Pastoral Award Pay Rates 2026-27

Pastoral Award Pay Rates by Level

Farm and livestock hand adult minimum rates (Part 6, broadacre farming and livestock operations) for full-time and part-time employees under the Pastoral Award 2020. Part-time employees are paid the same hourly rate as full-time employees at their classification — the difference is hours, not rate. The casual column adds the 25% loading (cl 11.3(a)).

Weekly rates are the award’s minimum weekly rate for a full-time employee (cl 32.1); hourly is the weekly rate divided by 38.

Which level am I?

• FLH1: Station hand, station cook or station cook's offsider with less than 6 months' experience; cattle farm worker grade A; feedlot employee level 1 (under 3 months) (cl 31.1).
• FLH2: Station hand with 6 to 12 months' experience; station cook or offsider with more than 6 months; cattle farm worker grade B (cl 31.2).
• FLH3: Station hand with at least 12 months' experience who is not a senior station hand; dairy operator grade 1B (cl 31.3).
• FLH4: Feedlot employee level 2 (2 years' feedlot experience, routine supervision) and similar (cl 31.4).
• FLH5: Senior station hand; dairy operator grade 2 with 2 years' experience (cl 31.5).
• FLH6: Feedlot employee level 3 (Certificate III, at least 2 years' feedlot experience, limited supervision) and similar (cl 31.6).
• FLH7: Senior dairy operator grade 1, who coordinates a farm process or area of expertise (cl 31.7).
• FLH8: Senior dairy operator grade 2, who supervises and maintains the operation of a dairy farm under the owner or manager (cl 31.8).

Worked example: a casual station hand's Sunday

Mia is a casual station hand at FLH3 (12 months' experience, $26.49 an hour minimum). She works 6 hours on a Sunday, none of it feeding or watering stock, and it is beyond her ordinary hours.

1. Sunday overtime other than feeding and watering stock is 200% for a permanent employee and 225% for a casual (cl 35.2): $26.49 × 2.25 = $59.60 an hour.
2. 6 hours × $59.60 = $357.60 before tax and before any deduction for keep.

If the same hours were feeding and watering stock, the Sunday rate falls to 150% for permanent staff and 175% for casuals — $46.36 an hour for Mia instead of $59.60. A permanent FLH3 doing Monday to Saturday overtime gets $39.74 an hour.

Try your own hours in the overtime pay calculator or the casual loading calculator, add up a full week in the weekly pay calculator, or check the public holiday pay guide.

Pastoral Award Pay Guide 2026-27: Every Level, Every Day

The hourly rate for each classification at each penalty band, in the layout of the Fair Work pay guide. Find your level, then the day you worked.

Full-time and part-time

Casual

Casual figures are the award's casual percentages, which already include the 25% loading where it applies. Figures are rounded to the cent. A dash means the column does not apply to that classification.

Pastoral Award Penalty Rates

The Pastoral Award has no Saturday or Sunday penalty rate for ordinary hours. Ordinary hours are fixed by agreement and average no more than 38 a week over 4 weeks (cl 34.1). What is paid at a higher rate is overtime: all time worked beyond ordinary hours (cl 35.1).

Casual rates add the 25% loading to the permanent percentage: 200% becomes 225% on a public holiday (Schedule B.2.4).

Where keep (board) is provided, the employer may deduct $165.86 a week from total weekly wages (cl 32.3). Overtime and public holiday rates are calculated on the rate before that deduction (cl 35.4).

Pastoral Award Overtime Rates

Overtime is all time beyond the ordinary hours agreed under cl 34 (cl 35.1). To be paid, an employee must claim it within 2 weeks of working it or by the next payday, whichever is later (cl 35.3).

Station cooks who work more than 5.5 days in a week are not paid hourly overtime but an additional fraction of the weekly rate: 3/22 for 6 full days, 3/11 for 6 and a half days, 9/22 for 7 full days (cl 34.3).

A casual who works overtime is paid the casual column of the table, which adds the 25% loading to the permanent percentage (cl 11.3(c), 35.2 NOTE).

Pastoral Award Junior Rates

Junior rates are a percentage of the adult rate for the classification (cl 32.2), and apply to the adult rate for the farm and livestock hand level. The dollar columns apply the percentage to FLH1 ($978.10 a week) and divide by 38. The full adult rate applies from age 20.

For how junior scales compare across awards and against the National Minimum Wage, see our junior pay rates guide.

Pastoral Award Allowances

Fixed-dollar allowances in cl 33, operative from 1 July 2026. Each is paid only where the clause’s conditions are met.

Minimum Shifts and Hours

• Ordinary hours of a farm and livestock hand average no more than 38 a week over 4 weeks and cannot exceed 152 hours in any 4 consecutive weeks (cl 34.1–34.2).
• Casuals are paid the 25% loading instead of annual leave, personal leave, notice and redundancy (cl 11.3(b)).
• Part 6 covers hourly farm and livestock hands. A shearer, crutcher or woolpresser is a piece-rate worker paid by the sheep shorn or bale pressed under Part 9, so no hourly rate here applies to that work.

What This Page Does Not Cover

These parts of the award carry rules or rates we have not verified line by line, so we publish no figures for them:

• Piece rates: shearers, crutchers and woolpressers (Part 9 and Schedule A) are paid by the sheep or bale, and are excluded from this page entirely
• Pig breeding and raising (Part 7) and poultry farming (Part 8) minimum rates, shiftwork rates and penalties
• Shed hands and woolpressers' hourly rates (Part 9, cl 56)
• Apprentice and trainee rates, the supported wage system and the other allowances in Schedule C

An enterprise agreement, if one covers your workplace, replaces these award rates — though it must leave you better off overall.

When These Rates Took Effect

Applies from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2026, not universally 1 July. If your pay period began before 1 July 2026, the previous rate lawfully applies to that whole period and the rise starts with the next one. The award was varied by determination PR799316 following the Annual Wage Review 2026. If you have been paid below these rates, our backpay calculator works out what is owed.

Frequently Asked Questions