Hiring and paying café staff in Australia: awards, rates and rosters

For most café owners, staff are the biggest cost they control. They're also where first-time employers get into the most trouble, usually not from bad intent but from a wrong classification, a missed birthday that moved someone up a junior rate, or a Sunday paid at the Saturday rate.

This guide explains how café pay works in plain terms, with the actual numbers for 2026–27. The rates quoted are minimums from the Fair Work Commission's award text for the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. They change every July, so before you set anyone's pay, check them in the Fair Work Pay Calculator or the current pay guide.

#Which award covers your café

An award is the legal document that sets minimum pay and conditions for an industry. Which one applies depends on what your café mainly does, not what you call it.

The Restaurant Industry Award [MA000119] covers restaurants and cafés where customers mainly eat and drink on the premises or get table service. Its definition of the restaurant industry names cafés directly.

The Fast Food Industry Award [MA000003] covers businesses taking orders for, preparing and selling food and drinks mainly to be taken away. Fair Work's own example is a small café with a couple of tables that mostly sells drinks and snacks to take away: that's fast food. The Fast Food Award specifically excludes cafés and coffee shops that mainly provide sit-down service.

Other awards apply in particular settings. A café run by a hotel or resort usually falls under the Hospitality Industry (General) Award, and a café inside a theme park or similar venue can be under a different award again.

If you're not sure, the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool asks about your business and tells you, and its Infoline (13 13 94) will help. Small businesses can also get free written advice from its Employer Advisory Service. Get this right first, because everything else depends on it.

#Classifications: getting the level right

Each award sorts employees into classifications by the work they do and their training. The Restaurant Award runs from an Introductory level through Level 1 to Level 6. The Fast Food Award has Level 1, Level 2 and two Level 3 grades depending on how many people the employee is in charge of.

Here are the adult minimum hourly rates from 1 July 2026.

Baristas are the classic trap. Under the Restaurant Award, a barista doing general food and beverage work is usually a food and beverage attendant grade 2 (Level 2). Grade 3 (Level 3) has very similar duties, and Fair Work's guidance says the difference is training: grade 3 needs a relevant Certificate II, and having done some of the units isn't enough. A Western Australian industrial magistrate ordered a café to back-pay a barista who had been paid as grade 1 when the work was grade 2.

Read the classification definitions in the award (they're in a schedule at the back), match each person's actual duties and qualifications, and write down why you chose the level. When duties change, check again.

#Full-time, part-time or casual

Full-time employees work 38 ordinary hours a week. They get paid annual leave (4 weeks a year), paid sick and carer's leave (10 days a year), and paid public holidays when the day is one they'd normally work.

Part-time employees work regular, predictable hours of fewer than 38 a week, and get the same leave pro rata. Under the Restaurant Award, a part-timer is engaged for at least 8 and fewer than 38 ordinary hours a week and can't be rostered for fewer than 3 hours in a day. Under the Fast Food Award, every part-time shift is at least 3 consecutive hours.

Casual employees have no firm advance commitment to ongoing work. They don't get paid annual or sick leave; instead they get a 25% casual loading on their hourly rate. A Restaurant Award casual must be paid for at least 2 hours each time they come in, and a Fast Food Award casual for at least 3.

Casual isn't automatically cheaper. A casual Level 2 costs $33.85 an hour on a weekday under the Restaurant Award, against $27.08 for a part-timer, and the part-timer's paid leave (four weeks' annual leave and up to 10 days' sick and carer's leave a year) adds less than that 25%. What casual buys you is flexibility. Many cafés run a core of permanent staff for the regular shifts and casuals for the weekend peaks and cover.

Casuals can also ask to become permanent. Under the employee choice pathway, a casual who has worked for a small business (fewer than 15 employees) for at least 12 months, or 6 months for a larger employer, can give written notice that they want to change to full-time or part-time. You must reply in writing within 21 days, and can only refuse on limited grounds, such as fair and reasonable operational reasons.

#Penalty rates in plain terms

Penalty rates are percentages of the base hourly rate for work at particular times. Under both awards, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays cost more, and the casual percentages already include the 25% loading.

Here's what that means in dollars for an adult at Restaurant Award Level 2 ($27.08 base) from 1 July 2026:

Two details that cost owners money when they miss them:

• Sunday depends on the level. Under the Restaurant Award, a casual at Introductory to Level 2 gets 150% on a Sunday, but a casual at Level 3 or above gets 175%. Under the Fast Food Award, it's the permanent and casual Level 1 rates that are lower on Sundays (125% and 150%), with Levels 2 and 3 on 150% and 175%.
• Late nights have their own rules. The Restaurant Award adds $2.95 an hour for ordinary hours from 10pm to midnight on weekdays, and $4.42 an hour from midnight to 6am. The Fast Food Award uses percentages instead (110% to 115%, or 135% to 140% for casuals). Most cafés close long before 10pm, but if you run evening trade, check them.

On top of these are overtime (hours beyond the award's limits, or for part-timers, beyond their agreed hours), allowances such as laundry for uniforms, and rules on breaks. They're all in the award and the pay guide.

Junior rates

Employees under 21 can be paid a percentage of the adult rate for their classification.

Restaurant Award: 50% under 17, 60% at 17, 70% at 18, 85% at 19, and the full adult rate from 20. A junior working as a liquor service employee gets the adult rate. So a 19-year-old casual at Level 2 has a base rate of $23.02 and costs $28.78 an hour on a weekday.

Fast Food Award: 40% under 16, 50% at 16, 60% at 17, 70% at 18, 80% at 19, 90% at 20, and the adult rate from 21. In March 2026, the Fair Work Commission decided to phase out junior rates for employees aged 18 to 20 who have been with the same employer for more than 6 months, under this award and two others. The change is to be gradual, possibly starting 1 December 2026, so check the current pay guide.

Junior rates go up on the employee's birthday. Put every junior's date of birth in your payroll system and let it move them up automatically. Missed birthdays are one of the most common underpayments inspectors find.

#Super, payroll and workers compensation

Super is 12% of ordinary time earnings. The Superannuation Guarantee rate is 12% for 2026–27. Ordinary time earnings include pay for ordinary hours, casual loading, and penalty rates for ordinary hours, such as a casual's regular Saturday shift. Overtime generally isn't included.

From 1 July 2026, super is paid every payday. Under Payday Super, the contribution has to be paid with each pay run and generally reach the employee's fund within 7 business days. The ATO's Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed on 1 July 2026, so use your payroll software's super function or another clearing service. Budget for it as a weekly or fortnightly cash cost, not a quarterly one.

Register for PAYG withholding before the first pay. You withhold tax from wages and send it to the ATO. Each new employee gives you a tax file number declaration and chooses a super fund.

Use Single Touch Payroll software. Every employer reports wages, tax and super to the ATO through STP-enabled payroll software each time they pay staff. Most café payroll and rostering apps do this.

Workers compensation insurance

Every state and territory requires employers to insure their workers, and the insurer or scheme depends on where you are.

• NSW: a policy through icare. You need one unless your wages are $7,500 a year or less and you have no apprentices or trainees.
• Victoria: WorkCover insurance through WorkSafe Victoria if you pay, or expect to pay, more than $7,500 a year in wages, or take on an apprentice or trainee.
• Queensland: an accident insurance policy with WorkCover Queensland. It covers your workers, not you as a sole trader or director.
• South Australia: ReturnToWorkSA.
• WA, Tasmania, the ACT and the NT: a policy from an approved or licensed private insurer, regulated by WorkCover WA, WorkSafe Tasmania, WorkSafe ACT and NT WorkSafe.

Premiums are a percentage of wages that depends on your industry, state and claims history. Ask for a quote before you finalise your budget, and add it to the wage calculator as an on-cost.

#Paperwork: information statements, payslips and records

Information statements. Give every new employee the Fair Work Information Statement before, or as soon as possible after, they start. Casuals also get the Casual Employment Information Statement at the start, and a small business gives it again after their first 12 months. You can email a link to the statement on Fair Work's website.

Payslips within one working day. Every employee gets a payslip within one working day of payday, on paper or electronically, showing the required details such as your ABN, the pay period, the hours and rates, and gross and net pay.

Records for seven years. Keep time and wage records, in English, for seven years. Fair Work inspectors can issue fines on the spot for missing payslips or records, even when the pay itself was right.

Rosters in writing. The awards have rules on rostering and on changing a part-timer's agreed hours, so read them. A written roster published in advance, and timesheets that match it, protect you as much as your staff.

#Rostering and labour cost targets

The ATO publishes benchmarks from real tax returns. For coffee shops in 2023–24, wages ran at 21% to 32% of turnover for cafés turning over $65,000 to $600,000 a year, and 27% to 35% above $600,000. Those figures only count wages actually paid, so an owner working unpaid behind the machine makes a café look leaner than it really is.

Work through it with a real roster. Take a small eat-in café under the Restaurant Award with:

• a full-time head barista at Level 3, 30 weekday hours and 8 on Saturday: $1,118.80 a week
• a casual barista at Level 2, 10 weekday hours and 7 each on Saturday and Sunday: $907.18
• a casual 19-year-old at Level 2, 8 weekday hours and 6 each on Saturday and Sunday: $644.56
• a part-time kitchen hand at Level 1, 20 weekday hours: $528.80

That's $3,199.34 in wages, plus 12% super of $383.92, so $3,583.26 a week. On $12,000 of weekly sales before GST, wages and super are 29.9% of sales. The ATO's benchmark counts wages without super, and on that basis the $3,199 is 26.7% of sales, just under its 27% to 35% range for a café turning over $624,000 a year. That's typical of a café where the owner also works shifts unpaid. Open on 8 public holidays with the casual barista working 7 hours each, and the year adds about $2,123 more.

A few habits keep the number in range:

• Roster to the till, not the clock. Look at sales by hour for a few weeks and put your hours where the customers are. A quiet last hour with three staff on is where wage percentages blow out.
• Watch weekends closely. In the example above, Saturday and Sunday penalty rates add about $220 a week in wages over what the same hours would cost on weekdays. Weekend rosters deserve the most thought.
• Review it weekly. Write down sales and wages each week. One bad week means little; six weeks above your target means the roster needs to change.
• Count leave. When a permanent employee takes paid leave and someone covers their shifts, you pay twice for those hours. Build that into your yearly budget.

#Hiring and training baristas

Unpaid trials are only for a short skills test. Fair Work's rules allow an unpaid trial only to demonstrate skills for the job, under direct supervision, and only for as long as that takes, which in hospitality typically means an hour up to one shift. Anything more, such as a weekend of real shifts, has to be paid. If you want longer to decide, employ the person as a casual or on probation and pay every hour.

Train food safety from day one. Under national food safety rules, everyone handling unpackaged food that needs temperature control must have food safety training or equivalent skills. Free courses such as DoFoodSafely count. Keep a record. If they'll serve alcohol, they also need responsible service of alcohol training for your state.

Write the coffee down. Recipes, dose, yield and shot time, milk temperature and cup sizes on a laminated card by the machine. It gets new baristas to a consistent standard much faster than "watch me".

Mind the classification when you train. If you pay for a barista to complete a relevant Certificate II, they may move from Level 2 to Level 3 under the Restaurant Award, with a higher rate and a higher casual Sunday rate. That's a good outcome, so budget for it.

Good baristas are hard to find and expensive to replace. Many cafés find the cheapest way to cut labour cost is keeping the people they have: a trained team works faster and wastes less. Customers notice the same faces too, which is a good part of why they come back.

#What getting it wrong costs

Underpayment in cafés is common.

In August 2026, the Fair Work Ombudsman reported surprise inspections of 28 food businesses in Hobart: 22 were non-compliant. The most common breaches were underpaid base rates (20 businesses) and penalty rates (18), and inspectors recovered more than $129,000 for 180 workers and issued $24,570 in fines for record-keeping and payslip breaches. One owner, inspected again after back-paying $150,905 in 2019, had fixed his classifications and records and was compliant apart from missing an age-based increase for four junior staff.

The costs stack up:

• Back pay of every dollar owed, often for years.
• Fines for payslip and record-keeping breaches, issued on the spot.
• Civil penalties in court for serious breaches.
• Criminal charges. Since 1 January 2025, intentionally underpaying wages or entitlements can be a crime, punishable by fines, prison or both. Honest mistakes are not included, and a small business that complies with the Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code can't be referred for prosecution over an underpayment.

The protection is cheap: get the award and classification right, check rates every July, track birthdays, keep records, and if you find a mistake, fix it and back-pay quickly. Fair Work has formal routes, such as cooperation agreements, for employers who come forward about a problem, and the Employer Advisory Service can help before it becomes one.