An Australian payslip must be issued within one working day of being paid, and must show gross pay, tax withheld, super and net pay. For a working holiday maker with a TFN on file, tax should be 15% of gross and super 12% on top. Two divisions tell you.
Why is the payslip the document that matters?
It is the only place where the hours, the rate, the tax and the super appear together, and it is the evidence if any of them turns out to be wrong. Your bank statement shows one number and nothing about how it was reached.
It is also the record that disappears first. Payslips delivered through a rostering app or a work email vanish the moment your employment ends, often before you have thought about needing them. Emailing them to yourself as they arrive is thirty seconds a fortnight and the single most useful habit on this page.
What should gross pay look like?
Your hours multiplied by your rate, plus penalty rates for weekend, evening, overtime or public holiday work, plus any allowances the award attaches to the job. Check this line before anything else, because every other figure on the payslip is calculated from it.
Check it against your own record of hours rather than the roster, since the two often differ. Time spent setting up before a shift or cleaning down after it is working time, and it is where hours quietly go missing. If every hour is paid at the same rate across a week with weekend work in it, the award is not being applied.
How do you check the tax line?
Divide tax withheld by gross pay. For a working holiday maker whose Tax File Number Declaration has been processed and whose employer is registered, the answer should be close to 15%.
Anything materially above that has a specific cause, and each is fixed differently.
- Around 45%: your TFN is not yet recorded with that employer, usually because the declaration form has not been processed
- Around 30%: the employer is not registered with the ATO as a working holiday maker employer
- Well below 15%: the tax free threshold may have been claimed in error on the declaration, which produces a bill later rather than a refund
Over-withholding is not lost, since it is credited back when the tax return is lodged, but the money sits with the ATO until then. Raise a wrong rate in the first fortnight rather than at the end of the year.
How do you check the super line?
Divide the super figure by gross pay and expect 12%, the rate since 1 July 2025. Super is paid by the employer on top of your wages, so it should never reduce your net pay, and a payslip where super appears to come out of your earnings needs a question asked about it.
Accrued is not paid. A super figure on a payslip records what the employer owes for that period, not what has reached your fund, and the two are separated by up to three months because super is paid quarterly. Only the fund itself tells you whether the money actually arrived. Our guide to unpaid super covers what to do when it has not.
What does net pay tell you?
Whether the arithmetic holds together. Net pay is gross pay minus tax withheld and any lawful deductions, and it should match the amount deposited in your account to the cent. Super does not appear in this calculation at all.
Any deduction, for accommodation or equipment or anything else, has to be shown on the payslip, agreed in advance and lawful. An unexplained gap between gross less tax and what actually landed is the clearest sign of an unlawful deduction there is, and it is visible in one subtraction.
What are the year to date figures for?
Tracking your position without waiting for July. Most payslips carry cumulative year to date totals for gross pay, tax withheld and often super, running from 1 July, so you can see the shape of your year while there is still time to correct it.
They also cross check the income statement your employer eventually files with the ATO. If the year to date gross on your final payslip and the figure in your income statement disagree, one of them is wrong, and having the payslip is what lets you say which.
What if your employer does not issue payslips at all?
That is a breach in itself, and rarely the only one. Australian employers must issue a payslip within one working day of paying wages, in electronic or hard copy form, whether or not the employee asks for one.
No payslips means no record of hours, rate, tax or super, which is exactly the position an employer avoiding those obligations wants you in. Keep your own dated record of hours worked from that point on, save every bank deposit, and treat the absence as the warning sign it is. Our guide on an employer not paying correctly covers where that goes next.