Australian pay calculator, 2026-27
One annual salary, four switches, and the three deductions that actually apply in Australia. The default — $90,000 with a HELP debt and private hospital cover — leaves $67,609 a year, while the same salary without a study loan leaves $70,680.
Before tax. Australian payroll is usually weekly or fortnightly; every figure here is built from the annual amount and then divided.
Comes out of your pay before tax, so it lowers income tax and HELP. It does not lower the 12% your employer must pay on top.
The repayment is charged on income above $69,528 only, not on the whole salary.
Without cover and above $105,000, a surcharge of 1% to 1.5% is added to the Medicare levy.
| Line | Per year | Per fortnight |
|---|---|---|
| Gross salary | $90,000 | $3,462 |
| Income tax (after LITO) | −$17,520 | −$674 |
| Medicare levy (2%) | −$1,800 | −$69 |
| HELP / study loan repayment | −$3,071 | −$118 |
| Take-home pay | $67,609 | $2,600 |
| Super paid by employer (on top) | $10,800 | $415 |
Marginal rate on the next dollar: 47.0%. That already includes the Medicare levy and the HELP repayment, which is why it sits above the income tax rate alone. The super line is employer money — it is not part of take-home pay and cannot be spent this year.
The order the number is built in
- Salary sacrifice first. Anything you agree to put into super comes off the gross before tax. It lowers income tax, the Medicare levy and the HELP repayment — and it does not reduce the employer's 12%.
- Income tax, then the low income offset. The bands are applied slice by slice; the LITO then reduces the tax by up to $700, and is gone entirely at $66,667 of income. It is an offset, not an exemption — it never turns into a refund of more than the tax owing.
- Medicare levy. 2% of taxable income, shaded in between $28,011 and $35,013.
- Medicare levy surcharge. Only when you declare no appropriate private hospital cover and your income is above $105,000. It is charged on the whole taxable income, not on the excess, which is why the threshold is a cliff.
- HELP. Charged on repayment income above $69,528, at three different rates depending on the band. Last in the chain because it is not a tax — it is a loan repayment collected through the same system.
- Super, on top and outside the net. 12% of qualifying earnings, capped at $270,830 of earnings for the year. It is an employer cost and never enters take-home pay.
Check the HELP engine against the ATO's own examples
The 2025–26 change turned HELP into a marginal charge, and the ATO publishes three worked examples. This page reproduces them, so the arithmetic can be verified rather than trusted.
| ATO example | Repayment income | ATO figure | This calculator | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christina | $86,380 | $2,527.80 | $2,527.80 | 15% of the excess |
| Barry | $137,064 | $10,276.99 | $10,276.99 | 9,028 + 17% of the excess |
| Priya | $254,780 | $25,478.00 | $25,478.00 | 10% of repayment income |
How the marginal rate climbs
The number people quote — "my marginal rate is 30%" — is only the income tax layer. Add the levy and the HELP repayment and the real cost of the next dollar is higher, and it jumps in steps as each threshold is crossed.
| Gross salary | Income tax | Medicare | HELP | Take-home | Marginal rate on the next $1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $60,000 | $8,420 | $1,200 | $0 | $50,380 | 33.5% |
| $80,000 | $14,520 | $1,600 | $1,571 | $62,309 | 47% |
| $100,000 | $20,520 | $2,000 | $4,571 | $72,909 | 47% |
| $130,000 | $29,520 | $2,600 | $9,076 | $88,804 | 49% |
| $160,000 | $40,270 | $3,200 | $14,176 | $102,354 | 56% |
| $200,000 | $55,870 | $4,000 | $20,000 | $120,130 | 57% |
What the calculator deliberately leaves out
Medicare levy low-income shade-in uses the published $28,011–$35,013 band; no page tier falls inside it, and the CPI-indexed 2026–27 band was not published at build time; Salary packaging and reportable fringe benefits (they raise income for MLS and HELP purposes); Deductions: work-related expenses, donations, private health rebate adjustments; Division 293 tax on concessional contributions above $250,000 — flagged in text, not deducted; Study loan balances, indexation and the 10% cap interaction with the loan balance. It also assumes one employer, a full year at that salary, and no reportable fringe benefits — those would raise income for both the surcharge and HELP without raising take-home pay.
Visa status changes more than the tax rate
The same $90,000 is taxed three different ways depending on how you are treated residentially. This table is illustrative only: no page on this site is published for the working holiday or foreign resident cases, and the calculator itself always uses the resident scale.
| Treatment | Take-home on $90,000 | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Australian resident | $70,680 | Tax-free threshold, resident bands, 2% levy |
| Working holiday maker (417/462) | $69,750 | 15% on the first $45,000, resident bands above, no tax-free threshold |
| Foreign resident | $63,000 | 3% from the first dollar, no levy, no offsets |