Skai Solutions read the Fair Work pay guide: a Level 3 food and beverage attendant on the Restaurant Industry Award is on A$27.97 an ordinary hour from 1 July 2026, and getting one level wrong costs about A$1,758 a year for a single full time employee.
The Restaurant Industry Award MA000119 does not classify people by the title you put on the roster. It classifies them by the duties they actually perform, using the classification schedule inside the award itself. A person you call a waiter can sit at Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3 depending on what they are asked to do in a shift, and the level decides the rate for every hour they work.
Age is the other axis and it is not on this table. A junior is paid a percentage of the minimum rate for whatever level they are working at, so the two questions stack rather than replace each other. Junior pay rates in hospitality sets out the percentage for each age and what the step at 20 costs.
This page covers the Hospitality Industry (General) Award. If you run a standalone restaurant or cafe you are almost certainly on a different award: the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119 pay rates page has the coverage test and the full MA000119 rate table from 1 July 2026.
That is why "she is just a waitress" is not an answer to a Fair Work inspector. The seven classifications below are the ones the award actually names, and the pay rates attached to them come from the Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide published 24 June 2026, applying from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026.
| Level | Roles the award names at this level | Weekly (full time) | Ordinary hourly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introductory | Entry classification, before the employee is competent in a named grade | A$978.10 | A$25.74 |
| Level 1 | Food and beverage attendant grade 1, kitchen attendant grade 1 | A$1,004.90 | A$26.44 |
| Level 2 | Food and beverage attendant grade 2, cook grade 1 | A$1,029.10 | A$27.08 |
| Level 3 | Food and beverage attendant grade 3, cook grade 2 | A$1,062.90 | A$27.97 |
| Level 4 | Tradesperson | A$1,119.10 | A$29.45 |
| Level 5 | Food and beverage supervisor, cook grade 4 | A$1,189.40 | A$31.30 |
| Level 6 | Cook grade 5 | A$1,221.10 | A$32.13 |
The full duty descriptions sit in the classification schedule of the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119. Read them against what the person did last Saturday night, not against what you hired them to do in March. Staff drift upward: the moment a Level 1 kitchen attendant starts doing cookery, the award has an opinion about it.
These are the four job titles operators search for, and the award does not use any of them. It uses stream and grade names, so the mapping below is the translation, read from Table 3 and Schedule A of the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119 on 7 September 2026.
| What you call them | What the award calls them | Level | Ordinary hourly | Casual hourly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barista or waiter, still training | Food and beverage attendant grade 2 | Level 2 | A$27.08 | A$33.85 |
| Barista or waiter, trained | Food and beverage attendant grade 3 | Level 3 | A$27.97 | A$34.96 |
| Bartender, still training | Food and beverage attendant grade 2 | Level 2 | A$27.08 | A$33.85 |
| Bartender, trained | Food and beverage attendant grade 3 | Level 3 | A$27.97 | A$34.96 |
| Cook, no trade qualification | Cook grade 1 or grade 2 | Level 2 or 3 | A$27.08 to A$27.97 | A$33.85 to A$34.96 |
| Qualified chef | Cook grade 3 (tradesperson) | Level 4 | A$29.45 | A$36.81 |
| Chef de partie or similar | Cook grade 4 (tradesperson) | Level 5 | A$31.30 | A$39.13 |
| Head chef | Cook grade 5 (tradesperson) | Level 6 | A$32.13 | A$40.16 |
| Restaurant supervisor | Food and beverage supervisor | Level 5 | A$31.30 | A$39.13 |
Casual figures are the ordinary rate at 125%, which is the award's own casual column for Monday to Friday between 6am and 10pm, not an ordinary rate with a loading bolted on. So the answer to the question people actually type, what a Level 3 chef gets as a casual, is A$34.96 an hour.
One more thing about Level 4 that is easy to miss. The award defines its standard rate as the Level 4 rate, cook grade 3 tradesperson, and most of the allowances in the award are worked out as a percentage of that number. Change the Level 4 figure and a dozen allowances move with it.
A kitchen hand is a kitchen attendant grade 1, which is Level 1 on the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119. From 1 July 2026 that is A$1,004.90 a week, A$26.44 an ordinary hour, A$33.05 as a casual, A$33.05 on a Saturday, A$39.66 on a Sunday and A$59.49 on a public holiday.
Two things trip people up here. The first is that the casual rate and the permanent Saturday rate are the same number, A$33.05, because both are 125% of ordinary. They are not meant to be stacked. The second is that kitchen hand is the classification most likely to drift: a kitchen attendant who starts doing basic food preparation to a recipe is a cook grade 1, which is Level 2 at A$27.08 an hour, and a great many rosters never make that change.
That drift is worth A$0.64 an hour. Over a 38 hour week it is A$24.32, and A$1,264.64 across a year for one full time person. It is the smallest of the level gaps on this page and the one that goes unnoticed longest, because nobody announces the day they started prepping.
Put the two definitions side by side and something odd shows up. Schedule A says a food and beverage attendant grade 2 is an employee who has not achieved the appropriate level of training and is engaged in supplying, dispensing or mixing liquor, assisting in the cellar, general waiting duties including cleaning tables, receiving money, attending a snack bar, delivery duties, or taking reservations and greeting and seating guests.
Grade 3 is an employee who has the appropriate level of training and is engaged in, almost word for word, the same list. The two differences the award actually names are that grade 3 waits on both food and liquor rather than food or beverages, and that grade 3 assists in training and supervising attendants of a lower classification.
So the gap between Level 2 and Level 3 is training, not tasks. That has a practical consequence most rosters get wrong in the same direction: once you send somebody on a course and then have them show the new starter how the section runs, they have moved up, whatever the roster still says. It is A$0.89 an ordinary hour, A$33.80 a week, and A$1,757.60 a year for one full time employee.
The other side of that coin is the award you are on in the first place. The classifications above are the restaurant award, and a dining room inside a hotel or club is on a different instrument with different Sunday penalties. Our page on which award covers your restaurant or cafe runs the coverage test.
This is the number a classification page should carry and a rates page cannot, because it only appears when you subtract one row from the row above it. The steps are not evenly spaced.
| Step | Extra per ordinary hour | Full time, over a year | How often it is argued about |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introductory to Level 1 | A$0.70 | A$1,383 | Constantly, and it resolves itself after three months |
| Level 1 to Level 2 | A$0.64 | A$1,265 | Constantly |
| Level 2 to Level 3 | A$0.89 | A$1,758 | Constantly |
| Level 3 to Level 4 | A$1.48 | A$2,925 | Rarely |
| Level 4 to Level 5 | A$1.85 | A$3,656 | Rarely |
| Level 5 to Level 6 | A$0.83 | A$1,640 | Rarely |
Skai Solutions' arithmetic on the Fair Work pay guide for the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119, ordinary full time and part time rates from 1 July 2026, multiplied by 38 hours a week over 52 weeks. Rounded to the dollar.
Read the two right hand columns together and the risk sits in the wrong place. The three smallest steps in the award are the bottom three, and they are the only ones anybody argues about. Sixty four cents an hour separates a Level 1 from a Level 2, which is why the wording is vague enough to be worth arguing over and cheap enough that nobody escalates it. The expensive mistakes, A$1.48 and A$1.85 an hour, sit at Level 3 to Level 4 and Level 4 to Level 5, where the duties are obvious and almost nobody gets it wrong.
The practical consequence: an underpayment in a restaurant is usually many people at 64 to 89 cents rather than one person at A$1.85, which is exactly the shape that hides inside a payroll file for years. Every one of these rates rose 4.75% on 1 July 2026, which is what the Fair Work Commission awarded in the Annual Wage Review 2026 across all modern awards, so the gaps widen a little every July. Weekend, evening and public holiday rates are not on this page on purpose: they are the same levels with a penalty applied, and they are set out in full on hospitality award rates in Australia.
A casual is paid the ordinary hourly rate for the level plus the 25% casual loading. That much is simple arithmetic and Skai Solutions has done it here, so a Level 2 casual on an ordinary weekday is on A$33.85 an hour and a Level 3 casual is on A$34.96.
| Level | Ordinary hourly | Casual, ordinary day (plus 25%) |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory | A$25.74 | A$32.18 |
| Level 1 | A$26.44 | A$33.05 |
| Level 2 | A$27.08 | A$33.85 |
| Level 3 | A$27.97 | A$34.96 |
| Level 4 | A$29.45 | A$36.81 |
| Level 5 | A$31.30 | A$39.13 |
| Level 6 | A$32.13 | A$40.16 |
Now compare that column with the Saturday column above. At every single level the two numbers are identical, because both are 125% of the ordinary rate. This is where payroll goes wrong. It is very easy to look at those matching numbers and conclude that a casual working a Saturday is also on 125%. They are not. The award sets casual weekend and public holiday rates separately, and you must never build them by stacking the casual loading on top of the penalty rate or by assuming the casual keeps the full time penalty. Take casual weekend rates from the Fair Work pay tool for the award, every time.
Operators tend to think of a level as a small difference, because per hour it is. Per employee per year it is not. These are Skai Solutions' own subtractions from the weekly rates above, multiplied by 52 weeks, for one full time employee.
| Paid at | Should have been | Gap per week | Gap per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Level 2 | A$24.20 | A$1,258.40 |
| Level 2 | Level 3 | A$33.80 | A$1,757.60 |
| Level 1 | Level 3 | A$58.00 | A$3,016.00 |
| Level 3 | Level 4 | A$56.20 | A$2,922.40 |
| Level 4 | Level 5 | A$70.30 | A$3,655.60 |
Three things make this worse than the table looks. Underpayment claims reach back over years rather than months, so a quiet error compounds. Superannuation and leave accruals are calculated on the wrong base, so the shortfall is larger than the gap in the table. And a level error is rarely confined to one person, because whoever set up the payroll categories usually set them all up the same way on the same afternoon.
No. The level sets the hourly rate and the rate is national. For the rates themselves, including the weekend and late night loadings that sit on top, use the hospitality award rates page, which is where that question belongs. Allowances work differently again, and the laundry allowance is the one with no figure in the Restaurant Award at all.
No. The level sets the hourly rate and the rate is national. For the rates themselves, including the weekend and late night loadings that sit on top, use the hospitality award rates page, which is where that question belongs. Allowances work differently again, and the laundry allowance is the one with no figure in the Restaurant Award at all.
No, and this is the single most common wrong assumption about them. There is no New South Wales hospitality award rate, no Victorian one and no Queensland one. The Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020, which you will see abbreviated to HIGA and coded MA000009, and the Restaurant Industry Award 2020, coded MA000119, are federal modern awards. They set one set of minimum rates that applies across Australia. The rates on this page are the New South Wales rates, and they are also the Western Australian rates.
So when a search or a payroll conversation turns up "hospitality award rates NSW", the honest answer is that it is the same table, and the only things that genuinely vary by state are the public holidays that trigger penalty rates and the long service leave rules, which sit in state legislation rather than in the award. The public holiday side is on public holiday surcharges, and which of the two awards covers you is decided by your premises rather than your menu, which is on which award covers my restaurant.
One thing that does change the answer: an enterprise agreement. If your venue has one, it replaces the award rates provided its terms leave every employee better off overall than the award would. The award then still matters as the floor that agreement is tested against, which is why the classification work on this page does not go away.
If the reason you are reading a pay level table is that somebody has to be rostered to pick up the phone, that is the part worth pricing separately. See what an AI phone answering service costs a restaurant against an hour of award time.
For a small venue the question is usually whether answering the phone is worth a graded hour at all. Our page on whether an AI receptionist works for a coffee shop tests that against what a cafe call is actually worth.
The levels set the base rate. What happens once someone works past their rostered hours is a separate table, and the rules that follow the overtime cost more than the overtime does. Both are on our page on hospitality award overtime.
The levels tell you the rate. They do not tell you which hours attract it. If you are wondering whether a menu briefing or a trade school day is payable at all, that is on our page on paying staff for training.
Skai Solutions builds phone software. We are not a payroll provider and this is general information, not advice on your particular roster. Three specific limits worth stating plainly.
First, MA000119 is the Restaurant Industry Award. A cafe, a pub bistro or a hotel restaurant may sit under a different award with different classification names and different rates, and the award that covers you is decided by the business, not by the food. Second, junior rates, apprentice rates, overtime, split shift allowances, laundry allowances and meal allowances all sit outside this page and all change the number on the payslip. Third, a registered agreement in your business can override award rates, provided it leaves employees better off overall.
If you are working out your total wage bill rather than an individual rate, restaurant labour cost percentage is the page that puts these rates into a percentage of turnover, and hospitality wages in New Zealand covers the other market, which has no award system at all.
Here is the connection, and it is arithmetic rather than a sales line. A Level 2 casual on an ordinary weekday costs A$33.85 an hour. If one person spends 45 minutes of a lunch service on the phone taking bookings and answering the same four questions, that is about A$25 of labour a day, or roughly A$650 a month across a six day week, on a task that produces nothing a customer sees.
Wage rates are not a lever you control. The Fair Work Commission moves them once a year and you pay what it decides. What you can move is how much of that hour goes to work only a person can do. That is the whole case for an AI receptionist in an Australian venue, and it is an argument about award hours rather than about technology. The comparison worth doing is a flat monthly fee against a rostered hour at the level you would actually pay, which is what what an AI receptionist costs a month sets out band by band. An AI phone agent answers the calls that arrive while the floor is busy, takes the booking, and leaves the person you are paying A$33.85 an hour on the floor where the revenue is. Staff calling in sick is the same lever pulled on a worse day.
Skai Solutions answers the calls your floor staff cannot get to, for a flat monthly fee, so award hours go to the tables instead of the handset.
Book a Free DemoA$27.97 an ordinary hour for a full time or part time employee under the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119, from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. Saturday is A$34.96, Sunday A$41.96 and a public holiday A$62.93. A Level 3 casual on an ordinary day is on A$34.96, being the hourly rate plus the 25% casual loading.
Seven, if you count the Introductory classification: Introductory, then Levels 1 through 6. Level 1 covers food and beverage attendant grade 1 and kitchen attendant grade 1. Level 6 covers cook grade 5. The award classifies by the duties actually performed, not by the job title on your roster.
A$24.20 a week for a full time employee, which is A$1,258.40 a year on Skai Solutions' arithmetic from the Fair Work weekly rates. Level 1 is a food and beverage attendant grade 1 or kitchen attendant grade 1. Level 2 is a food and beverage attendant grade 2 or a cook grade 1, so it is the point where the duties become more than general assistance.
No, and this is the most common payroll error in the award. A casual on an ordinary day is on 125% of the hourly rate, which happens to be the same number as the full time Saturday rate at every level. That coincidence misleads people. The award sets casual weekend and public holiday rates separately, so never derive them by stacking the loading on the penalty. Take them from the Fair Work pay tool.
4.75%, awarded by the Fair Work Commission in the Annual Wage Review 2026 and applying from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. For context, the Australian Bureau of Statistics measured annual wage growth in accommodation and food services at 2.8% over the same year, against 3.2% for all industries.
You owe the shortfall, and underpayment claims reach back over years rather than months. Superannuation and leave accruals sit on the wrong base as well, so the total is larger than the hourly gap suggests. Level errors also tend to affect several people at once, because payroll categories are usually all set up in one sitting.