Award minimum rates rose 4.75% on 1 July 2026, putting a Level 1 food and beverage attendant on A$26.44 an hour, A$33.05 on Saturday and A$39.66 on Sunday. Skai Solutions has set out every level, the penalty rates and which award actually covers your venue below.
Most operators searching for hospitality award rates are on the wrong award. The Hospitality Industry (General) Award MA000009 covers hotels, motels, resorts, caravan parks, taverns, casinos, caterers and any restaurant attached to one of those. It does not cover a standalone restaurant. That is the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119. A fast food outlet is on the Fast Food Award MA000003, and a registered club is on the Registered Clubs Award. The Fair Work Ombudsman summary of the Hospitality Industry (General) Award MA000009 says this in its own coverage list.
The distinction matters less than it used to at the bottom of the scale and more than ever at the top. As at 1 July 2026 the base weekly and hourly rates at Level 1 and Level 2 are identical across MA000009 and MA000119: A$1,004.90 a week, A$26.44 an hour. The classifications and the penalty structures diverge above that, and the two awards define the working day differently. A cafe inside a hotel and the cafe next door can be paying different money for the same shift.
The table below is the Restaurant Industry Award, because that is what a standalone restaurant, bistro or cafe is most likely to be on.
Adult full time and part time rates, taken from the Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide for the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119, published 24 June 2026. They apply from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2026. All figures in AUD.
| Level | Weekly | Hourly | Saturday | Sunday | Public holiday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introductory | A$978.10 | A$25.74 | A$32.18 | A$38.61 | A$57.92 |
| Level 1, food and beverage attendant grade 1, kitchen attendant grade 1 | A$1,004.90 | A$26.44 | A$33.05 | A$39.66 | A$59.49 |
| Level 2, food and beverage attendant grade 2, cook grade 1 | A$1,029.10 | A$27.08 | A$33.85 | A$40.62 | A$60.93 |
| Level 3, food and beverage attendant grade 3, cook grade 2 | A$1,062.90 | A$27.97 | A$34.96 | A$41.96 | A$62.93 |
| Level 4, tradesperson cook or attendant | A$1,119.10 | A$29.45 | A$36.81 | A$44.18 | A$66.26 |
| Level 5, food and beverage supervisor, cook grade 4 | A$1,189.40 | A$31.30 | A$39.13 | A$46.95 | A$70.43 |
| Level 6, cook grade 5 | A$1,221.10 | A$32.13 | A$40.16 | A$48.20 | A$72.29 |
Two loadings get missed more than any others. Ordinary hours worked between 10pm and midnight Monday to Friday attract an extra A$2.95 an hour or part of an hour. Between midnight and 6am it is an extra A$4.42. Those apply on top of the hourly rate in the table, and they apply to part of an hour, so a kitchen that runs fifteen minutes past ten has triggered them.
Casual rates are the hourly rate plus the 25% casual loading. At Level 1 that is A$33.05 an hour, at Level 2 A$33.85. Casual weekend and public holiday rates are set separately in the award rather than by stacking the loading on the penalty, so check the pay guide rather than multiplying.
The Fair Work Commission Annual Wage Review 2026 lifted modern award minimum rates by 4.75% from 1 July 2026, and lifted the national minimum wage itself by 6% to A$26.44 an hour, or A$33.05 an hour casual. Note what that does to the bottom of the restaurant scale: Level 1 and the national minimum wage are now the same number. There is no gap left between the floor of the economy and the entry classification of a restaurant.
Set that against what wages in the sector are actually doing. The ABS Wage Price Index, June quarter 2026 put annual wage growth in Accommodation and Food Services at 2.8%, against 3.2% across all industries. So the legislated floor moved 4.75% while measured pay in the sector moved 2.8%. For venues already paying above award that gap is absorbed. For venues paying at award, and most casual hospitality rosters sit at or near it, the whole 4.75% is real cost.
The ATO small business benchmarks for restaurants, built from lodged 2023-24 tax returns, put labour at 18% to 30% of turnover for restaurants in the A$65,000 to A$500,000 band, and 23% to 32% for the A$500,001 to A$2,000,000 band. The ATO benchmarks for coffee shops put cafes at 21% to 32%. A 4.75% rise on the wage line alone moves a venue sitting at 28% to roughly 29.3%, before a single extra hour is rostered.
There are three levers and only three. Charge more, roster fewer hours, or get more revenue out of the hours you already roster. The first is a pricing decision. The second usually shows up as slower service. The third is where phone handling sits, which is why this page exists on a phone answering site. Our page on restaurant labour cost percentage works through the calculation itself.
Here is a worked example using the table above, so you can substitute your own numbers. Take a Level 2 food and beverage attendant on a Sunday: A$40.62 an hour. Suppose the phone takes 45 minutes of their shift across a Sunday service, which is not a large number for a venue taking bookings and takeaway orders on the same line. That is A$30.47 of Sunday labour spent on the phone, in one service.
Run it across a week with two weekend services and five weekdays at the Level 2 ordinary rate of A$27.08, at the same 45 minutes a service: A$30.47 twice, plus A$20.31 five times, is A$162.49 a week, or about A$8,450 a year. That is one venue, one line, on award minimums, with nobody rostered specifically to answer it. The real cost is higher, because the person answering was doing something else and stopped.
The comparison worth making is not phone versus no phone. It is which minutes of paid floor time you want going to the handset. A restaurant phone system does not change that number at all, because a phone system routes calls, it does not answer them. An AI receptionist changes it by taking the call itself, which is the argument Skai Solutions makes and the reason the numbers above are worth checking against your own roster.
If you need the exact rate for a specific classification, a junior, an apprentice, an overtime band or a split shift allowance, do not use this page. Use the Fair Work Ombudsman Pay and Conditions Tool, which is free, official and calculates against the facts you enter. This page is a benchmark for costing a roster, not a payroll instrument. Fair Work also publishes the pay guides as PDFs and updates them when rates change, which is the version to keep on file.
Two more honest limits. Rates change every 1 July, so anything you read that is not dated is a guess about the past. And an enterprise agreement overrides the award, so if your venue has one the table above tells you only the floor it must clear.
The venues that handle a wage rise best treat it as a prompt to audit where paid hours go rather than as a pricing problem. Count the calls for one week. Note how many arrive between 5pm and 8pm, how many were bookings, how many were the same question about parking or opening hours, and how many rang out. Then price that block at the Sunday rate from the table, because the expensive hours are the ones you cannot avoid staffing. Our guides cover the rest of the operating numbers, and the staffing picture behind them is less dire than the headlines suggest.
Two things this page deliberately does not cover. Working out which classification a given staff member belongs in, which is decided by the duties they perform rather than the title on your roster, is set out on our page covering hospitality award pay levels, along with what being one level out costs over a year. How short a shift you are allowed to roster in the first place is a separate award rule, and we have written it up at minimum shift hours in hospitality.
Running the same numbers on the other side of the Tasman works differently, because there is no award at all. See hospitality wages in New Zealand for the 2026 minimum wage and the average pay by role.
Rates only tell you half of it. Which level a person sits on is decided by the duties they actually perform, so if you are classifying a host or a phone person, restaurant receptionist duties and responsibilities works through the role and what it costs at each level.
No. The rate is the same in every state and territory, and this is the single most common misunderstanding about award pay in this industry.
Modern awards are national instruments made under the Fair Work Act. There is no Victorian hospitality award rate and no separate NSW or Queensland one. A Level 3 food and beverage attendant in Geelong, Parramatta and Cairns is on the same ordinary hourly rate on the same date. Searching for the rate with a state name attached returns the national figure, because the national figure is the only one there is.
Four things genuinely do change by state, and they are the reason the question keeps getting asked.
If you run venues on both sides of a state border, the wage table is the part you do not have to duplicate. The public holiday calendar is.
Level 3 on the Restaurant Industry Award MA000119 is A$1,062.90 a week, A$27.97 an ordinary hour, A$34.96 on a Saturday, A$41.96 on a Sunday and A$62.93 on a public holiday, from the Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide published 24 June 2026 and applying from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. A casual at Level 3 is the ordinary rate plus the 25% loading, which is A$34.96 an hour.
That casual figure being identical to the permanent Saturday figure is not a typo and it is worth understanding, because it is where payroll goes wrong. Both are 125% of ordinary. The award sets casual weekend rates separately, so a casual Saturday is not the Saturday penalty with the loading stacked on top of it.
Level 3 covers a food and beverage attendant grade 3 and a cook grade 2. In practice that is the barista in an eat in cafe who has completed the relevant Certificate II, the person running a section, and a cook doing more than basic preparation. The classification is decided by the duties a person actually performs, not by the title on their roster, which is the whole point of the award pay levels page. Paying somebody at Level 1 when they should be at Level 3 is a gap of A$58.00 a week, or A$3,016.00 a year for one full time employee, on the rates above.
A barista in a takeaway coffee shop with no table service is a different question again, because that venue is likely on the Fast Food Award rather than this one. The casual loading page sets out where the two awards part company on minimum engagement.
Two related pages sit alongside this one: staff roster rules for Australian restaurants covers the 7 days notice and the days off limits that decide when these rates get paid, and what a food handler certificate costs in Australia prices the training that goes with the classification.
Fifteen minutes, your menu, your busiest Sunday.
Book a Free DemoTwo related pages go deeper than this one on a single line of the award: what casual loading costs in hospitality, which prices the 25% loading level by level, and whether your venue needs a food safety supervisor, which is the other compliance obligation that lands on the same manager.
The Restaurant Industry Award MA000119, not the Hospitality Industry (General) Award MA000009. MA000009 covers hotels, motels, resorts, caravan parks, taverns, casinos, caterers and restaurants attached to those. A fast food outlet is on the Fast Food Award MA000003 and a registered club is on the Registered Clubs Award.
From the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, a Level 1 food and beverage attendant grade 1 on the Restaurant Industry Award is on A$1,004.90 a week, A$26.44 an hour, A$33.05 on Saturday and A$39.66 on Sunday. Casual is the hourly rate plus the 25% loading, so A$33.05.
On the Restaurant Industry Award from 1 July 2026, public holidays are A$59.49 an hour at Level 1, A$60.93 at Level 2, A$62.93 at Level 3 and A$72.29 at Level 6 for full time and part time employees. Casual public holiday rates are set separately in the award.
Modern award minimum wages rose 4.75%. The national minimum wage rose 6% to A$26.44 an hour, or A$33.05 including the 25% casual loading. Both were set by the Fair Work Commission in the Annual Wage Review 2026.
Yes. Ordinary hours between 10pm and midnight Monday to Friday carry an extra A$2.95 an hour or part of an hour, and between midnight and 6am an extra A$4.42. They apply on top of the ordinary hourly rate and they apply to part of an hour.