents in the dollar of low income tax offset withdrawing as income rises.
Someone earning $100,000 faces 32%.
The lowest-paid full-time workers in the country keep less of their next dollar than someone earning nearly twice as much. It is not a bracket problem — it is the offset taper, which runs from $45,000 to $66,667 and quietly adds 1.5 points to the marginal rate across that whole band. Full-time minimum wage now lands squarely inside it, and it moves further in every time the wage rises faster than the thresholds do.
The practical consequence is about deductions rather than wages: at 33.5%, a work-related deduction is worth more to a minimum wage earner than to someone on $100,000. What a deduction is actually worth sets out the whole scale.
How award rates moved
Because award rates rose by a smaller percentage (4.75%) than the national minimum wage (around 6%), the lowest classification in every award covered here was lifted specifically to the new $26.44 floor, rather than by a flat 4.75% from its old rate. Every other classification above that floor rose by the standard 4.75%. That is why, for example, the Hospitality Award's introductory rate now sits at $25.74 — just below the national minimum, reflecting that it is a training or entry classification — while its Level 1 rate matches the $26.44 floor exactly.
Penalty rates (evenings, Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays) did not move as part of this decision. They are a structural feature of each award, set as a multiplier of the base rate, so they only change if the award itself is varied — not automatically every 1 July. Our guide to penalty rates in Australia has the full multiplier table.
The entry-level floor is a separate number
The $25.74 introductory rate is not a rounding error or an underpayment. Some awards carry a genuine entry classification that sits below the national minimum wage, and the Commission permits it precisely because it is not an ongoing rate — it applies for the first six months of employment or less, after which the employee moves to the next pay point.
Two things follow. If you have been on an introductory rate for more than six months, that is worth checking. And any table claiming to show "the lowest ongoing rate" under each award should be showing $26.44 for hospitality and restaurant, not $25.74 — the two are different questions and conflating them understates those awards by 70 cents an hour.
Juniors and apprentices move too, on their own scales
Every award covering the industries most affected here sets junior rates as a percentage of the adult rate for that classification, rising with age to the full adult rate at 21. Because they are percentages, they moved automatically with this decision — a junior on 70% of a rate that rose 4.75% got the same 4.75%.
Apprentice rates work differently again: they are keyed to the year of the apprenticeship rather than age, with separate scales for adult apprentices and for those who had not completed year 12 on starting.
Two things worth having straight, because they are where junior pay most often goes wrong:
- Penalty rates apply to the junior rate, not the adult one. A 17-year-old working a Sunday gets the full Sunday multiplier, applied to their own smaller base. The two percentages multiply together.
- The junior percentage steps on your birthday, not on 1 July, so a junior gets two increases a year that arrive at different times and for different reasons.
Check the exact percentage for your age and classification in your award's pay guide.
Who is affected
This decision affects anyone paid at or near the minimum in an award-covered job or without award coverage at all — commonly retail, hospitality, restaurant, fast food and other entry-level or junior roles. If your pay is well above the minimum for your classification, the annual wage review does not directly change your rate, though it can still shift where the classification structure sits beneath you.
Frequently Asked Questions
The national minimum wage is $26.44 an hour ($1,004.90 for a standard 38-hour week, per Fair Work's own published figure), effective from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, following the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review.
No. The $26.44 figure is the national minimum wage for employees not covered by any award or agreement. Most employees are covered by a modern award, which sets its own classification structure — often starting near the national minimum for entry-level roles and rising well above it for senior classifications.
The Fair Work Commission hands down its Annual Wage Review decision around June each year, effective from the first full pay period on or after 1 July.
No. Casual loading (typically 25%) is a separate, structural feature of each award and does not change as part of the annual minimum wage review — only the base rates it is calculated from move. A casual on the national minimum wage is on $33.05 an hour once the loading is applied.
On a full-time 38-hour week, the 6.00% gross rise arrives as a 5.98% rise in your hand — $2,570.60 a year rather than $2,958.80. Very little of each extra dollar goes to income tax and the Medicare levy.
Because Fair Work publishes the weekly figure separately rather than deriving it. The multiplication gives $1,004.72, eighteen cents less. Use the published weekly rate.
Both, on the same day, and they are easy to confuse. Of the $2,570.60 extra a full-time minimum wage worker takes home this year, $1,967.60 came from the wage decision and $603.00 came from legislation — the cut to the lowest rate plus the new $1,000 standard deduction — which everyone on that income received regardless of what happened to their pay.
Yes, automatically. Junior rates are set as a percentage of the adult rate for the classification, so when the adult rate rises the junior rate rises with it in the same proportion. The percentage itself only changes with your age.