Payslip Checker
pay-calculator.au works out what the tax, super and study loan figures on your payslip should be at your gross pay, using the published 2026-27 ATO rates. Enter your salary below, switch the result view to your own pay cycle, and compare it line by line against the slip in front of you.
What Your Payslip Should Show in 2026-27
Tax bracket progress
Where your money goes
Income vs deductions
Your pay, every way
| Component | Daily | Weekly | Fortnightly | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross salary | $346 | $1,731 | $3,462 | $7,500 | $90,000 |
| Income tax | −$67 | −$337 | −$674 | −$1,460 | −$17,520 |
| Medicare levy | −$7 | −$35 | −$69 | −$150 | −$1,800 |
| Super (12%) | +$42 | +$208 | +$415 | +$900 | +$10,800 |
| Take-home pay | $272 | $1,359 | $2,718 | $5,890 | $70,680 |
How Do You Check a Payslip?
Three passes, in this order. Each one rules out a different kind of error.
Make it balance
Gross for the period, minus every deduction printed on the slip, must equal net to the cent. If it does not, stop here and ask payroll: something is missing from the slip itself, which is a compliance question rather than a tax question.
Test each figure against the rules
PAYG against the 2026-27 withholding rates, super against your ordinary time earnings rather than your total gross, and the study loan line against whether you actually hold a debt. The tables below give the expected figure at eight gross levels.
Check the required lines are there
Ten categories of information must appear on an Australian payslip. A missing hourly rate, a missing fund name or an unexplained deduction is worth raising even when the dollar figures happen to be right.
What Should the Numbers Be at Your Salary?
Fortnightly figures for an Australian resident who claims the tax-free threshold, has private hospital cover, and is paid 26 times a year.
| Annual salary | Gross per fortnight | PAYG per fortnight | Net per fortnight | Super per fortnight | STSL if you have a study loan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $1,923.08 | $241.15 | $1,681.92 | $230.77 | $0.00 |
| $60,000 | $2,307.69 | $370.00 | $1,937.69 | $276.92 | $0.00 |
| $70,000 | $2,692.31 | $496.92 | $2,195.38 | $323.08 | $2.72 |
| $80,000 | $3,076.92 | $620.00 | $2,456.92 | $369.23 | $60.42 |
| $90,000 | $3,461.54 | $743.08 | $2,718.46 | $415.38 | $118.11 |
| $100,000 | $3,846.15 | $866.15 | $2,980.00 | $461.54 | $175.80 |
| $120,000 | $4,615.38 | $1,112.31 | $3,503.08 | $553.85 | $291.18 |
| $150,000 | $5,769.23 | $1,521.92 | $4,247.31 | $692.31 | $479.85 |
Computed by the pay-calculator.au 2026-27 engine: income tax after the Low Income Tax Offset, plus the 2% Medicare levy, divided by 26. Your employer does not divide an annual figure by 26. Your employer applies the ATO per-period coefficients from Schedule 1 (NAT 1004), so a real payslip can differ from these figures by a few dollars each pay and still be correct. The net column excludes any study loan; with a loan, subtract the final column.
Read the $90,000 row as the worked example. Gross of $3,461.54 a fortnight carries $743.08 of PAYG withholding and leaves $2,718.46 net, with $415.38 of super going to the fund on top of the pay, not out of it. Add a study loan and $118.11 more is withheld, taking net pay to $2,600.35. For the same figures on a weekly or monthly cycle, switch the result view in the calculator above, or use the weekly, fortnightly or monthly pay calculators.
Which Lines Must Your Payslip Show?
Ten categories, set by the Fair Work Regulations 2009 (regulations 3.45 to 3.48).
| Required line | What it must show |
|---|---|
| Employer and employee names | Both names, so the payslip identifies who paid whom |
| Employer ABN | The Australian Business Number, if the employer has one |
| Pay period | The dates the payment covers |
| Date of payment | The day the money was paid |
| Gross pay and net pay | Pay before withholding, and the amount that reached your account |
| Hourly rate details | If paid hourly: the ordinary rate, the hours worked at it, and the dollar total |
| Loadings and extras | Casual loading, allowances, bonuses, incentive payments and penalty rates, each separately identifiable |
| Final pay rate | The rate that applied on the last day of employment, where relevant |
| Deductions | The amount and details of each deduction, plus the fund or account it went to |
| Superannuation | Contributions made or to be made for the period, and the name of the super fund |
Source: Fair Work Ombudsman, Pay slips, updated 22 October 2025; Fair Work Act 2009 sections 536 and 539; Fair Work Regulations 2009 regulations 3.45 to 3.48 and 4.04.
Two things are commonly expected and are not required. Leave balances do not have to appear, although the Fair Work Ombudsman calls including them best practice, and your employer must tell you your balances if you ask. The Medicare levy does not appear as its own line either, because employers collect it inside the PAYG amount. One item runs the other way: paid family and domestic violence leave must not be itemised as such, and is recorded as ordinary hours or another payment type instead. Every line is decoded in the guide to how to read a payslip.
Timing counts as well. Your employer must give you a payslip within one working day of payday, even if you are on leave. An electronic payslip must carry the same information as a paper one and must be accessible and printable in private.
What Goes Wrong Most Often?
A difference is a question, not an accusation. Most entries below have an innocent explanation, and the middle column is usually it.
| What you are seeing | The usual explanation | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Far more tax than expected, and you have two jobs | The tax-free threshold is claimed at only one payer, so the second job withholds from the first dollar | Check which employer your Tax file number declaration claimed the threshold from. The ATO rule is one payer, normally the highest paying one. |
| Far more tax than expected, and this is your only job | The tax-free threshold may not be claimed at all, or a study loan may be ticked when you have no debt | Compare the PAYG line against the reference table above, then check the STSL line separately. A withholding declaration fixes either. |
| A tax line that is roughly right but never exact | Normal. Withholding uses per-period ATO coefficients, not an annual figure divided by 26 | Expect a few dollars of difference each pay. It settles at assessment, not on payday. |
| Super looks low against your gross | Super is paid on qualifying earnings, which is built on ordinary time earnings, not on your total gross pay | Overtime is generally excluded from the base. Check the super figure against your ordinary hours, not against a gross that includes overtime. |
| No STSL line, and you have a study debt | The employer has not been told about the loan, or the declaration was never lodged | The STSL line only appears if you ticked the study loan question. Nothing is withheld until you do, and the repayment is still assessed at tax time. |
| An STSL line on a low income | Withholding annualises the pay period, so a big fortnight can trigger it even when the year will not | The compulsory repayment is assessed on full-year repayment income above $69,528 in 2026-27. Over-withholding comes back at assessment. |
| A casual rate with no visible loading | The slip may lawfully state that the hourly rate already incorporates the loading | Look for the statement. If the rate does not incorporate it and no loading line appears, that is worth raising with payroll. |
| Hours multiplied by the rate does not equal the line total | Usually a data entry or timesheet issue rather than anything deliberate | Recalculate hours times rate yourself. This is the single easiest error on a payslip to prove. |
Is the Super Figure Right?
Super is not a deduction. Your employer pays the super guarantee on top of your salary, straight to your fund, which is why the payslip shows it while the net pay line ignores it. The rate for 2026-27 is 12%.
The base is where checking goes wrong. For 2026-27 employers calculate the guarantee on qualifying earnings, which is built directly on ordinary time earnings. Super is generally paid on your ordinary hours, loadings, most allowances and bonuses, but not on overtime. So on a payslip that includes overtime, 12% of the total gross is higher than the correct figure, and a super line below that number is not automatically wrong.
Timing changed on 1 July 2026. Under Payday Super, employers pay super each payday rather than quarterly, with contributions generally reaching your fund within 7 business days of payday. That makes the super line worth actually following through: the amount printed should now be turning up in your fund shortly after each pay, not months later. The mechanics are in the superannuation guarantee guide, and the dollars are in the superannuation calculator.
One exception. If you salary sacrifice, the sacrificed amount is a deduction from gross pay and appears as one, while your employer's 12% still sits on top of your pre-sacrifice salary.
Super on a $90,000 Salary
Is the Study Loan Line Right?
STSL stands for Study and Training Support Loans, the ATO umbrella term covering HECS-HELP, FEE-HELP, OS-HELP, SA-HELP, VET Student Loans, the Student Financial Supplement Scheme, Student Start-up Loans and Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans. The line appears only if you answered the study loan question on your Tax file number declaration (NAT 3092) or a later withholding declaration (NAT 3093).
Two things about it catch people out. First, the amount withheld does not reduce your loan during the year. Your employer remits it to the ATO as ordinary withholding, and the ATO credits your loan only when your return is assessed after 30 June. Your payslip is not a loan statement. Second, the withholding annualises the pay period in front of it, so a fortnight with overtime or a bonus can trigger an STSL amount even though your full-year repayment income will land under the 2026-27 threshold of $69,528. That over-withholding comes back at assessment.
If you hold a debt and there is no STSL line at all, nothing is being collected during the year, but the compulsory repayment is still assessed. The amount arrives as a tax bill instead of arriving gradually. Every 2026-27 band is set out in the HELP repayment thresholds guide, and the annual figure is in the HECS-HELP repayment calculator.
Why the Tax Line Will Never Match Exactly
PAYG withholding is a payday estimate, not your tax. The ATO schedules work out what to withhold by treating the pay period in front of them as though it repeats for the whole year, then taking a twenty-sixth or a fifty-second of the annual result. That assumption is right for a steady salary and wrong for almost everything else.
It is why a bonus fortnight looks over-taxed, why overtime feels punished, and why somebody who starts work in March has far too much withheld across their first four months. None of those are errors on the payslip. They are the estimate doing what it was designed to do, and the gap closes when you lodge. The part-year case is worked through in full, with the numbers, in starting a job mid-year; the general mechanism is in the PAYG withholding guide.
A second, smaller source of difference: your employer uses per-period coefficients, while this page divides a full-year figure by the number of pays. Those two methods land within a few dollars of each other and are not expected to agree to the cent. If your payslip is within a few dollars of the reference table, it is behaving normally.
The Three Extra Lines to Check
If you are paid an hourly rate, the payslip must show the ordinary hourly rate, the number of hours worked at that rate, and the total dollars paid at that rate. Those three lines are the part of a payslip you can audit without knowing any tax law: hours multiplied by rate should equal the line total, and the rate should be at or above your award or agreement minimum. Award minimums from 1 July 2026 are on the award rates page.
Casuals should look for the loading. The standard casual loading is 25% on top of the equivalent permanent hourly rate, and it must be separately identifiable on the payslip, although the slip may lawfully state instead that the hourly rate already incorporates it. If neither is true on your slip, that is a fair question for payroll. Penalty rates, overtime, allowances and bonuses each have to be shown as their own identifiable amounts too. See casual loading explained and overtime and penalty rates, or check a figure with the casual loading calculator.
What to Do Next
In this order, and without assuming the worst.
- Write down the specific line and the specific number.“My super looks low” is hard to answer. “Super was $415.38 on a gross of $3,461.54with no overtime” is easy to answer.
- Ask payroll in writing what that line was calculated on. Most payslip discrepancies are clerical and get fixed without any dispute. Asking what a figure was based on is a normal question, not a complaint.
- Keep every payslip. They are your evidence for a pay or super query and your reference at tax time, and they are far harder to obtain later than to file now.
- Know which regulator handles which question. The Fair Work Ombudsman covers pay rates, loadings, deductions and payslip contents. The ATO covers withholding and unpaid super. Fair Work Inspectors can issue an infringement notice to an employer who does not give payslips, gives them late, or leaves out required information.
- Remember what this page can and cannot tell you. It identifies figures worth checking and explains what each should be built on. Whether a specific difference is an error, a rule you had not accounted for, or something more serious is not a question a calculator can settle.
Payslip Checker FAQ
Sources for This Page
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Pay slips (required contents and timing), updated 22 October 2025.
- Fair Work Act 2009, sections 536 and 539; Fair Work Regulations 2009, regulations 3.45 to 3.48 and 4.04.
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Tax and superannuation (the 12% super guarantee and Payday Super from 1 July 2026), updated 6 July 2026.
- ATO, What payments are qualifying earnings, last updated 21 June 2026: the ordinary time earnings base and what sits outside it.
- ATO, PAYG withholding Schedule 1, statement of formulas (NAT 1004), and the fortnightly tax table (NAT 1006), 2026-27 editions applying from 1 July 2026.
- ATO, Study and training support loans rates and repayment thresholds, updated 30 June 2026: the $69,528 2026-27 threshold.
- ATO, Multiple jobs or change of job: the one-payer rule for the tax-free threshold.
All sources accessed 4 August 2026. Every dollar figure on this page is computed by the pay-calculator.au 2026-27 tax engine at page render, not transcribed. This page is general information about how Australian payslips work and is not personal, tax or legal advice.