Aged Care Payroll: Award Rules Your Payroll Software Has to Get Right

What does aged care payroll actually involve?

Paying an aged care workforce is more than multiplying hours by a rate. Most employees in the sector are covered by the Aged Care Award 2010 (MA000018), nurses are generally covered by the Nurses Award 2020 (MA000034), and providers that also deliver home care or disability support often have staff under the SCHADS Award (MA000100). One organisation can easily run all three, and each award has its own penalties, allowances and overtime triggers.

This guide walks through the Aged Care Award rules that most often trip up manual payroll, taken from the award text on the Fair Work Commission's award site (checked 27 October 2026). It deliberately doesn't list dollar rates, because those change every year. For current rates, use the Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide for your award.

Ordinary hours, rosters and rest breaks

Ordinary hours are 38 per week, or an average of 38 over a roster cycle, worked either as eight hours on a day shift or ten hours on a night shift (among the arrangements in clause 22.1). A day worker's ordinary hours fall between 6.00 am and 6.00 pm Monday to Friday, and anyone regularly rostered outside that window is a shiftworker (clause 22.2).

Casual loading and weekend rates

Casual employees receive a 25% loading in place of paid leave entitlements (clause 10.4). The part that catches people out is what happens on weekends and public holidays. Under the Aged Care Award, casual weekend and public holiday rates are a flat percentage of the ordinary rate that replaces the loading:

The casual weekend rates are stated to be in substitution for, not cumulative upon, the casual loading (clause 23.3), and the same applies to the casual public holiday rate (clause 29.2(c)). Notice the difference from SCHADS, where a casual Sunday is 225% and a casual public holiday is 275%. An organisation running both awards can't reuse one set of multipliers for everyone.

Weekend and public holiday payments are instead of the shift allowances below, not on top of them (clauses 23.1 and 29.2).

Afternoon and night shift allowances

Shift allowances depend on when the shift commences, and are paid for the entire shift (clause 26.2):

• afternoon shift commencing from 10.00 am and before 1.00 pm: 10% of the ordinary hourly rate,
• afternoon shift commencing from 1.00 pm and before 4.00 pm: 12.5%,
• night shift commencing from 4.00 pm and before 4.00 am: 15%,
• night shift commencing from 4.00 am and before 6.00 am: 10%.

Employees who work fewer than 38 hours a week only get these rates where their shift starts before 6.00 am or finishes after 6.00 pm (clause 26.1). Moving a start time by an hour can change the loading on the whole shift.

Minimum engagements and broken shifts

Full-time employees receive a minimum of four hours' pay for each engagement, and permanent part-time and casual employees a minimum of two hours (clause 22.7). Broken shifts are available for casual and permanent part-time employees by mutual agreement, with breaks (other than a meal break) of no more than four hours in total and a span of no more than 12 hours. Work beyond the 12-hour span is paid at double time, there must be a 10-hour break between broken shifts on successive days, and each portion of the shift must still meet the two-hour minimum (clause 22.8).

Overtime

For full-time employees, authorised overtime beyond rostered ordinary hours is paid at 150% for the first two hours and 200% after that on Monday to Friday, 200% on a Saturday or Sunday, and 250% on a public holiday (clause 25.1(a)). Part-time employees get the same rates for time beyond 38 hours a week (or 76 a fortnight), beyond 10 hours in a day, or beyond their rostered hours on the day unless an agreement under clause 10.3(c) applies (clause 25.1(b)). Casual employees are paid overtime for time beyond 38 hours a week or 10 hours a day at 187.5% for the first two hours and 250% after that on weekdays, 250% on weekends and 312.5% on public holidays (clause 25.1(c)).

Two details are easy to miss. An employee who works so much overtime that they haven't had 10 consecutive hours off must be released until they have, and is paid 200% if the employer has them continue (clause 25.1(d)). And overtime can be taken as time off instead of payment, but only under a written agreement made for specific hours (clause 25.2).

Sleepovers

A sleepover spans at least eight and no more than ten hours, comes with free board and lodging and a separate room, and attracts a sleepover allowance of 5.20% of the standard rate for each night (clause 22.9). Non-emergency work during a sleepover is paid separately, and how it's paid depends on whether the employee is full-time, part-time or casual. This is a different structure from the SCHADS sleepover rules, so it's worth reading our guide to calculating sleepovers for the SCHADS side.

Source: Aged Care Award 2010 [MA000018] on the Fair Work Commission award site, checked 27 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm current rates and your own coverage with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

What to look for in aged care payroll software

• Award rules at shift level. Penalties, shift allowances and overtime should be worked out per shift from its start time, day and employment type, not estimated from weekly totals.
• Multiple awards in one system. Aged Care, Nurses and SCHADS staff often work side by side.
• Timesheets that match the roster. Worker sign-in and sign-out should feed approved timesheets directly rather than being re-keyed.
• An accounting hand-off. Pay data should reach Xero or MYOB without a second round of manual entry.
• Leave handled alongside pay. Leave balances and requests belong in the same system as the roster.

How RaddeCare+ handles it

RaddeCare+ has award engines for the Aged Care Award (MA000018), the Nurses Award (MA000034) and SCHADS (MA000100), handling sleepovers, broken shifts, public holidays and overtime on each shift. Workers sign in and out on the mobile app with geolocation, submit timesheets and request leave, including offline, and approved timesheets flow to Xero or MYOB. Once a shift is on the roster, you can see its margin. See our aged care rostering software checklist for the rostering side.

Frequently asked questions