ACT Nurse & Midwife Pay Rates 2026 — ACT Public Sector Nursing Pay Scales

ACT nurse pay rates 2026 at a glance

Base rates in force from first full pay period on or after 1 December 2025 (4 December 2025) under the ACT Public Sector Nursing and Midwifery Enterprise Agreement 2023–2026; the next scheduled change is none scheduled — the agreement passed its nominal expiry on 31 March 2026 and a replacement is under negotiation. Tap a classification for every pay point, or a salary to see it after tax.

What a registered nurse earns in Australian Capital Territory

On the Registered Nurse Level 1 scale, the bottom step (Pay point 1) pays $82,993 a year and the top step (Pay point 8) pays $108,780. ACT Public Service publishes those annual figures directly. Base pay is only part of the picture: nursing is a rostered, round-the-clock job, and shift and weekend loadings routinely add a double-digit percentage on top.

Those buttons go to the nearest published take-home page, which is rounded to the closest $5,000. For your exact figure — including HECS-HELP, salary packaging and extra super — use the take-home pay calculator.

What makes ACT different

• Registered Nurse Level 1 starts at $82,993 and runs to $108,780 across eight pay points, from 4 December 2025.
• Enrolled nurses start at $75,849 at Level 1 and reach $81,806 at Level 2.
• The ACT's last pay rise was 1% plus a flat $1,000 on 4 December 2025 — the flat amount gives lower-paid staff a bigger percentage rise.
• Midwives are paid the same as registered nurses at the same level and grade — Midwife Level 1 is also $82,993 to $108,780.
• The agreement's nominal expiry was 31 March 2026 and a replacement is being negotiated, so watch for a rate change.

ACT Public Service nursing and midwifery pay scales

Each table below uses the classification names the instrument itself prints. Classifications are not the same between states and this page does not translate them: a Queensland Nurse Grade 5 and a Tasmanian Registered Nurse Grade 3 are both entry registered nurse roles, but they are not the same classification and they are not on the same money.

Which agreement covers you

Nurses Award 2020 vs the ACT agreement

The Nurses Award 2020 (MA000034) is a federal minimum wage instrument, not a pay scale for public hospital staff. It sets the floor below which no nurse in Australia may lawfully be paid. Almost nobody in Australian Capital Territory's public health system is actually paid on it, because the instrument above pays well over the floor. The award is what governs pay in private hospitals, GP and specialist clinics, aged care and agency work where no enterprise agreement applies.

Award rates above are the minimum rates operative from 1 July 2026 (PR799315) for employees other than aged care employees. The award now carries a second, higher set of minimum rates for aged care nurses, operative from 1 August 2026 (PR812118) — an aged care registered nurse level 1 in their first year is on $1,571.60 a week, well above the $1,219.50 general rate. If someone quotes “the Nurses Award rate” without saying which of the two streams they mean, the number is unusable.

Full award pay-guide style tables for other awards are on the award pay rates page.

Shift penalties and weekend loadings in Australian Capital Territory

Nursing pay is penalty-driven. A nurse on a rotating roster with regular nights and weekends can be paid materially more than the base rate on this page, and the difference does not show up in any “average nurse salary” figure. Check these against your payslip line by line.

To model a specific roster — a fortnight of nights, a weekend block, an overtime call-back — use the overtime pay calculator, and read the overtime and penalty rates guide for how loadings interact with ordinary hours.

Moving up a step, and what each step is worth

Two different things move nursing pay. Within one classification you move through increments — usually annually for full-time staff, and by accumulated hours for part-time and casual staff. Between classifications you move by being appointed to a position, not by time served: nobody becomes a clinical nurse consultant or a unit manager by waiting.

The increments are worth checking. On the ACT registered nurse scale, the gap between consecutive steps is a real pay rise every year that you should be able to see land on a specific pay period. If your increment date has passed and the rate has not moved, that is a payroll question worth asking. Use the pay rise calculator to see what a step is worth after tax, and the back pay calculator if the increment was applied late.

Salary packaging, and why it changes your take-home but not your grade

Public hospital employees can salary package living expenses out of pre-tax income under the public hospital fringe benefits tax exemption. On a nursing salary that is worth several thousand dollars a year in extra take-home pay, and it is one of the largest single differences between public and private sector nursing pay once you look past the base rate.

What it does not do is change your classification, your increment or your gross pay. It changes how much of your gross pay is taxed. That distinction matters when you are comparing a public hospital offer against a private one, and when you are checking whether your payslip has the packaging deduction applied correctly. The mechanics, caps and eligibility are in the salary packaging guide; the salary sacrifice calculator shows the effect on a specific salary, and the state pay calculator act shows the take-home figure on any ACT salary before packaging.

What this page does not show

This is a money page, so it says what it left out rather than filling gaps with estimates.

Published, but not reproduced here

These rows exist in the source and can be read at the link in the sources below:

• Midwife (RM) Levels 2 to 5 — Schedule 1 prints them as a separate ladder, but every figure is identical to the Registered Nurse level of the same number and grade shown here.

Not published anywhere we could verify

Nothing below appears on this page in any form. No figure here has been estimated, interpolated or carried across from another state:

• Shift, weekend and public holiday penalty rates — the agreement sets them, but they have not been transcribed for this page.
• An hourly rate for any ACT classification — the agreement publishes annual salaries only.
• Rates under a replacement agreement — the 2023–2026 agreement is being renegotiated and no replacement or interim increase had been published when this page was checked on 24 September 2026.

Nurse pay in the other states

Every state runs its own classification structure and its own agreement. Comparing the raw numbers across states is misleading unless you also compare the classifications and the penalty structures.

Frequently asked questions