What is the Hospitality Award and how does it apply to working holiday makers?

Most working holiday makers in hospitality are being underpaid relative to what the Hospitality Award requires, often by hundreds of dollars per week once penalty rates and casual loadings are correctly applied.

What does the Hospitality Award cover?

The Hospitality Award covers employers and employees working in:

• Hotels, motels, serviced apartments, resorts
• Caravan parks and hostels
• Function centres and convention facilities
• Restaurants and bars that are part of a hotel or accommodation venue
• Nightclubs
• Casinos (in most cases)
• Labour hire companies placing workers in these venues

The award does not cover stand-alone restaurants, cafes, or fast food outlets that are not part of a hotel. These are covered by the Restaurant Industry Award or the Fast Food Industry Award instead.

What classifications apply?

The Hospitality Award has six main grades, from Introductory level up to Level 6. Most working holiday makers fall into:

• Introductory level: first three months in the industry, no prior experience
• Level 1 (HIE Grade 1): kitchen hand, room attendant, porter, glassy, food and beverage attendant without responsibility
• Level 2 (HIE Grade 2): bar attendant with RSA, cook grade 1, waiter with responsibility
• Level 3 (HIE Grade 3): cook grade 2, head waiter for small section, security officer

Each grade has a minimum hourly rate. After three months at Introductory level, the employer must move you to Level 1 automatically unless there is a genuine reason for further training.

What are the minimum pay rates?

Minimum pay rates change every 1 July with the Annual Wage Review. The rates apply as the minimum hourly wage for full-time and part-time workers. Casual workers receive a casual loading of 25% on top of the base rate.

For a working holiday maker in a typical Level 1 role:

• Base hourly rate set by the Hospitality Award
• Casual loading of 25% on top
• Penalty rates for evenings, weekends, and public holidays
• Allowances for split shifts, meal breaks not provided, broken periods, and other circumstances

If you are being paid a flat rate "to cover everything", you are almost certainly being underpaid against the award.

What penalty rates apply?

Hospitality work is one of the highest penalty rate industries in Australia. Casual employees under the Hospitality Award are entitled to penalty rates on top of the casual loading:

• Saturday: typically 25% loading on the base rate (plus the 25% casual loading)
• Sunday: typically 50% loading (plus the 25% casual loading)
• Public holidays: typically 125% loading (plus the 25% casual loading)
• Evening work (7pm to midnight): additional loading depending on grade
• Midnight to 7am: higher overnight loading

The exact percentages and start times are set in the current version of the award and vary slightly for different classifications. See our article on penalty rates in Australia for the general framework.

What allowances apply under the Hospitality Award?

The award includes specific allowances on top of the hourly rate:

• Meal allowance: if working overtime without a meal break
• Split shift allowance: where a shift is broken by an unpaid period
• Clothing or uniform allowance: where the employer requires a uniform but does not provide it
• Laundry allowance: for washing employer-required uniforms
• First aid allowance: for designated first aid officers
• Travel allowance: in some circumstances for short-notice shift changes

These are paid in addition to the base rate. Many working holiday makers in hospitality are not paid the allowances they are entitled to.

How does this affect your tax position?

If you have been underpaid against the Hospitality Award, the wages you should have received are higher than what was reported to the ATO. Recovering the underpayment increases:

• The taxable income on your tax return
• The super contributions the employer should have paid (12% of the corrected wages)
• The eventual DASP when you leave Australia

When we lodge through our tax agent portal, we review your payslips against the Hospitality Award rates for your classification and identify any pattern of underpayment. Pursuing the underpayment is handled through Fair Work; the tax and super consequences are handled through our service.

How does our service support hospitality workers?

For working holiday makers in hospitality, our team:

• Cross-checks payslips against the Hospitality Award classification and rate
• Identifies underpaid wages, missing penalty rates, and missing allowances
• Reconciles ATO-reported income against what should have been paid
• Pursues unpaid super on the correct wages, not just the wages that were paid
• Lodges the tax return using the correct income figures

The Hospitality Award is one of the most complex modern awards in Australia and one of the most consistently breached. Get in touch with our team if you work in hospitality and want to make sure you are being paid what the award requires.