How this is worked out
The National Employment Standards set maximum weekly hours at 38 for a full-time employee, plus reasonable additional hours. What the NES does not do is set an overtime rate. Fair Work states it directly: an award, enterprise agreement or other registered agreement sets out when overtime rates apply.
There are more than a hundred modern awards and they differ. So this page offers common patterns rather than pretending there is a national rule.
The Clerks — Private Sector Award pattern is the widely-used shape: Monday to Saturday, the first two hours of overtime each day at 150% and everything after at 200%; Sunday at 200% for all hours; public holidays at 250%.
Note carefully what "the first two hours" means — the first two hours of overtime, measured from the end of ordinary hours, not the first two hours of the shift. Ordinary hours are 38 over a five-day week, so 7.6 a day. A nine-hour day is 1.4 hours of overtime, all inside the 150% band. An eleven-hour day is 3.4 hours: two at 150%, then 1.4 at 200%.
Casuals have the 25% loading built into the rate rather than added on top, which is why the casual figures are 175% and 225% rather than 150% and 200%.
A worked example
- Pattern
- Clerks — Private Sector Award (full/part-time)
- Week entered
- Monday to Friday, 08:00–18:00, one hour for lunch
- Hours a day
- 9:00
- Total for the week
- 45:00
- Ordinary hours (NES)
- 38:00
- Overtime hours
- 7:00 at 150%
- Hourly rate
- $32.00
- Gross for the week
- $1,552.00
- Effective rate
- $34.49
- An 11-hour day instead
- 2 hours at 150%, then 1.4 hours at 200%
Find your award before you trust any number
The single most useful thing you can do is identify which modern award covers you, and it is not always obvious — coverage follows the industry or the occupation depending on the award, and some employees are covered by an enterprise agreement that displaces the award entirely.
The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes a Pay Calculator that gives award-specific base rates, penalties and overtime. It is the authoritative source for your actual entitlement; this page is a way of adding up hours against a pattern you have already confirmed.
An enterprise agreement must pass the better-off-overall test against the relevant award, so it should leave you no worse off in total — but it can restructure how, paying a higher base with fewer penalties, for example. Read the agreement rather than assuming award rates apply.
Penalty rates and overtime are different things
Penalty rates apply to ordinary hours worked at unsociable times — a Saturday, a Sunday, an evening. Overtime applies to hours beyond ordinary hours. They are separate mechanisms and, under most awards, they do not compound: a Sunday overtime hour is paid at the Sunday overtime rate, not at the penalty rate multiplied by the overtime rate.
Under the Clerks Award, ordinary hours on a Saturday attract 125% and on a Sunday 200%, while overtime on a Sunday is 200% throughout with no two-hour step. Public holidays are 250% either way.
This calculator prices ordinary and overtime hours at the pattern you select. It does not apply weekend or public-holiday penalties, so a week containing those needs them added separately.
Superannuation sits on top
The superannuation guarantee is 12% from 1 July 2025 and it is paid by the employer on top of your wage, not deducted from it. That is why an Australian salary figure and a contract rate are not comparable without adjusting for super.
Overtime is generally excluded from ordinary time earnings, which is the base the guarantee is calculated on — so overtime hours usually attract no super. Shift loadings and most penalty rates on ordinary hours are included.
From 1 July 2026, Payday Super means the guarantee is worked out and paid on each pay cycle rather than quarterly, which makes an unpaid entitlement visible far sooner than it used to be.
Reasonable additional hours, and the right to refuse
The NES allows an employer to request reasonable additional hours beyond 38, and allows you to refuse if they are unreasonable. Reasonableness takes account of health and safety risk, your personal circumstances including family responsibilities, the needs of the workplace, whether you are paid overtime for them, and how much notice you were given.
This is a genuine protection, not a formality — the notice you received and whether you are being paid for the hours both count directly toward whether a request is reasonable.
Nothing you enter here goes anywhere; it is calculated in your browser and this site makes no external requests at all. Use the print button to keep a record.
Assumptions and sources
- Australia NES
- Fair Work Ombudsman, maximum weekly hours, and "When overtime applies". https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/hours-of-work-breaks-and-rosters/hours-of-work/when-overtime-applies
- Clerks Award rates
- Fair Work Commission, Clerks — Private Sector Award 2020 [MA000002]. https://awards.fairwork.gov.au/MA000002.html
- Australia minimum wage
- Fair Work Commission, Annual Wage Review 2026 decision, effective 1 July 2026. https://www.fwc.gov.au/
- Ordinary daily hours
- 38 NES hours across a five-day week is 7.6 a day, which is what the award's "first two hours of overtime" is measured from. checked 2026-08
- Award-specific rates
- The Fair Work Ombudsman Pay Calculator is the authoritative source for your own award. https://calculate.fairwork.gov.au/
- Not covered
- Weekend and public-holiday penalty rates, shift loadings, annualised salary arrangements, and enterprise agreements.