Australia's new gig pay floor starts 10 August 2026. A bar shift still pays more.

From 10 August 2026, food and grocery delivery riders in Australia are set to have a legally enforceable minimum rate for the first time. On a bike it is proposed to be $31.30 an hour. A casual Sunday hour behind a bar in Sydney already pays $47.39. Both are floors, which is exactly why they are worth putting side by side.

Quick version: the Fair Work Commission has published a draft minimum standards order for on-demand delivery. If made, it starts 10 August 2026 at $31.30 an hour (bike, e-bike or on foot), $31.50 (motorcycle) or $32.00 (car or van up to 1 tonne), for engaged time only. By law it cannot include weekend penalty rates, paid waiting time or a minimum shift length. A casual hospitality hour has all three, plus 12% super. General information, not legal or financial advice.

What actually starts on 10 August 2026

On 8 July 2026 an Expert Panel of the Fair Work Commission published decision [2026] FWCFB 167, a notice of intent, and a draft minimum standards order for the on-demand delivery sector. It would cover people engaged through a digital labour platform who predominantly deliver consumables (food, beverages and liquor) or supermarket groceries. Submissions closed 4:00 pm on 29 July 2026, so nothing is law yet.

The mechanism matters more than the number. It is not paid per hour. The platform totals your hours of Engaged Time over an earnings period of up to 21 days, multiplies by the rate, and tops you up if you came in under. Engaged time runs from accepting a job to finishing it. Sitting outside a Surry Hills burger place with the app open and nothing coming through does not count.

Three things the gig floor is not allowed to contain

This is the part the employer-side briefings skip. Section 536KMA of the Fair Work Act specifically bars an employee-like worker minimum standards order from including terms about:

• Penalty rates for particular times or particular days. No Saturday rate, no Sunday rate, no public holiday rate, no late-night loading.
• Payment for time before you accept a job, or for the gap between finishing one and starting the next. The waiting is yours to wear.
• Minimum periods of engagement, or any minimum payment tied to one. A three-minute job is a three-minute job.

The Commission can override that ban if it decides the term suits the work, and it has not done so here. So $31.30 is the number at 2pm on a Tuesday and the same number at 9pm on Christmas Day. The Hospitality Award prices identical labour completely differently by the hour. That is where the gap opens up.

One hour, two floors

Same person, same city, same hour of their life. On the left, a rider on a bike under the draft order. On the right, an adult casual Level 2 under the Hospitality Award (MA000009), the standard grade for anyone working a bar or a floor section. Casual rates already include the 25% loading.

The Friday figure is $33.85 plus the award's flat $2.95 evening loading for ordinary hours between 7pm and midnight (it becomes $4.42 after midnight). Every bar hour also attracts 12% superannuation, which the delivery hour does not, because your super is your own problem as a contractor. That makes the Sunday hour worth $53.08 against $31.30. Stretched over a realistic 20-hour weekend, the gap compounds.

That is $207.92 more in cash, or $307.99 with the $100.07 of super the venue also pays. The bar figure is gross of nothing. The delivery figure is gross of fuel, tyres, depreciation and your phone plan. Then the engaged-time catch: if three quarters of your logged-on time converts into jobs (your share will differ, and no official figure exists), those 20 engaged hours eat nearly 27 hours of your weekend. That is roughly $23.48 per hour you actually gave up.

One Sunday hour of hospitality work is worth about 70% more than one engaged hour of delivery work, and you did not have to supply the bike.

The Commission's own verdict on the number

The Expert Panel did not pretend the rate was generous. It benchmarked the proposed rates against the Road Transport and Distribution Award and found they sit below the award casual rate for every vehicle type covered, with nothing left for costs. A casual doing comparable work on a bike or on foot gets $33.59 an hour from 1 July 2026. The draft gig floor is $31.30.

On a car up to 750kg, the Panel put the award labour component at $31.64 against a proposed $32.00, leaving less than a dollar an hour for cost recovery. The TWU, which brought the case alongside Uber and DoorDash, accepted the rates do not achieve full cost recovery and called them a step on the pathway. The Panel's reply was blunt: the deal offers no road map to the destination. So it intends to make the order on an interim basis and review it after the separate last-mile delivery cases.

None of which means the floor is worthless. Research before the Commission put average food delivery earnings at $24.34 an hour in 2023, median $23.00, with riders giving evidence of $18.11 and $19 to $20. A survey that year found 57% of food delivery drivers earned less than the minimum wage. Against that, $31.30 is a real lift. It is just not the same thing as an award.

When gig work actually wins

• Midweek daytime is nearly a wash. $2.55 an hour apart. If you want to work 11am on a Tuesday and no venue is rostering then, the gig hour is the better hour because it exists.
• Nobody has to pick you. You can start earning the day you are approved. Landing a casual bar or cafe shift in Sydney takes a manager saying yes, then waiting for the roster.
• The weekend is where you lose. From 7pm Friday onward, the award pulls ahead and keeps pulling. If your free hours are weekend-shaped, delivery is the expensive choice.
• The floor still leaves out a lot. No super, no 2-hour minimum engagement, no penalty rates, no sick leave. What it does add is worth having: platform-funded personal accident insurance, record-keeping obligations, a dispute path to the Commission, and a Gig Worker Information Statement. Employee-like workers have also been protected from unfair deactivation since 26 February 2025, once they have worked regularly for six months.

Use gig work for the hours nobody rosters, award shifts for the hours everyone wants. If you do both, check whether your penalty rates actually land on your payslip. The award side is where the money is, and where the mistakes are.

Where Shiftly comes in

Gig work feels like the flexible option because it is the only one where you see a job and decide in ten seconds whether to take it. Rosters rarely work that way, which is why people trade $16 an hour away for the convenience. Shiftly is free workforce management for Australian venues with an on-demand staffing network built in, so the roster fills itself instead of a manager ringing around at 4pm. Nearby venues post their open shifts to the network, you see the venue, the hours and the pay before you accept, and you get paid quickly once the shift is done. The award calculation tools help the venue work out the right rate for your level and your day, and you keep your own record of every shift. Same speed of decision, weekend rates attached. Find shifts on Shiftly.

Frequently asked questions

What is the new minimum pay for gig delivery workers in Australia?

The draft order proposes $31.30 an hour on a pedal bike, electric bike, scooter or on foot, $31.50 on a petrol motorcycle and $32.00 in a car or van up to 1 tonne, each rising 50 cents during 2027. It applies to engaged time only, averaged over an earnings period of up to 21 days with a top-up if you fall short. It is proposed to start 10 August 2026, and is not law until the Commission makes the final order.

Do delivery riders get penalty rates or superannuation?

No. Section 536KMA of the Fair Work Act bars an employee-like worker minimum standards order from including penalty rates for particular times or days, and the draft order contains no superannuation term. As a contractor with an ABN, your super is your own responsibility. A casual hospitality employee gets 150% of the ordinary rate on Saturday, 175% on Sunday, 250% on a public holiday, and 12% super on their earnings.

Is delivery work or hospitality work better paid in Sydney?

Midweek in daylight they are close: $31.30 against $33.85 for an adult casual Level 2. From Friday evening onward hospitality pulls clearly ahead, reaching $47.39 on a Sunday and $67.70 on a public holiday, before 12% super. Delivery earnings are also before fuel, depreciation and phone costs, and only engaged time counts, so your real rate depends on how much of your logged-on time becomes jobs.