What a penalty rate is
A penalty rate is a higher minimum hourly rate for particular times — commonly late evenings, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Awards define when the ordinary span ends and which multiplier applies after that.
Evenings
Many retail and hospitality-style awards pay a higher casual rate after a cut-off such as 6 pm on weekdays. Hours before the cut-off stay on the ordinary casual rate; hours after it move to the evening rate. A single shift can therefore contain two rates if it crosses the boundary.
Saturday and Sunday
Weekend rates are award-specific. Under the General Retail Industry Award, for example, casual Saturday work is commonly paid at a higher total percentage than weekday ordinary hours, and Sunday is higher again. Other awards use flatter structures — the Real Estate Industry Award is a known example where ordinary casual hours are treated more uniformly across days of the week, with public holidays handled separately.
That is why Casual Pay asks for your award up front: Saturday on one award is not the same as Saturday on another.
How to check your award
Open the awards directory, pick the award that covers your job, and review the penalty table on that page. Then run the same times through the calculator to see the hour-by-hour split.
Check a real shift
Pick your award and enter start and end times — Casual Pay applies the loadings that match that award.
Open the calculator