Penalty Rates Explained 2026
Penalty rates are higher rates of pay for hours worked at less sociable times, such as weekends, public holidays, evenings and certain shifts. They are set by the modern award that covers the job.
For ordinary hours worked at difficult times, many awards lift the hourly rate above the base. Common triggers are Saturday and Sunday work, public holidays, early mornings, late nights and rotating shift patterns. Each award decides for itself which times attract a penalty and how large it is, so the same Sunday shift can pay quite differently from one industry to the next.
The rate also depends on whether the employee is permanent or casual. A casual usually has the casual loading folded into the penalty rate, which is why casual penalty figures tend to sit above the permanent ones for the same hour. Reading a penalty rate correctly therefore means reading it for the right award and the right employment type, not just for the day of the week.
Rather than list a penalty as a bare multiplier, AwardScale shows the resulting hourly rate for each time band for 2026, for both permanent and casual employees. Where the Fair Work Commission's pay database publishes that figure, the page shows it as published. For the few awards where the database has no weekend rows, the page applies the percentage in the award's own clause to the minimum hourly rate, cites the clause, and checks the result against the Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide.
Penalty rates are not fixed forever. Because most are calculated from the base rate for the classification, they move whenever the underlying minimums change in the Annual Wage Review. When the base rate rises, the weekend and public holiday rates built on it rise with it. The figures shown here follow each award's own rules, using the Fair Work Commission minimums current for 2026.
Awards can also attach penalties to things beyond the clock, such as working through a rostered break or being called back after finishing for the day. Those extra cases are set out in the award itself. AwardScale focuses on the main time-based penalties for each classification, shown as the resulting hourly, so the everyday weekend and evening rates are easy to find, with the less common penalties left to the award text where they are defined in full.
Work out a weekend or public holiday shift
Rates current as of 1 July 2026. Fair Work Commission — Modern Awards Pay Database, checked (how). General information only: your award or enterprise agreement prevails if it differs.