Overtime Pay Calculator

How overtime pay works

Overtime is paid at a penalty rate above your ordinary hourly rate. The two most common in Australia are time and a half (1.5x) for the first few overtime hours and double time (2x) beyond that, or on Sundays and public holidays.

Those are conventions, not law. Your actual entitlement comes from the modern award, enterprise agreement or contract that covers you, and awards differ on when overtime starts, what the multipliers are, and whether a minimum engagement applies. Check the instrument that covers your job rather than assuming the general pattern.

Overtime rates at common hourly pay

Gross figures, before tax. Enter your base salary in the calculator above to see what the overtime is worth after tax at your marginal rate.

Why a big overtime week looks over-taxed

Overtime is ordinary income. There is no special overtime tax rate, but there is a real reason a heavy week disappoints on the pay slip.

PAYG withholding works out the tax on a pay as though every pay for the year looked like that one. A week with 15 hours of overtime therefore gets taxed as if you earned at that elevated rate all year, which puts it in a higher bracket than your actual annual income justifies. The over-withheld amount is not lost. It is reconciled when you lodge, and it comes back as part of your refund. This is one of the most common causes of a bigger than expected refund, and it is also why a year without overtime can produce a smaller one.

What you genuinely keep from an extra hour is set by your marginal rate. On $75,000 that is about 68 cents in the dollar including the Medicare levy, and about 53 cents with a HECS or HELP debt above the threshold.

Super is usually not paid on overtime

The super guarantee is calculated on ordinary time earnings, and overtime generally sits outside that, so most overtime attracts no super. It is a genuine difference in the value of the hour: $60.00 of overtime is $60.00, while $60.00 of ordinary pay also carries $7.20 of super behind it at the FY2026-27 rate of 12%.

There are exceptions. Where an award or agreement does not clearly separate ordinary hours from additional hours, or where you are on an annualised salary that rolls overtime into a single figure, the whole amount can count as ordinary time earnings and attract super. If your pay slip shows no separately identified overtime, this is worth checking.

Source: ATO, super guarantee. Checked 21 August 2026. TaxSnap is a calculator, not a tax agent: see the disclaimer and where every figure comes from.

Overtime pushes up your HECS repayment

Compulsory study loan repayments are worked out on your repayment income for the whole year, not on your base salary. A year with a lot of overtime can lift you over the $69,528 threshold even when your ordinary salary sits below it, or move you further up the repayment bands.

Because the repayment is only calculated when your return is processed, this arrives as a surprise at tax time rather than during the year. If you are close to the threshold and expect a heavy overtime year, the HECS and HELP calculator run on your expected total is a better guide than your base salary.

Time off in lieu and annualised salaries

Many awards let an employee take time off in lieu instead of being paid overtime, usually by written agreement for each occasion, and usually with a rule that untaken time must be paid out at the overtime rate if it is not used within a set period. TOIL taken at ordinary time for overtime worked at a penalty rate is worth less than the cash, so it is worth reading how your instrument words it.

An annualised wage arrangement rolls overtime and penalties into one salary. These come with obligations on the employer: the arrangement has to be recorded, and there is normally a reconciliation requiring the employee to be no worse off than they would have been under the award. If you are on an annualised salary and consistently working long hours, that reconciliation is the thing to ask about.

Frequently Asked Questions