Casual work pays a 25% loading on the base rate and accrues no paid leave. Full-time and part-time pay the base rate and accrue annual and sick leave instead.
What does full-time employment mean in Australia?
Full-time means a regular pattern of ordinary hours, typically 38 a week, with a guaranteed schedule and the full set of entitlements under the National Employment Standards. There is no casual loading, because the leave is the compensation.
- Four weeks of paid annual leave a year
- Ten days of paid personal and carer's leave a year
- A guaranteed roster rather than offered shifts
- Notice of termination and access to unfair dismissal after the qualifying period
Few working holiday makers hold full-time roles, mostly because the six month employer limit sits awkwardly against a permanent job.
What does part-time employment mean?
Part-time is full-time on fewer hours: an agreed regular schedule with every entitlement accruing pro rata. It is the least understood of the three and often the best deal on a working holiday visa.
A part-time worker on 25 hours a week accrues annual leave on those hours, paid out when the job ends. Over a settled six month block in one city, that payout can be worth more than the casual loading.
What does casual employment mean?
Casual means no guaranteed hours and no leave accrual, compensated by a 25% loading on top of the base hourly rate. It is by far the most common arrangement for working holiday makers, particularly in hospitality, retail and harvest work.
- No annual leave or paid sick leave
- 25% loading on the base rate
- Shifts offered rather than rostered, and refusable
- Less security, more flexibility
The national casual minimum is $33.05 an hour from 1 July 2026: the national minimum wage of $26.44 plus the loading. A casual rate at or near the base rate means the loading is missing, which is an underpayment.
How do you tell which one you actually are?
The contract should say, but where the two disagree the reality of the work decides. A fixed weekly roster is part-time employment whatever the paperwork calls it, and being labelled casual on an unchanging roster is a recognisable misclassification.
- A stated classification in the letter of engagement
- A fixed weekly schedule points to part-time
- Variable shifts week to week point to casual
- A 25% loading in the rate points to casual
After six months of a regular pattern, casual conversion rights can arise, which corrects a long running misclassification. Our guide to shift cancellation rules covers what protection casuals have when a shift is pulled.
Does the classification change your tax?
No. All three are taxed at the working holiday maker rates, 15% on the first $45,000, and the 25% casual loading is ordinary taxable wages. Superannuation at 12% is payable on all three from the first dollar.
What changes is the shape of your income. A casual with uneven fortnights can be over withheld in the busy ones, because each pay run is taxed as though it were typical, and the correction comes back on the tax return rather than in the pay.
Which should you actually choose?
Casual suits most working holiday years: the loading, plus the freedom to leave without notice. If you are moving every few months the leave would mostly go unused, and the 25% is money now.
Part-time wins in one case: a settled block of five or six months in one city with a predictable roster. The accrued annual leave pays out at the end, the sick days are real, and the roster lets you sign a lease.
Where does this genuinely change your money?
Three branch points, none about the label. Whether the 25% loading is actually in your casual rate, since a flat rate described as covering everything usually covers nothing. Whether your classification level under the relevant award matches the work, since a Level 1 rate for Level 2 duties costs more than the casual question ever will. And whether accrued leave was paid out when a part-time job ended.
A final pay that ends a part-time role should include the balance of untaken annual leave. It is the item most commonly left out when a backpacker gives notice and leaves the state a week later.