SCHADS Award Changes from 1 July 2026: What Every Provider Needs to Know

In the 2026 Annual Wage Review, the Fair Work Commission awarded a 4.75% increase to modern award minimum wages, including every rate in the SCHADS Award (MA000100). The increase takes effect from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2026.

Critically, the 4.75% does not just apply to base hourly rates. It flows through to every rate that is calculated from the standard rate — penalty rates, casual loadings, overtime, and the wage-related allowances that the award sets as a percentage of the standard rate: the sleepover, broken-shift, on-call and first aid allowances. If your payroll holds any of these as a fixed dollar figure, those figures all need to be updated.

It does not apply to the expense-related allowances. Under clause 20.1 of the award, the vehicle/travel, uniform, laundry and meal allowances are increased by the relevant Australian Bureau of Statistics Consumer Price Index figure, not by the 4.75% wage increase. In the 1 July 2026 pay guide the vehicle allowance is $1.01 per km, with a temporary $1.05 per km from the first full pay period on or after 1 September 2026 until 28 February 2027 ([2026] FWCFB 224), and the laundry allowance is $0.33 per shift. Take those figures from the pay guide rather than uplifting the old ones by 4.75%.

For the full pay rate table by level, plus which allowances actually move with the increase (and which don't), see our SCHADS Award Increase 2026 pay rate guide, or look up any classification in the SCHADS pay rates calculator and full tables (every figure from the Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide for MA000100).

Alongside the 4.75% increase, the new award wage floor for ongoing employment is $1,004.90 per week, or $26.44 per hour. Entry-level rates that apply to the first six months of employment must be at least $978.10 per week, or $25.74 per hour.

These are the absolute floors that apply across modern awards — they are not the SCHADS rate for a specific classification. To find your own updated rate, look up your SCHADS level and pay point in the Fair Work Ombudsman's MA000100 pay guide (published 24 June 2026). Applying 4.75% to your current hourly rate gets you close, but the pay guide figure is the one to use because rounding can leave a cent of difference.

Separately from the annual increase, the Fair Work Commission has reformed how sleepover shifts work. These changes took effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 June 2026.

The key change: where an employee works before and after a sleepover, that work must now be treated as a single, continuous shift for overtime purposes. Previously, providers could (and often did) treat the work either side of the sleepover as two separate engagements, which understated overtime liability. Under the reformed rules, the hours either side combine — and overtime is assessed against the combined total.

The reforms also allow an employee to work up to 12 ordinary hours by agreement in connection with a sleepover. This is a meaningful shift for any provider running overnight supported-independent-living (SIL) or disability home-care rosters, and it changes how overtime should be calculated for a large number of common roster patterns. For a full breakdown with worked examples, see our guide to the 2026 SCHADS sleepover changes.

The most far-reaching change is still rolling out. Following a finding that the SCHADS workforce — predominantly women — had been subject to long-standing gender-based undervaluation, the Fair Work Commission is replacing the existing classification structures in Schedules B, C, E and F with a single integrated Final Classification Structure, and removing the Equal Remuneration Order.

The first stage affects Schedule E (Home Care Employees — Disability Care), who are set to receive an interim increase of around 15% from the first full pay period on or after 1 December 2026 (14.96% at Level E.4.2 and 13.31% at Level E.5.2). The Commission's June 2026 decision had proposed 1 October 2026 as a provisional start date; its final decision on 11 September 2026 ([2026] FWCFB 232) moved it to 1 December 2026. This addresses the anomaly where disability support workers were paid less than aged-care workers for comparable work. The new integrated classification structure then applies to all classifications from the first full pay period on or after 1 October 2027, when Schedule E is abolished.

On 11 September 2026 the Commission issued its final decision ([2026] FWCFB 232) and a determination (PR814259) that puts the Schedule E increase into effect from 1 December 2026. The determination for the new structure that starts on 1 October 2027 will be published in its final form closer to that date, updated for the 2027 Annual Wage Review. Providers with Schedule E staff should treat the first full pay period on or after 1 December 2026 as a hard deadline to re-rate, and the first full pay period on or after 1 October 2027 as the deadline to reclassify onto the new structure, not the annual July adjustment. Our guide to the move to 1 December 2026 covers the "first full pay period" rule and a payroll checklist, and the Commission's documents are on its gender-based undervaluation review page.

• Update every rate, not just base pay. From your first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, move base rates up by 4.75% (penalties, casual loading and overtime follow because they are percentages of the base) and re-rate the allowances that are a percentage of the standard rate: sleepover, broken shift, on-call and first aid. Set the vehicle, uniform, laundry and meal allowances to their pay guide amounts instead — they are CPI-indexed under clause 20.1 and do not rise by 4.75%.
• Re-check your overtime logic for sleepovers. If your system treats the work before and after a sleepover as separate shifts, that is now non-compliant — combine them when assessing overtime.
• Flag your Schedule E workforce. Identify which staff are covered by Schedule E so you are ready for the ~15% interim increase from 1 December 2026 and the reclassification from 1 October 2027.
• Audit historical pay. The sleepover-overtime change in particular exposes a common underpayment pattern. It is worth checking whether the old, split-shift treatment caused underpayments in recent pay runs.

Every one of these changes is the kind of thing that quietly slips through manual payroll: an allowance that was never re-rated, a sleepover roster where the overtime was split, a Schedule E worker left on the old classification. CrossVault's Timesheet Validator reads your timesheets against the current SCHADS rules and flags exactly these gaps — missing or mis-rated allowances, sleepover and overtime errors, broken-shift breaches, and underpayments — so you catch them before Fair Work does.