Employee Cost Calculator

An employee costs more than their salary. On top of the base wage you pay superannuation (12% from 1 July 2025), payroll tax if your total wages exceed your state's threshold, workers' compensation insurance, and often 17.5% leave loading on annual leave. As a rough guide, the fully-loaded cost of an Australian employee is usually 1.2 to 1.3 times their gross salary once these on-costs are added, before you count recruitment, equipment, software and training.

On-costs are the mandatory and near-mandatory expenses an employer pays on top of gross salary. In Australia the main ones are superannuation, payroll tax, workers' compensation insurance, and leave loading. Some businesses also include the cost of equipment, software licences, and office space per head, though those sit outside the payroll on-costs this calculator focuses on.

Payroll tax is a state tax on the total wages a business pays, not a per-employee charge, and it only applies once your total Australian wages pass your state or territory threshold. Small businesses under the threshold pay none. This calculator lets you switch it on and pick your state so the estimate reflects your situation, but the exact liability depends on your grouping and total wages, so confirm with your accountant.

No. This tool estimates the ongoing annual cost to employ someone: salary plus payroll on-costs. One-off costs like recruitment, onboarding, equipment and training are real but vary too much to benchmark, so they are not included. Treat the fully-loaded figure here as the recurring baseline and add your own one-off costs on top.

This employee cost calculator works out what it costs to employ a person: their salary loaded with super, payroll tax, workers' comp and leave loading. Our separate expense per employee calculator works out something different: the operational (non-salary) business spend per head, like software, travel and office costs, benchmarked against Australian SME averages. Use this one for the cost of hiring; use that one for benchmarking discretionary spend.

This calculator starts with gross annual salary and adds: superannuation at the Super Guarantee rate (12% from 1 July 2025); payroll tax at your selected state's headline rate when you switch it on (payroll tax only applies above each state's threshold, and the real rate depends on your total grouped wages); workers' compensation at the premium rate you enter; and leave loading at 17.5% on four weeks of annual leave when enabled. The fully-loaded annual cost is the sum of these; the true hourly rate divides that by 1,976 ordinary hours (38 hours over 52 weeks).

Rates are current as at 1 July 2025. Payroll tax rates and thresholds vary by state and territory and change periodically; workers' comp premiums vary by industry and claims history. This tool provides estimates only and is not financial, tax, or payroll advice. Confirm figures with a registered tax agent, accountant, or your state revenue office.