Pay Calculator Australia

What actually comes out of your pay in Australia

Your gross salary and your take-home pay are two very different numbers, and a salary calculator Australia tool exists to close that gap. It helps to know what's actually being deducted, too. Three things apply to almost every employee: income tax, worked out on a progressive scale so each extra dollar is taxed at a higher rate than the one before, never your whole income at once; the Medicare levy, a flat 2% of taxable income that funds the public health system; and superannuation, paid on top of your salary by your employer rather than out of it. On top of that, HECS-HELP repayments come out automatically once your income crosses the threshold if you have a debt, and salary sacrifice redirects part of your pre-tax pay into super, lowering the tax withheld each cycle. The gap between your package and your take-home pay isn't a mistake, it's the sum of all of the above, and it grows quickly at higher incomes.

Your marginal rate is the rate applied to your last dollar earned, and it's not the same as your effective tax rate, your total tax divided by your total taxable income. On a $100,000 salary your marginal rate is 30%, but your effective income tax rate lands closer to 20.5%. Mixing those two up is where most of the confusion about "moving into a higher bracket" comes from.

How the 2026-27 tax brackets actually work

The first $18,200 you earn each financial year is completely tax-free. Above that, Australia's income tax is progressive: each bracket only taxes the slice of income that falls inside it, not everything you've earned.

This is where the "a pay rise will put me in a higher bracket and I'll take home less" myth trips people up, and it's simply not true. Say you earn $46,000. The first $18,200 is tax-free, the next $26,800 is taxed at 15%, and only the final $1,000, the bit above $45,000, is taxed at 30%. Your tax bill rises by $300, not by 30% of your whole income. A pay rise always leaves you better off, it just means your effective rate creeps up a little.

The Low Income Tax Offset still does some quiet work

On top of the tax-free threshold, the Low Income Tax Offset (LITO) cuts the bill further for lower earners. It's worth up to $700 for taxable incomes of $37,500 or less, then tapers down by 5c for every dollar over that, and by a further 1.5c per dollar past $45,000, phasing out entirely at $66,667. Someone earning $40,000 owes $3,270 in tax before offsets, but LITO trims $575 off that, landing them at $2,695. It's an offset, not a deduction, so it's more valuable dollar for dollar than a work expense of the same size, and your employer factors it into withholding automatically if you're eligible. The old Low and Middle Income Tax Offset (LMITO) is gone, don't factor it into any current-year numbers.

The Medicare levy and the Medicare Levy Surcharge

The standard Medicare levy is 2% of your taxable income, compulsory for most residents, with low-income exemptions and a shade-in range below roughly $35,000. The Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS) is a separate, additional charge for singles earning above $105,000 who don't hold eligible private hospital cover, designed to nudge higher earners who can afford it towards taking pressure off the public system.

At $130,000 with no private cover, that's $1,625 a year in surcharge alone, often more than a basic hospital policy costs. That's why plenty of Australians in this income range find private health cover pays for itself.

HECS-HELP comes out on top of tax

If you have a HECS-HELP debt, compulsory repayments kick in once your repayment income passes $69,528 for 2026-27, then apply at 15c per dollar up to $129,717 and 17c per dollar above that, capped so you never repay more than 10% of your total income in a year. On a $90,000 salary that's roughly $3,071 a year withheld on top of your normal tax, not a tax itself, it goes straight towards your debt. For the full mechanics, including how indexation can grow your balance even while you're repaying it, see our guide to how HECS-HELP repayments actually work.

Base salary, total package, and salary sacrifice

Super sits on top of your base salary at 12% of ordinary time earnings, unless your employer quotes a total package that already includes it. A "$110,000 package" breaks down to a base salary of roughly $98,214 plus $11,786 in super, not $110,000 in base pay with super on top, so always ask which figure a job ad is quoting. Salary sacrificing extra into super reduces your taxable income, which lowers income tax and the Medicare levy, but the ATO adds it straight back for HECS-HELP repayment income and Medicare Levy Surcharge purposes, so it won't shrink either of those. Your combined employer super and salary sacrifice also can't exceed the $32,500 concessional contributions cap for 2026-27 without extra tax applying to the excess, this calculator flags it if you go over.

Worked examples: $70k, $100k and $150k take-home pay

These assume an Australian resident, the tax-free threshold claimed, no salary sacrifice, and super paid on top of the salary shown. The $150,000 example assumes no private hospital cover, so the Medicare Levy Surcharge applies.

Figures rounded to the nearest dollar. LITO is $0 in each example, since all three incomes sit above the $66,667 phase-out point.

Add private hospital cover to the $150,000 example and the surcharge disappears entirely, take-home pay rises to $110,430 a year, about $4,247 a fortnight, a $1,875 saving that often costs less than the cover itself.

Turning an hourly rate into an annual salary, properly

The standard full-time week in Australia is 38 hours under the National Employment Standards. Multiply that by 52 weeks and you get 1,976 hours a year, which is the base worth using. So an hourly rate times 1,976 gives you the annual equivalent, and an annual salary divided by 1,976 gives you the hourly one. At $45 an hour that is $88,920 a year. A $75,000 salary works out at about $37.96 an hour. Working part time, divide by your actual annual hours instead.

Casual workers need one extra step, and skipping it makes casual work look better paid than it is. The standard casual loading is 25%, and it exists to compensate you for having no paid leave. A casual on $35 an hour is not the equal of a permanent employee on $35 an hour. Strip the loading first, so $35 divided by 1.25 gives a $28 base, which annualises to $55,328, not the $69,160 the raw rate suggests. That gap is the entire value of your leave entitlements.

Does the salary include super, or is it paid on top?

This is the most common confusion in Australian job ads and it costs people real money. A total package figure already has super inside it, so a $100,000 package at the 12% super guarantee is roughly $89,286 of base salary plus $10,714 of super, and your take-home is worked out on the $89,286. A base-plus-super figure does not, so $100,000 base plus super means $100,000 of salary and $12,000 of super, a $112,000 package, with your take-home worked out on the full $100,000.

The difference between those two readings of the same headline number is $10,714 of base salary, which is not a rounding error. Most corporate roles quote a total package, many trade and public sector roles quote base plus super. If an ad does not say, ask before you compare it to anything. The toggle above switches the calculator between the two so you can compare offers on the same footing.

Once you know what actually lands in your account, the next job is giving it a home. Our step-by-step guide to budgeting walks through turning that take-home figure into a plan that survives real life.