Pay Calculator ACT: Your Take-Home Pay in Canberra

ACT pay at a glance

• Minimum wage: the national minimum wage is $26.44 an hour ($1,004.90 for a 38-hour week) from 1 July 2026; most jobs pay an award rate above it (see the minimum wage guide).
• Public holidays: 15 in 2026, 8 of them ACT-only. Working one usually attracts 200%–250% of your base rate under an award (dates in the public holiday table below).
• Long service leave: 6.07 weeks after 7 years under the Long Service Leave Act 1976 (ACT): ACT long service leave calculator.
• Government jobs: ACT public service pay scales, ACT teacher pay and ACT nurse pay rates.
• Emergency services: ACT paramedic pay, ACT police pay and ACT firefighter pay.
• Workers compensation: if you are injured at work, the ACT scheme (WorkSafe ACT) covers weekly payments and medical costs. Your employer pays the premium; nothing is deducted from your pay for it.

Minimum wage and state awards in the ACT

The National Minimum Wage is $26.44 an hour ($1,004.90 for a 38-hour week) from 1 July 2026, and it applies to adults in the national system whatever the state. Most people earn an award rate above it: see what the minimum wage in Australia is and the award rates guide.

Generally, all employees and employers in the ACT are covered by the national system, so there is no separate ACT minimum wage.

Source: Fair Work Ombudsman, Fair Work system, read 5 October 2026. Check with Fair Work or your state industrial commission if you are unsure which system covers your employer.

How much of a Canberra salary do you actually keep?

The ACT does not levy income tax; nobody in Australia does except the Commonwealth. A Canberra public servant and a Queanbeyan retail worker are taxed on exactly the same scale. What is different is the level: ACT earnings are the highest in the country, so a larger share of Canberra salaries reach the 37% bracket. Here is the arithmetic on $119,090, the average full-time wage in the ACT.

Cross-border commuters from Queanbeyan, Yass or Bungendore are taxed identically: income tax follows the taxpayer, not the border. Public holidays do not: you get the holidays of the place you are based for work.

Is your Canberra salary normal? What the ABS says

The ACT posts the highest full-time ordinary time earnings in Australia at $2,290.20 a week. Its gap between men and women is $87.70 a week, the second smallest of any state or territory after Tasmania.

Full-time adults in the ACT earn 9.9% more than the national average of $2,083.70 a week. Source: ABS Average Weekly Earnings, May 2026, released 13 August 2026 (Table 13, original series). Read on 28 August 2026.

The full-time rows for ordinary hours and including overtime sit close together because ACT workers earn very little overtime compared with the resource states. For a Canberra salary, base pay is nearly the whole figure.

The ACT super rate that makes package offers confusing

Federal public servants under PSSap get a higher employer super rate than the standard SG rate, which makes Canberra package offers hard to compare. The calculator above handles this if you tick the package box.

• APS Superannuation: federal public servants under the PSSap scheme receive employer super contributions of 15.4%, compared to the standard SG rate of 12%. This adds $3,400 per year in additional super for an employee on $100,000. Learn more in our Superannuation Guide.

The calculator above uses the statutory guarantee of 12%, which is what a private-sector Canberra employer pays. If you are on a higher scheme rate, the take-home figure is unaffected (super is paid on top of salary, not out of it), but the total package line will understate your package. Compare offers with the salary package calculator.

ACT public holidays and what they do to your pay

The ACT has 15 public holidays in 2026, more than NSW, which surrounds it. Two are unique to the Territory: Canberra Day in March and Reconciliation Day, held on the first Monday on or after 27 May. A retail or hospitality worker in Civic therefore gets two penalty-rate days a year that a colleague fifteen minutes away in Queanbeyan does not.

Australian Capital Territory publishes 15 public holidays for 2026, and 8 of them are not observed Australia-wide. A worker one state over is not paid a public holiday penalty rate on those days, which are marked ACT only in the table below.

Source: Fair Work Ombudsman, 2026 public holidays, read 28 August 2026. Regional and part-day variations apply, so check the Australian Capital Territory government list that covers your town.

ACT public holidays 2026 & 2027: every date, regional days and public holiday pay rates →

Long service leave in the ACT

ACT employees reach the long service leave entitlement after 7 years, the shortest wait in Australia alongside Victoria, and a pro-rata payment can be owed from as little as 5. If a public holiday falls during your long service leave in the ACT, the leave is extended by a day.

The ACT shares the shortest qualifying period in the country with Victoria: 7 years of continuous service earns 6.0667 weeks of paid leave, then a further fifth of a month for each further year. If a public holiday falls during your long service leave, the leave is extended by a day. A pro-rata payment can be owed from as little as 5 years where the job ends through illness, incapacity, pressing necessity, retirement, death, or dismissal for anything short of serious and wilful misconduct.

Long service leave is paid at your ordinary rate, so the calculator at the top of this page tells you what a week of it is worth after tax. A lump sum paid out when you leave is taxed differently: see the final pay calculator. Source: WorkSafe ACT, read 28 August 2026.

Work out your own balance and payout with the ACT long service leave calculator.

The Long Service Leave Act 1976 (ACT) covers ACT private sector employees who are not covered by an award or agreement containing long service leave terms. Public sector staff are not covered by it, and the building, cleaning, community and security industries accrue through ACT Leave's portable schemes instead.

Does ACT payroll tax come out of your pay?

The ACT charges the highest general payroll tax rate in the country (6.75%, rising with payroll size), but only on employers with more than $1,750,000 of Australian wages. The employer pays it, and it is not deducted from ACT wages. The payslip guide lists the deductions that do come out of your pay.

Frequently Asked Questions