Award rates are national, so the legal minimum for a role is identical in Canberra and Sydney. Three things do change at the border, and one of them costs more than employers expect.
Start with what does not change, because it saves a lot of wasted searching: modern award minimums are national. An electrician's award floor is $32.19 an hour whether the job is in Canberra or Parramatta. Anyone offering you Australian Capital Territory award rates is describing something that does not exist.
What genuinely changes is the employer's on-costs and obligations. There are three.
Payroll tax threshold
$1.75m
Australian wages, before any payroll tax applies
Workers compensation
Market
Privately underwritten, so you shop it
Public holidays
15
Days on the Fair Work Ombudsman list
The ACT tax-free threshold was cut from $2 million to $1.75 million on 1 July 2026. At the same time the rate was cut to 6.75 per cent for firms with national wages below $20 million, with the old 6.85 per cent kept for firms between $20 million and $50 million.
So the ACT threshold is still generous, second only to the Northern Territory, but it is $250,000 less generous than it was last financial year. If your budget was built on the $2 million figure, it needs redoing. The rate remains the highest of any jurisdiction.
ACT Revenue Office, ACT Budget 2026-27 updates, effective 1 July 2026. Checked 26 August 2026. The threshold counts Australian wages across every state, not just ACT wages.
The ACT private sector scheme is privately underwritten by insurers approved by WorkSafe ACT, so there is no central rate and no scheme average to quote. Under the Workers Compensation Act 1951 an employer must hold a policy, and not holding one carries significant fines.
There is one extra line the other jurisdictions do not have. Every approved insurer and self-insurer pays a levy into the Default Insurance Fund, which steps in when an employer defaults or an insurer collapses. Insurers are required to show that levy separately on the premium notice, so expect to see it and do not mistake it for a broker fee.
WorkSafe ACT, workers compensation and approved insurers, and ACT Treasury on the Default Insurance Fund. Checked 26 August 2026. No jurisdiction-wide average premium rate is published, so none is quoted here.
The ACT sits at fifteen days, one more than New South Wales, Western Australia and Tasmania. Canberra Day in March is an ACT-only holiday, so a business running staff across the ACT and NSW border will have people on different holiday calendars.
| State or territory | Public holidays | Paid hours at 7.6 per day |
|---|---|---|
| South Australia, Northern Territory | 16 | 121.6 |
| Victoria, Queensland, ACT | 15 | 114.0 |
| New South Wales, WA, Tasmania | 14 | 106.4 |
On an electrician at the award floor of $32.19, fifteen public holidays is $3,670 of paid time. In New South Wales the same employee's fourteen days come to $3,425. The difference is about $245 a year per employee, and it scales with every head you add.
Public holiday counts from the Fair Work Ombudsman list, checked 27 July 2026. Several states have additional regional days that do not appear, so treat these as a baseline. Hours shown at 7.6 per day, the standard full-time day under a 38 hour week.
A full-time electrician at the award floor in the Australian Capital Territory costs $72,199 a year before workers compensation, against a wage of $63,607, once superannuation and leave loading are counted. That is about 13.5 per cent on top of the wage, with payroll tax at nil for an employer under the threshold.
The workers compensation line cannot honestly be added here, because the Australian Capital Territory does not publish a scheme-wide rate. Get a quote from an approved insurer and add it to the $72,199. For a sense of scale, the states that do publish one sit between 1.343 and 1.99 per cent of wages, which on this wage is roughly $970 to $1,437 a year.
The full line-by-line arithmetic, and what changes once you are over the payroll tax threshold, is on what an employee really costs in Australia. To run it on your own rate and state, use the employee cost calculator.
Each of these has its own page covering what the role costs to employ, the current market band and the licences that gate it.
Beyond the trades we also fill warehousing and operations, office and administration, supervisors, managers and executives. The pay checker covers seventeen roles with their award floor and market band.
Same shape, different numbers. Each one covers that state or territory's payroll tax threshold, its workers compensation arrangement and its public holiday count, with the source and the date it was checked.
A note on licences crossing the border. Electrical and plumbing work in the ACT is licensed by Access Canberra, so a licence held in another state is not automatically valid here and usually needs recognition first. Refrigerant handling is a federal scheme and travels with the person.
That distinction is worth checking before you make an offer to someone relocating, not after.
Hiring in Australian Capital Territory?
GET MY SHORTLISTTerms first, then names. You pay nothing until your hire starts.
No. Modern award minimums are national, so the legal floor for a role is identical in Canberra and every other Australian city. What changes by state is the market rate, the employer on-costs and the licensing paperwork.
The ACT tax-free threshold was cut from $2 million to $1.75 million on 1 July 2026. At the same time the rate was cut to 6.75 per cent for firms with national wages below $20 million, with the old 6.85 per cent kept for firms between $20 million and $50 million.
There is no published figure. Australian Capital Territory is privately underwritten, so the premium comes from an approved insurer rather than a central scheme, and you get a number by asking them. The states that do publish a scheme rate sit between 1.343 and 1.99 per cent of wages.
Fifteen on the Fair Work Ombudsman list. For a full-time employee that is 114.0 paid hours a year.
Yes. From 1 July 2026 the tax-free threshold was cut from $2 million to $1.75 million, and the rate was cut to 6.75 per cent for firms with national wages under $20 million, with 6.85 per cent kept for firms between $20 million and $50 million. Budgets built on the old $2 million figure need redoing.
Electrical and plumbing work in the ACT is licensed by Access Canberra, so a licence held in another state is not automatically valid here and usually needs recognition first. Refrigerant handling is a federal scheme and travels with the person.
For a full-time electrician at the award floor, about $72,199 a year before workers compensation, against a $63,607 wage, once superannuation and leave loading are added. The workers compensation line has to come from an insurer quote because the Australian Capital Territory publishes no scheme-wide rate.