Hourly to Salary Calculator

Convert a rate to a salary, a salary to a rate, or work out the contract rate that replaces the leave and super you stop receiving.

Your pay
38 hours is the ordinary week under the National Employment Standards.
A calendar year is 52.1775 weeks. 52 is the payroll convention because it divides into 26 fortnights.
Weeks you take and are not paid for. They come straight off the annual figure.
After tax and after business costs — the money that reaches you.
Not hours worked. Selling, invoicing, admin and learning are all unbillable and all compulsory.
Seven covers the four weeks of annual leave and 10 personal days an employee gets, plus public holidays.
Equipment, software, accounting, insurance — and the superannuation an employer would have paid at 12%.
Income tax plus the Medicare levy. Remember no one is paying super for you, so add it to overhead rather than hoping.

How this is worked out

The conversion is a multiplication:

annual = hourly × hours per week × paid weeks

$40 an hour at 38 hours for 52 weeks is $79,040 — 1,976 paid hours, not 2,080, because the ordinary week under the National Employment Standards is 38 hours rather than 40. Using 40 by habit overstates the annual figure by 5.3%.

Superannuation is the second adjustment and it is larger. The superannuation guarantee is 12% of ordinary time earnings, paid by your employer on top of your salary rather than out of it. A $95,000 salary therefore costs your employer $106,400, and that $11,400 is money you receive — just not into your bank account.

total package = salary × 1.12

This matters most when comparing an employed salary with a contract rate, because a contract rate contains no super at all unless you pay it into your own fund. The freelance mode here works backwards from the income you want to keep:

invoice = (income ÷ (1 − tax rate)) + overhead

rate = invoice ÷ billable hours

Put the super you intend to contribute in the business costs field. It is a cost of matching what you had, not an optional extra.

A worked example

Hourly rate
$40.00
Hours a week × paid weeks
38 × 52 = 1,976 hours
Annual salary
$79,040.00
Each month
$6,586.67
Each fortnight
$3,040.00
A $95,000 salary the other way
$48.08 an hour over 1,976 hours
$95,000 plus 12% super
$106,400.00 — super alone is $11,400.00
— contract mode, same page —
Income you want to keep
$110,000.00
Tax at 32%
$51,764.71
Business costs
$10,000.00
You must invoice
$171,764.71
Billable hours (25 × 45 weeks)
1,125
Rate to charge
$152.68 an hour — $1,221.44 a day
The employed equivalent
$52.88 an hour ($110,000 ÷ 2,080)
Charging $52.88 instead leaves
$30,456.73 — a 72% pay cut

A salary without super is not the whole number

The superannuation guarantee is 12% of ordinary time earnings from 1 July 2025, the end of a legislated series of increases that began at 9%. It is paid by the employer in addition to salary, into your fund, and it is yours — preserved until you meet a condition of release, but yours.

That makes "salary" an ambiguous word in Australian job advertisements. A $95,000 salary plus super is a $106,400 package; a "$106,400 package including super" is a $95,000 salary. The two are advertised in the same breath and they are eleven thousand dollars apart, so the first question about any offer is which of the two it is.

For this calculator the practical rule is simple: convert the salary component to an hourly rate, then treat super as a separate 12% on top. Mixing it into the hourly figure makes the number incomparable with an award rate, which is quoted excluding super.

38 hours is the ordinary week, and 40 is a habit

The National Employment Standards set maximum weekly hours at 38 for a full-time employee, plus reasonable additional hours. Awards are built around that figure, and award hourly rates are derived from weekly rates by dividing by 38. Using 40 hours in a conversion is not a rounding difference — it is a 5.3% error in the annual figure.

The national minimum wage from 1 July 2026 is $26.44 an hour, or $1,004.90 for a 38-hour week — about $52,245 a year. Very few employees are on the national minimum itself; most are covered by a modern award with higher rates that vary by classification and level, and by an enterprise agreement above that.

Overtime is not set by the NES at all. What you are owed for extra hours comes from your award or agreement, and the patterns differ: many awards pay 150% for the first two or three hours and 200% after that, with different rates on Sundays and public holidays. A calculator that applies one multiplier everywhere is wrong nearly everywhere.

Casual loading exists precisely to replace leave

A casual employee is paid a loading — 25% under most modern awards — specifically because they receive no paid annual leave, no paid personal or carer's leave, no paid public holidays and no notice of termination. The loading is not a bonus for flexibility; it is compensation for the entitlements that are absent.

That makes casual loading the clearest illustration of what this page is about. Four weeks of annual leave plus 10 days of personal leave is roughly six weeks, which over 46 worked weeks is about 13% — and the remaining part of the 25% covers public holidays, notice, redundancy and the insecurity itself.

The comparison people get wrong runs the other way: a casual rate looks larger than the permanent rate for the same work, and it is, but the permanent employee is paid for about six more weeks of the year. Convert both to an annual figure before deciding which is better paid, which is exactly what the weeks and unpaid-weeks fields here are for.

Contract rates, an ABN, and what you now fund yourself

A contractor working under an ABN receives no annual leave, no personal leave, no paid public holidays and — in most arrangements — no superannuation. Some contractors are nonetheless entitled to super: if the contract is wholly or principally for your labour, the hirer may be required to pay the guarantee for you, which is a question about the contract rather than about the label on it.

Sham contracting is the related risk. Presenting what is really an employment relationship as a contract is unlawful, and the Fair Work Ombudsman assesses the substance of the arrangement — control, delegation, commercial risk, whose tools and whose hours — rather than what the paperwork says.

For a genuine contract, price it properly. Take the package you are replacing, including the 12% super, add the leave you no longer accrue, add your own equipment, insurance and accounting, then divide by the hours you can actually bill. On this page's defaults that turns a $110,000 target into $152.68 an hour — close to three times the $52.88 the same money looks like as a salary.

Assumptions and sources

Superannuation guarantee
12% of ordinary time earnings, read from assets/js/tax/retirement-2026.js. Australian Taxation Office. https://www.ato.gov.au/ checked 2026-08
National minimum wage
$26.44 an hour, $1,004.90 a week for 38 ordinary hours, from 1 July 2026. Fair Work Commission Annual Wage Review. https://www.fwc.gov.au/ checked 2026-08
Ordinary hours and leave
38 ordinary weekly hours, four weeks of annual leave and 10 days of personal/carer's leave under the National Employment Standards. https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/national-employment-standards
Casual loading
25% under most modern awards, paid in place of leave entitlements. Fair Work Ombudsman.
Arithmetic
hourlyToSalary, salaryToHourly and freelanceRate in assets/js/tools/work.js, verified in tools/test/work.mjs.
Not included
Income tax, the Medicare levy, HELP repayments, award penalty rates and allowances. The tax rate in the contract mode is an estimate you supply.
Rates current as of 2026-27 — verify before relying on this. Award rates, casual loading and penalty rates come from your award or enterprise agreement and differ between them. The superannuation guarantee rate and the national minimum wage here are the figures in force at the checked date.
Questions

What people ask about hourly rates and salaries

How do I convert an hourly rate to a salary in Australia?

Multiply the rate by hours a week and by paid weeks — but use 38 hours, not 40, because that is the ordinary week under the National Employment Standards. $40 an hour is $79,040 a year at 38 hours and $83,200 at 40, and only one of those is comparable with an award rate.

Does a salary include superannuation?

Usually not. The guarantee is 12% paid on top of your salary, so $95,000 plus super is a $106,400 package. Advertisements use both conventions, so establish which one an offer means before comparing it with another.

What is $95,000 a year as an hourly rate?

$48.08 an hour over 1,976 hours — a 38-hour week for 52 weeks. On a 40-hour week it is $45.67. Super is separate from both figures and adds $11,400 on top.

Why is a casual rate higher than a permanent one?

Because of the 25% casual loading, which is paid instead of annual leave, personal leave, paid public holidays and notice. A permanent employee is paid for about six more weeks of the year, so compare annual figures rather than hourly ones.

What should I charge as a contractor?

Enough to replace the package you are giving up. On this page's defaults a $110,000 target becomes $152.68 an hour, because you bill around 1,125 hours a year and pay your own super, leave, equipment and insurance out of the invoice.

Do contractors get superannuation?

Sometimes. If a contract is wholly or principally for your labour, the hirer may be required to pay the superannuation guarantee even though you invoice under an ABN. It depends on the substance of the contract, so check rather than assume — and if nobody is paying it, budget it as a business cost.

Related

Next steps

Take-Home Pay Calculator Gross to net, with the deductions your country actually applies. Timesheet Calculator Weekly hours with the overtime rules of your country. Invoice Generator With the right tax fields for your market. Retirement Calculator 401(k), ISA, RRSP, Super or EPF — the right wrapper for your country.