GP Salary Australia 2026 — What General Practitioners Earn and Take Home

Is there an award for GPs?

The Medical Practitioners Award 2020 [MA000031] covers doctors employed in the settings its clause 4.2 lists: hospitals, hospices, benevolent homes, day procedure centres, Aboriginal health services, community health centres and a few named bodies such as the Red Cross Blood Service.

Its community medical practitioner classification (cl 12.7) is for a doctor with at least 4 years' post-graduate experience employed to practise in community health centres or in general medical practice. The minimums are in the table below.

GP registrars — doctors in an accredited training program leading to fellowship, including the general practice and rural and remote medicine colleges — are registrars under the award (cl 12.3).

A GP who owns a practice, or contracts to one rather than being employed by it, is not an employee. No award minimum applies and there is no payslip.

Registrar minimums, and every other classification in the award, are on our doctor pay rates page.

GP salary in Australia: the ATO’s 2023–24 figures

Every year the ATO publishes what people earned, grouped by the occupation they put on their tax return. The 2023–24 figures (released on 17 June 2026) are the most recent. For occupation code 253111, Medical practitioner – general practice, 27,776 people reported an average taxable income of $196,060 and a median of $156,733. Those who were paid a salary or wage had an average of $145,370 and a median of $122,319 from it.

Taxable income is everything a person earned — salary, business and contracting income, investments — less their deductions; the ATO’s averages and medians for it include everyone in the occupation, whatever hours they worked. Salary or wages is only what employers paid, and its figures cover only the people who were paid one. Neither is a full-time salary rate.

What full-time employed GPs earn

Jobs and Skills Australia puts median full-time earnings for General Practitioners and Resident Medical Officers (ANZSCO 2531) at $2,446 a week ($60 an hour), about $127,192 a year. It also reports that 77% of people in the group work full-time hours, and that full-time workers average 45 hours a week.

This group counts hospital resident medical officers as well as GPs, and covers employees only — GPs who own or contract to a practice are not in it. The same median appears on our doctor pay rates page.

Median weekly pay of full-time, non-managerial adult employees before tax and salary sacrifice, from the ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours (May 2025) as published by Jobs and Skills Australia. It reflects what employers actually pay, including people on enterprise agreements or above-award salaries, so it is a market figure, not a legal minimum.

Award minimum for an employed GP, 2026–27

Medical Practitioners Award clause 16.1(g), community medical practitioner, from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026 — for a GP employed where the award applies. Annual, weekly and hourly figures exactly as the award prints them.

Medical Practitioners Award 2020 [MA000031], consolidated to 1 July 2026. Full-time, 38 ordinary hours a week, before tax and super.

GP salary after tax

What each figure above leaves after income tax and the Medicare levy at 2026–27 rates, treating it as taxable income with no deductions. The ATO figures are from 2023–24, so this shows what the same income takes home today, not what it took home then.

2026–27 resident tax rates with the low income tax offset and the 2% Medicare levy, assuming private hospital cover (without it, the Medicare levy surcharge adds up to 1.5% at these incomes — check yours with the Medicare levy surcharge calculator). The last column is the compulsory repayment if you still have a HELP debt; it comes out of take-home pay on top of tax. Super is paid on top by an employer at 12%.

For the full breakdown at the median, see take-home pay on $155,000 (the nearest step to $156,733), or put in your own salary below.

What a GP’s pay looks like on a payslip

An employed GP gets a payslip each pay day showing gross pay, the PAYG tax withheld (which already allows for the Medicare levy), any HELP repayment withheld, and the super the employer paid on top. Check the tax withheld against the tax withheld calculator and each line against understanding your payslip.

That is the payslip a GP gets from a community health centre, an Aboriginal health service or a practice that puts its doctors on payroll.

A GP who contracts to a practice is not paid through payroll, so no PAYG tax is withheld unless the GP and the practice have a voluntary withholding agreement. Tax and the Medicare levy are then paid through PAYG instalments or at tax time.

Contracting rather than employed? Compare the two with the contractor pay calculator.

What this page does not show

• State figures for GPs alone: the ATO's state table counts GPs and resident medical officers together.
• Contractor and practice-owner arrangements, which produce business income rather than wages.
• A salary ladder by years of experience: no primary source publishes one, and we do not estimate salaries.

GP salary questions

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