In Australia breaks come from the award and not from legislation, so a 9 hour restaurant shift gets 1 unpaid 30 minute meal break, while in New Zealand the same shift carries 2 paid 10 minute rest breaks by statute.
Skai Solutions builds phone agents for Australian and New Zealand venues, so we see both rulebooks on the same roster. This page sets out what each country requires, the clause that charges you extra for a break you did not give, and how to roster so it never applies.
Only the breaks the award says are paid, and that is a narrower list than most operators assume. There is no break entitlement in the National Employment Standards at all. The Fair Work Ombudsman puts it plainly: awards, enterprise agreements and other registered agreements set the rules for paid and unpaid meal breaks and for paid and unpaid rest breaks. Nothing in the Fair Work Act gives an Australian worker a break on its own.
So for a restaurant the whole answer sits in clause 16 of the Restaurant Industry Award. That clause gives you one unpaid break and up to three paid ones, and which of them you owe depends on the length of the shift and, critically, on where in the shift you rostered the meal break.
Table 2 of clause 16.2 of the Restaurant Industry Award sets it out by hours worked in a day.
| Hours worked in a day | Breaks owed | Paid or unpaid |
|---|---|---|
| 5 hours or more, up to 10 | 1 meal break of at least 30 minutes, taken after the first hour and within the first 6 hours | Unpaid |
| 5 hours or more, up to 10, where that meal break is rostered later than 5 hours in | 1 additional 20 minute meal break, taken after the first 2 hours and within the first 5 | Paid |
| More than 10 hours | Both of the above, plus 2 additional 20 minute rest breaks | The 2 additional ones are paid |
Two more rules sit on top of the table. Clause 16.7 adds a paid 20 minute rest break whenever you require someone to work more than 5 continuous hours after the unpaid meal break, which catches a lot of long Saturday splits. And clause 16.3 says that when you roster rest breaks you must make all reasonable efforts to spread them evenly across the shift, so stacking them at the end is not compliant even if the minutes add up.
Clause 16.4 is the flexibility most venues want and few use properly. You and the employee may agree to push the unpaid meal break out to within the first 6.5 hours instead of 6. The agreement has to be made after the shift has started and within the first 5 hours of it, either side can withdraw inside those same 5 hours, and section 344 of the Act forbids you from pressuring anybody into it. A standing clause in a contract is not one of these agreements.
This is the part of clause 16 that costs real money and almost nothing written for hospitality states it. Under clause 16.5, if you do not allow an employee to take the unpaid meal break at the rostered time, you must pay them 50 per cent of their ordinary hourly rate EXTRA, running from the moment the break was due until either they get it or the shift ends. Clause 16.6 does the same where no time was rostered at all, from the 6 hour mark, or the 6.5 hour mark if a clause 16.4 agreement applies.
Price it with the rates on our award rates page, in force from 1 July 2026. A Level 2 food and beverage attendant is on A$27.08 an hour ordinary, so the extra is A$13.54 an hour. Here is the worked example, and the inputs are all above.
That is the figure to hold in your head, because the clause has no cap and it accrues by the hour. It is also worth noting what it is not: it is 50 per cent of the ORDINARY rate, not of the penalty rate, so a Sunday does not multiply it. Casual loading is a separate question again and our casual loading page covers how that stacks.
Completely, and in the direction most Australian operators guess wrong. In New Zealand breaks are statutory. They come from the Employment Relations Act 2000 itself, they are owed to every employee whatever the employment agreement says, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment publishes the table. Rest breaks are a minimum of 10 minutes and are PAID. Meal breaks are a minimum of 30 minutes and are unpaid.
| Work period | Entitlement |
|---|---|
| 2 hours to 4 hours | 1 paid 10 minute rest break |
| More than 4, up to 6 hours | 1 paid 10 minute rest break, 1 unpaid 30 minute meal break |
| More than 6, less than 10 hours | 2 paid 10 minute rest breaks, 1 unpaid 30 minute meal break |
| 10 hours to 12 hours | 3 paid 10 minute rest breaks, 1 unpaid 30 minute meal break |
| More than 12, up to 14 hours | 3 paid 10 minute rest breaks, 2 unpaid 30 minute meal breaks |
Note what the work period means, because it is wider than hours worked: it runs from the time an employee starts work to the time they finish, including every authorised break, paid and unpaid. A 9 hour rostered shift is comfortably inside the 6 to 10 hour band.
Now put the two systems side by side on the same roster, which is the comparison nobody publishes. A 9 hour shift in New Zealand carries two paid 10 minute rest breaks plus the unpaid meal break. The same 9 hour shift in an Australian restaurant, with the meal break rostered inside the first 5 hours, carries the unpaid 30 minutes and nothing paid at all. That is 20 paid minutes per person per shift that a New Zealand roster carries and an Australian one does not. Across six people, five days a week, it is about 50 paid hours a year. Our New Zealand hospitality wages page has the rates to price it at.
The only exemptions in the New Zealand regime are essential services and employers engaged in national security, on stated conditions. Hospitality is not one of them, and there is no version of a restaurant that becomes exempt because it is busy.
The clause 16.5 exposure is created by rostering, not by service. Three habits remove most of it.
Breaks are one half of the paid time question. The other half is training you require staff to attend, where the same engagement clause decides the answer: our page on whether you have to pay staff for training works through clause 11.3 and what a single unpaid session costs.
If every shift you roster is under 5 hours, the Restaurant Industry Award owes nothing at all and you can stop reading. In New Zealand the equivalent floor is 2 hours. And if you are covered by an enterprise agreement, that agreement sets your break rules instead of the award, so check it first rather than applying clause 16 and finding you have been running the wrong regime for a year.
There is a quiet reason breaks get skipped in hospitality and it is not malice. Someone sends the floor hand on their 30 minutes, the phone starts ringing, and the only person free to answer it is the one on the break. The break ends, the clause 16.5 clock has already started, and nobody wrote it down.
Skai Solutions answers every call on the first ring, takes the booking and sends it through, so the break you rostered is the break that happens. If your phone mostly carries supplier calls rather than bookings, a basic message taking plan is the right buy and it is not us. If it rings through service, read what an AI receptionist for a restaurant does and weigh it against the A$54.16 one missed break costs. Setup takes five days.
Do you have to pay staff for breaks in Australia?
Only where the award says so. There is no break entitlement in the National Employment Standards, so in a restaurant the rules come from clause 16 of the Restaurant Industry Award. The 30 minute meal break is unpaid and the 20 minute rest breaks are paid.
How long a break does a 9 hour shift get under the Restaurant Industry Award?
One unpaid meal break of at least 30 minutes, taken after the first hour and within the first 6 hours. If you roster that meal break later than 5 hours after the start, the employee is also owed an additional paid 20 minute meal break.
What happens if an employee does not get their meal break?
Clause 16.5 of the Restaurant Industry Award requires the employer to pay 50 per cent of the employee's ordinary hourly rate extra, from when the break was due until either the break is taken or the shift ends. At the Level 2 rate of A$27.08 an hour that is A$13.54 an hour.
Are rest breaks paid in New Zealand?
Yes. Under the Employment Relations Act 2000 rest breaks are a minimum of 10 minutes and are paid, while meal breaks are a minimum of 30 minutes and are unpaid. The entitlement is statutory and applies whatever the employment agreement says.
How many breaks does a New Zealand employee get on an 8 hour shift?
An 8 hour work period falls in the band of more than 6 and less than 10 hours, which is two paid 10 minute rest breaks and one unpaid 30 minute meal break.
Can an employer and employee agree to change when a break is taken?
In Australia clause 16.4 of the Restaurant Industry Award allows an agreement to push the unpaid meal break to within the first 6.5 hours, made after the shift starts and within the first 5 hours, with either side able to withdraw. In New Zealand the timing must be negotiated in good faith and a take it or leave it instruction is unlikely to count as agreement.