The SCHADS Award pay rates apply to hundreds of thousands of workers across Australia’s disability, home care, and community services sectors, and getting them wrong is increasingly expensive. Since January 2025, intentional underpayment has become a criminal offence, carrying up to 10 years’ imprisonment for individuals, and company penalties starting at $7.825 million. Even unintentional errors trigger back-pay obligations stretching six years, plus interest.
This guide breaks down the 2025–26 SCHADS Award pay rates, explains how the classification system works, identifies what catches providers out, and how the right payroll software eliminates the guesswork entirely.
Key Takeaways:
- SCHADS Award (MA000100) covers disability support, home care, social & community services, crisis accommodation, and family day care workers
- Rates increased 3.5% from 1 July 2025, following the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review
- The award has four streams, up to 8 classification levels, and over 3,000 possible pay rate combinations
- Casual employees receive a 25% loading on top of base rates; penalty rates apply for evenings, weekends, and public holidays
- A 2026 Annual Wage Review is currently underway. New rates will apply from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026
What Is the SCHADS Award?
The Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 (MA000100) sets legally enforceable minimum wages and conditions for workers across disability support, home care, social and community services, crisis accommodation, and family day care. It’s made and maintained by the Fair Work Commission and enforced by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
The SCHADS Award covers more than 250,000 workers in Australia’s disability, aged care, and community services sector. It’s also widely regarded as one of the most complex awards in Australia, with multiple streams, classification levels, pay points, penalty rate matrices, broken shift rules, sleepover provisions, and allowances that interact in ways that are easy to misapply.
If you operate as an NDIS provider, run a home care service, manage crisis accommodation, or run a labour-hire firm placing workers into community services roles, SCHADS likely applies to your workforce.
SCHADS Award Pay Rates 2025–26
From 1 July 2025, all workers covered by the SCHADS Award received a 3.5% wage increase, following the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review.
Rates vary significantly depending on which stream and level apply. The two most common are the Social and Community Services (SACS) stream and the Home Care – Disability stream.
A Level 2 disability support worker in the Home Care – Disability stream earns from $27.55/hr (Pay Point 1), while a Level 2 SACS worker earns from $34.58/hr. The gap between streams is material. Using the wrong schedule will produce systematic underpayments from day one.
Selected base rates for 2025–26 (full-time/part-time, SACS stream, effective 1 July 2025):
Level | Pay Point | Hourly Rate |
Level 1 | 1 | $28.24 |
Level 2 | 1 | ~$38.65 |
Level 3 | 2 | ~$39.77 |
Level 4 | 1 | ~$44.58 |
Source: Fair Work Ombudsman SCHADS Pay Guide (MA000100). Always verify current rates directly with the Fair Work Ombudsman before processing payroll.
Casual employees receive a 25% loading on top of the base rate in lieu of paid leave. This loading does not stack on top of overtime rates.
The 2026 Annual Wage Review is currently in progress. The Fair Work Commission Expert Panel is expected to hand down its decision in early to mid-June 2026, with new rates applying from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026.
How the SCHADS Classification System Works
Correct classification is where most underpayments start. Under the SCHADS Award, employees are usually grouped by employment type (full-time, part-time, or casual) and by classification, which is based on what the employee does day-to-day, the skills, training, and responsibilities the role requires.
The Four Streams
The award is divided into streams, each reflecting the type of work performed and carrying its own classification levels and pay scales:
- Social and Community Services (SACS): Welfare workers, community advocates, case managers, support coordinators, community development roles
- Home Care – Disability: Disability support workers delivering care in community or residential settings
- Crisis Assistance and Supported Housing: Refuge workers, emergency housing, crisis support
- Family Day Care: Family day care educators and coordinators
Getting the stream right matters before you even look at levels. SCHADS contains multiple schedules and wage structures. Employers must determine the correct schedule before applying levels, pay points, or wage tables.
Levels and Pay Points
Within each stream, workers are classified into levels based on qualifications, experience, and responsibilities. Pay points (Year 1, Year 2, Year 3) reflect experience or time spent at the level. Progression between pay points requires satisfactory performance and documented review.
Incorrectly classifying an employee at Level 2 rather than Level 3 can result in an annual underpayment of between $8,000 and $13,500 before superannuation and penalty rates are considered. Multiply that across a workforce of 30 or more people, and the exposure compounds fast.
SCHADS Penalty Rates, Allowances, and the Rules That Catch Providers Out
The base rate is just the starting point. What makes SCHADS so complex is the layering of penalty rates, allowances, and special provisions on top of it.
Penalty Rates
Weekend penalties apply as follows:
- Saturday: 150%
- Sunday: 200%
- Public Holidays: 250% (casual 275%)
Overtime rules vary by stream
SACS and crisis accommodation employees attract 150% for the first 3 hours of overtime, then 200%. Disability services, home care, and day care employees attract 150% for the first 2 hours, then 200%. Sunday overtime is double time; public holiday overtime is double time and a half.
Broken Shifts
Broken shifts are tightly defined and apply only to home care and social and community services employees undertaking disability services work, not to all SCHADS employees. If the conditions aren’t met, the arrangement isn’t a broken shift, and overtime or penalties may apply instead. This is one of the most common sources of Fair Work enforcement action in the sector.
Sleepovers
The SCHADS Award sleepover allowance is 4.9% of the standard rate for each continuous 8-hour sleepover night. At least one of the periods immediately before or after the sleepover must be rostered or paid as at least 4 hours of work. If work is performed during the sleepover period, it is paid at overtime rates with a minimum payment of 1 hour per call-out.
An important change took effect on 1 June 2026. Work performed before and after a sleepover is now treated as a single continuous shift for overtime purposes, following FWC [2025] FWCFB 292. Payroll systems must be updated before the first full pay period on or after 1 June 2026.
Minimum Engagement
Social and Community Services employees must receive a minimum payment of 3 hours per shift (or per part of a broken shift), unless they’re doing disability services work. For all other employees, the minimum payment is 2 hours per shift. Rostering workers for an hour and paying them for an hour is non-compliant.
Key Allowances
Providers also need to account for several allowances, including:
- Vehicle/travel: Applies when workers travel between clients using their own vehicle
- First aid: Employees who hold current first aid certificates and are required to perform first aid duties receive $19.76 per week for full-time work, or $0.52 per hour for part-time and casual employees
- Broken shift allowance: Applies when a qualifying broken shift arrangement is in place
The Compliance Risk Is Real and Growing
The Fair Work Ombudsman has made the disability and aged care sectors a priority enforcement area. In the 2024–25 financial year, Fair Work recovered over $30 million in underpayments from the care sector alone.
Even low-value underpayment claims can escalate quickly when compliance notices are ignored or when payroll systems fail to detect basic award entitlements.
Since January 2025, intentional underpayment is a criminal offence, exposing individuals to up to 10 years’ imprisonment and companies to penalties of at least $7.825 million or three times the underpayment amount.
Common SCHADS Mistakes That Trigger Investigations
Most underpayments aren’t deliberate. They come from systems that weren’t built for this complexity. The most frequent errors include:
- Wrong stream or schedule: Placing a disability support worker under the SACS stream instead of the Home Care – Disability stream, or vice versa.
- Misclassification: With 9 different pay levels in the SCHADS Award, determining the correct classification is complex. Rates vary based on qualifications, experience, and duties performed.
- Outdated rates: Not updating payroll systems after each Annual Wage Review means that every pay run from 1 July onwards results in an underpayment.
- Broken shift errors: Applying broken shift rules to employees or work types they don’t apply to, or missing the allowance when they do apply.
- Sleepover miscalculation: Particularly now that the 1 June 2026 changes affect how continuity is assessed around sleepover periods.
- Missing allowances: Travel, first aid, and other allowances are commonly overlooked, especially for casual and part-time workers.
Most SCHADS underpayments occur after roles change, but classifications are not reviewed. Changes in duties, client complexity, or service delivery models often require reclassification under a different schedule or level.
What to Do Before 1 July 2026
The 2026 Annual Wage Review decision is expected in June 2026. Before new rates land, it’s worth completing these steps:
- Audit current classifications. Cross-check every worker’s actual duties against the SCHADS schedule and level they’re being paid under. If duties have changed, reclassify now.
- Check pay point progressions. Are staff who have passed 12 months at a pay point being moved up? Is that documented?
- Confirm your broken shift and sleepover configurations. Particularly given the 1 June 2026 changes to the assessment of sleepover continuity.
- Verify your payroll system will update automatically. Ask your vendor directly: Does the system update SCHADS rates on 1 July, or is that a manual process?
- Document everything. Classifications, progression decisions, and audit steps. If Fair Work investigates, the burden of proof is on you.
The Fair Work Ombudsman’sofficial SCHADS pay guide is the authoritative source for current rates. Verify there before each pay run if you’re doing this manually.
How Payroll Software Should Handle SCHADS
Manual calculation is the core problem. With over 3,000 possible pay rate combinations under SCHADS, spreadsheets and generic accounting software simply aren’t designed for this. Many smaller services use accounting software that doesn’t understand award requirements and therefore doesn’t enforce minimums. The obligation to pay the correct rate rests with the employer, regardless of whether the error was caused by a software issue.
The rightaward interpreter software eliminates the need for a manual layer entirely. It automatically applies the correct schedule, level, pay point, penalty rates, and allowances, and updates them when rates change.
Purpose-builtpayroll & workforce management systems go further by connecting rostering directly to payroll. If you operate across multiple sites or manage a mixed workforce, anend-to-end workforce management software platform gives you the visibility to spot classification drift before it becomes a liability. For construction, labour-hire, or industrial services businesses that also place workers into community services roles, managing award agreements with payroll software that handles multiple awards simultaneously becomes critical.
Managing SCHADS Award pay rates correctly requires systems that apply them accurately, every time, across all worker types and shift patterns. If your current setup relies on manual checks, spreadsheets, or generic software that’s never been configured specifically for SCHADS, the risk is accumulating with every pay cycle.
Wojo’spayroll & workforce management systems are built to handle the complexity of modern awards, including SCHADS, automatically interpreting award rules, applying the correct rates, and keeping your workforce compliant as awards change.Talk to the team to see how it works for your operation.
