Casual loading is the extra pay a casual employee gets on top of the base hourly rate, and the standard casual loading rate in Australia is 25%. It makes up for the paid leave, notice and redundancy pay casuals miss out on. If someone is a genuine casual, you pay it for every hour they work.
Most business owners set a casual rate once, plug it into payroll and never think about it again. That works fine until a Sunday shift, an overtime roster or a former employee’s back-pay claim lands on your desk. The good news? The rules fit on a page, and you’re reading it.
- The rate is 25% for almost everyone. Every modern award and the national minimum wage order use a 25% casual loading. From 1 July 2026, an award-free adult casual earns at least $33.05 an hour.
- It’s paid on every hour worked, every pay run. Casual loading doesn’t build up like leave. It stops only when the casual converts to permanent employment.
- Your state rarely changes the answer. Private businesses in NSW, QLD and Victoria are all in the national system. WA sole traders and partnerships sit in the state system, which also moved to a 25% minimum in January 2025.
- It doesn’t replace penalty rates. Weekend, public holiday and overtime rates still apply. Your award decides how they combine with the loading.
- Show the loading separately on payslips. An identifiable casual loading protects you if a casual is later found to be a permanent employee.
What is the casual loading rate in Australia?
The casual loading rate is 25% of the base hourly rate. That figure comes from the modern awards, which all use 25%, and from the national minimum wage order, which covers award-free employees.
From 1 July 2026, the national minimum wage rose to $26.44 an hour. Add 25% and an award-free adult casual must earn at least $33.05 an hour. Award-covered casuals earn 25% on top of their own classification’s base rate, which is usually higher.
Older articles (including an earlier version of this one) quoted a range of 15 to 25%. That range is a leftover from the pre-2010 award system, and the transitional loadings were fully phased out years ago. If an old template or payroll setting still says 20%, fix it this week.
Enterprise agreements can set their own casual rates, but they still have to leave employees better off overall than the award. Very few small businesses have one. For most readers, the answer is simply 25%.
Is casual loading mandatory?
Yes. If someone is a casual employee and an award, an enterprise agreement or the national minimum wage order applies, the loading is a legal minimum. You can pay more. You can’t contract out of it, even if the employee happily signs a lower rate.
A common wrong assumption: “we agreed on $30 an hour, so that’s the rate”. A signed contract never overrides the award. If $30 is less than the award’s casual minimum, you owe the difference.
When do employers have to pay casual loading?
You pay casual loading whenever a genuine casual employee works. It’s built into each hourly rate and paid in the same pay run as their wages. Nothing accrues, and nothing extra is owed when the job ends.
What triggers it is the person’s employment status, not their roster. A casual who has worked the same Tuesday and Thursday shifts for two years still gets the loading until they convert to permanent work.
Who counts as a casual changed on 26 August 2024. Under section 15A of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), someone is a casual if there’s no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work, and they’re entitled to a casual loading or casual pay rate. The test now looks at how the relationship works in real life, not just what the contract says.
Who doesn’t get casual loading?
- Independent contractors. They invoice for their services and cover their own leave, tax and super.
- Full-time and part-time employees. They get paid leave, notice and redundancy entitlements instead.
- A former casual who has converted to permanent employment, from the date the conversion takes effect.
Get your Casual Employment Agreement now for free.
How do you calculate casual loading?
Here’s the maths: base hourly rate × 1.25. The hard part is choosing the right base rate, because that depends on the award and the employee’s classification level. Get the classification wrong and every shift is wrong.
Example 1: an award-free casual
Start with the national minimum wage of $26.44 an hour. Casual loading is 25% of that, which is $6.61. The minimum casual rate is $26.44 + $6.61 = $33.05 an hour.
Example 2: an award-covered casual
Say the award base rate for your employee’s classification is $30.00 an hour (an illustrative figure, so check your own award). The loading is $7.50, and the minimum casual rate is $37.50 an hour for ordinary hours.
Example 3: a week of shifts
A casual on $33.05 works four five-hour weekday shifts. That’s 20 hours × $33.05 = $661.00 gross. Super is 12% of the full amount, loading included, so you’d also pay $79.32 into their fund.
Want to skip the arithmetic? Lawpath’s free pay calculator maps common industries to their award rates, including casual rates.
Is casual loading included in the hourly rate?
It should be, and your paperwork should say so. You can quote an all-in figure (“$37.50 per hour, inclusive of 25% casual loading”) or split it into base rate plus loading. Both work. Silence doesn’t.
Our lawyers prefer the split version on payslips. You’ll see why in the section on getting it wrong.
Does casual loading apply on weekends, public holidays and overtime?
Yes on weekends and public holidays worked. Overtime depends on your award. Casual loading and penalty rates are separate entitlements, and each award has its own rule for how they combine.
| Method | How it works | Example: $30 base, 50% penalty |
|---|---|---|
| Added together | Loading and penalty are both worked out on the base rate | $30 × (1 + 0.25 + 0.50) = $52.50 |
| Loading first | The penalty is applied to the already-loaded casual rate | $37.50 × 1.5 = $56.25 |
| Overtime without loading | The overtime rate replaces the loading for those hours | $30 × 1.5 = $45.00 |
These figures are illustrative. Your award’s penalty and overtime clauses set the real percentages for casuals, and many awards publish a separate casual rates table. Read that table before you set up payroll.
Mistakes run both ways. Some employers add 25% on top of overtime rates that already exclude it, and overpay for years. Others drop the loading from weekend shifts where the award adds it, and underpay. Our guide to when to pay penalty rates covers the triggers in more detail.
What about public holidays a casual doesn’t work? Nothing is owed. Casuals are only paid for public holidays they’re rostered on for, because the loading already covers the missing paid day off.
Casual loading in NSW, QLD, WA and Victoria: does your state change the rate?
Short answer: for almost every private business, no. Casual loading is 25% everywhere. What changes the answer is which workplace system covers your business, and that comes down to your structure and sector.
| State | Covered by the national system (25% via modern awards) | Covered by the state system instead |
|---|---|---|
| NSW | All private businesses, including sole traders and partnerships | NSW public sector and local councils |
| QLD | All private businesses | Queensland state government and local councils |
| WA | Pty Ltd companies and other trading or financial corporations | Sole traders, partnerships, some trusts and unincorporated associations |
| VIC, SA, TAS, ACT, NT | All private businesses | Some state public sector roles (outside Victoria) |
Casual loading in NSW
The casual loading rate in NSW is 25% for private employers. NSW handed its private-sector workplace powers to the Commonwealth, so a Newcastle café run as a sole trader pays the same national award rates as a café in Melbourne.
NSW government and council employment is the exception, because it runs under state awards. We regularly see NSW business owners land on NSW state award pages when searching for casual rates. If you’re a private business, those pages don’t apply to you. Your modern award does.
Casual loading in QLD
Same answer in Queensland: 25% for private employers under the relevant modern award. The Queensland state system only covers state government and local council employees.
A question Lawpath advisers get from Queensland health clinics is whether a “Queensland nurses award” applies to their casual staff. For a private clinic, it’s the national Nurses Award, with the 25% loading built into the casual rate.
Casual loading in WA
WA is the one state where your business structure decides the rules. Sole traders, partnerships and some trusts sit in the WA state system. Pty Ltd companies sit in the national system.
If you’re in the WA state system, the minimum casual loading rose from 20% to 25% on 31 January 2025, so the 20% figure in older articles is out of date. From 1 July 2026, the WA state minimum wage is $998.30 a week. That’s about $26.27 an hour for a 38-hour week, or roughly $32.84 an hour for an adult casual.
One trap to watch: if you run a WA business as a sole trader and later incorporate, you move from the state system to the national system overnight. Check your casual rates and award coverage the week you incorporate.
Casual loading in Victoria and other states
Victorian, South Australian, Tasmanian, ACT and NT private businesses all use the national system. The casual loading rate is 25% under whichever modern award covers the role.
What does casual loading replace, and what doesn’t it?
Casual loading pays casuals for four things they don’t get: paid annual leave, paid personal/carer’s leave, notice of termination and redundancy pay. That’s the whole list.
Everything else still applies. Casual employees are entitled to:
- Penalty rates, overtime and allowances under their award.
- Superannuation at 12% of ordinary time earnings, which include the casual loading.
- 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave each year. (Older articles say 5 days unpaid. That changed in 2023.)
- 2 days of unpaid carer’s leave and 2 days of unpaid compassionate leave per occasion.
- Unpaid community service leave, such as jury duty or volunteer emergency work.
- Unpaid parental leave and the right to request flexible work, once they’ve worked regularly and systematically for 12 months and expect that to continue.
- Long service leave under state and territory laws, which count continuous casual service in most states.
For the full picture, see our guide on casual employees and leave entitlements.
What we see in Lawpath consultations about casual loading
Lawpath’s employment lawyers review casual agreements every week, for cleaning businesses, NDIS providers, clinics, franchisees and early-stage startups. The same five issues come up again and again.
1. The contract doesn’t say whether the rate includes loading
This is the most common fix our lawyers make. The contract lists an hourly rate but never says whether the 25% is inside it. The recommendation is nearly always the same: add one sentence stating the rate includes the casual loading, and show base and loading as separate lines on payslips.
2. The loading clause tries to swallow penalty rates
We regularly see clauses saying the casual loading “covers all penalties, allowances and other loadings”. It doesn’t, and no clause can make it. The loading replaces leave-type entitlements. Weekend and public holiday penalties are still owed on top, and advisers routinely tell clients to cut that wording back.
3. Overtime and minimum shifts don’t match the award
Home care and disability support businesses under the SCHADS Award hit this often. Advisers have told clients not to add the 25% loading to overtime hours, because that award pays casual overtime at the overtime rate only. The same reviews catch one-hour minimum shift clauses where the award requires two.
4. Flat or day rates with no working-out
Some businesses pay one rolled-up rate that bundles super, loading and penalties. That can be lawful, but only if the rate beats the award for every shift pattern the person works. Our advisers tell clients to keep the written calculation showing the employee comes out ahead. Without it, you have no defence to a claim.
We also see the reverse. A former permanent employee calculates a back-pay claim using casual award rates. A signed contract that clearly records the employment type settles that argument fast.
5. Calling someone a contractor to avoid wages
Cash-strapped founders sometimes offer a new hire commission or shares instead of pay. If the person works variable hours for you and has no other clients, they’re very likely a casual employee. That means minimum wage plus 25% loading, and shares don’t replace it.
What happens if you get casual loading wrong?
You back-pay the shortfall, plus super on it. The Fair Work Ombudsman can also seek civil penalties. And since 1 January 2025, intentionally underpaying employees is a criminal offence.
Here’s the reason our lawyers push for separate payslip lines. If someone you treated as a casual is later found to be permanent, the Fair Work Act lets a court reduce their leave claim by the casual loading you already paid them. That offset only works if the loading was an identifiable amount.
Pay a single mystery rate with no breakdown and you may end up paying for the leave twice: once through the loading, and again through the claim. One payslip change protects you.
When does casual loading stop? Casual conversion explained
On the day a casual becomes permanent, the loading stops. From then on, they accrue paid leave and the other permanent entitlements instead.
Since 26 August 2024 (26 August 2025 for small businesses), conversion runs through the “employee choice” pathway. A casual can give you written notice that they want to convert once they’ve worked for you for 6 months, or 12 months if you have fewer than 15 employees, and they believe they no longer fit the casual definition.
You must reply in writing within 21 days. You can refuse only if they still meet the casual definition, or on fair and reasonable operational grounds. Our guide to the casual employment changes from August 2024 walks through the process.
Employers no longer have to make conversion offers at the 12-month mark. Plenty of templates still say otherwise, so check yours.
One more obligation: give every casual the Casual Employment Information Statement when they start. Larger employers give it again at 6 months, 12 months and every 12 months after that. Small businesses give it again after 12 months.
Your casual loading checklist
- Confirm the person is a genuine casual under the section 15A test, not a permanent employee on a casual label.
- Identify the right modern award and the correct classification level for their duties.
- Apply 25% to the base rate, then re-check it against the new rates every 1 July.
- Read your award’s penalty and overtime clauses to see how the loading combines with them.
- Put the rate in writing, state that it includes casual loading, and itemise the loading on payslips.
- Give the Fair Work Information Statement and the Casual Employment Information Statement at the start.
- Diarise the 6-month and 12-month marks so conversion notices and repeat statements don’t catch you out.
Casual loading FAQs
Is casual loading always 25%?
Almost always. Every modern award and the national minimum wage order set it at 25%. An enterprise agreement can set a different casual rate, but it must still leave employees better off overall than the award. If you don’t have an enterprise agreement, use 25%.
Is casual loading mandatory in Australia?
Yes. For a genuine casual covered by an award, an enterprise agreement or the national minimum wage order, the loading is a legal minimum. A contract can pay more but can’t pay less, even if the employee agrees in writing.
What is the casual loading rate in NSW?
It’s 25% for private businesses, because NSW private employers are in the national system and use modern awards. NSW public sector and council employees are covered by separate state awards.
What is the casual loading rate in QLD?
It’s 25% for private businesses under the relevant modern award. The Queensland state system only covers state government and local council employees.
Do you pay super on casual loading?
Yes. Casual loading forms part of ordinary time earnings, so the 12% Superannuation Guarantee applies to the full casual rate, loading included.
Is casual loading the same as leave loading?
No. Casual loading is an extra 25% on every hour a casual works. Annual leave loading (often 17.5%) is paid to permanent employees on top of their pay while they’re on annual leave. Casuals don’t get leave loading because they don’t get paid annual leave.
Do casuals get casual loading on public holidays?
Only if they work. A casual rostered on a public holiday gets the award’s public holiday rate for casuals. A casual who isn’t rostered on gets nothing for that day, because the loading already covers it.
Can I pay a flat rate that includes casual loading?
Yes, as long as the flat rate beats what the award would pay for every shift the person works, including weekends and overtime. Keep a written calculation that proves it, and state in the contract that the rate includes the loading.
Is casual loading taxed?
Yes. It’s ordinary income, so it’s included in the employee’s gross pay and PAYG withholding applies to the full amount.
Does casual loading stop after casual conversion?
Yes. From the date a casual converts to part-time or full-time work, they stop receiving the loading and start accruing paid leave and other permanent entitlements.
Get your casual contracts right the first time
If this article made you realise your contracts or payroll need a tidy-up, you’re in good company. Most of the problems above are fixed with one clear contract and a payslip change, not a legal fight. You can sort it this week.
Start your Casual Employment Agreement today. It’s built for Australian casuals and already covers pay, loading and the statements you need to hand over.
