Award rates are national, so the legal minimum for a role is identical in Melbourne 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 Melbourne or Parramatta. Anyone offering you Victoria 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
$1m
Australian wages, before any payroll tax applies
Workers compensation
1.8%
WorkSafe Victoria scheme average, varies by industry
Public holidays
15
Days on the Fair Work Ombudsman list
Victoria's tax-free deduction is $1 million in Australian wages, and the rate above it is 4.85 per cent. The deduction is not permanent: from $3 million in wages it starts to phase out at 50 cents in the dollar, and it is gone entirely at $5 million.
The threshold rose from $900,000 to $1 million on 1 July 2025. Even after that rise it is the equal lowest in the country with Western Australia, so Victorian employers start paying payroll tax at a smaller size than employers anywhere else.
State Revenue Office Victoria, payroll tax current rates. Checked 26 August 2026. Surcharges of 1 per cent and 2 per cent apply to national payrolls above $10 million and $100 million respectively.
Victoria runs a public scheme, so the premium comes from your industry classification rather than from a broker. The average premium rate for 2026-27 is 1.8 per cent of rateable remuneration.
That is a scheme average, not a quote. Your own rate depends on your industry classification and your claims history, and can sit well above or below the average. Get the actual figure from WorkSafe before you build it into a budget.
WorkSafe Victoria, industry rates and key dates, 2026-27. Checked 26 August 2026.
This is the biggest single saving available in any state and almost nobody outside Victoria knows about it. A regional Victorian employer pays payroll tax at 1.2125 per cent instead of 4.85 per cent. That is a quarter of the standard rate, on the same wages, for the same work.
It is worth checking whether a role genuinely has to sit in Melbourne before you advertise it there. On $2 million of wages above the threshold, the gap between the metropolitan and the regional rate is roughly $72,750 a year.
| 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 Victoria costs about $73,499 a year against a wage of $63,607, once superannuation, leave loading and workers compensation are counted. That is roughly 15.6 per cent on top of the wage, with payroll tax at nil for an employer under the threshold.
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 work in Victoria is licensed by Energy Safe Victoria and plumbing by the Victorian Building Authority, 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 Victoria?
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 Melbourne and every other Australian city. What changes by state is the market rate, the employer on-costs and the licensing paperwork.
Victoria's tax-free deduction is $1 million in Australian wages, and the rate above it is 4.85 per cent. The deduction is not permanent: from $3 million in wages it starts to phase out at 50 cents in the dollar, and it is gone entirely at $5 million.
The WorkSafe Victoria figure is about 1.8 per cent of wages, though your own rate depends on your industry classification and can sit well above or below it.
Fifteen on the Fair Work Ombudsman list. For a full-time employee that is 114.0 paid hours a year.
1.2125 per cent for eligible regional Victorian employers, against 4.85 per cent for everyone else. That is a quarter of the standard rate on the same wages, which makes where a role is based a genuine cost decision rather than a preference.
Electrical work in Victoria is licensed by Energy Safe Victoria and plumbing by the Victorian Building Authority, 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 $73,499 a year against a $63,607 wage once superannuation, leave loading and workers compensation are added, with payroll tax at nil below the threshold. That is roughly 15.6 per cent on top of the wage.