Two things hit your salon's first July pay run: a 4.75% award rise and Payday Super

If you employ stylists, your first pay run in July 2026 costs more than June did. The Hair and Beauty Award, which sets the minimum you can pay almost everyone in a salon, went up 4.75%, so a Level 1 stylist moves from $26.55 to $27.81 an hour. On the same day a second change called Payday Super started: it does not change how much super you pay, but it changes when it has to leave your account. Here is exactly what both do to your margin, worked on your own roster, and how to make the timing work for you instead of against you.

The number first: $26.55 an hour becomes $27.81

Almost everyone you employ in a salon is paid under one rulebook, the Hair and Beauty Industry Award (MA000005). It sets the lowest legal hourly rate for hairdressers, beauticians, barbers and salon assistants. In the Fair Work Commission's 2026 Annual Wage Review, every rate in that award went up 4.75%.

For a full-time adult on Level 1 (the entry adult rate most junior stylists and assistants sit on), that means:

• $26.55 an hour becomes $27.81, a rise of $1.26 an hour.
• Full-time weekly pay goes from $1,008.90 to about $1,057 for a 38-hour week.
• A casual on Level 1, who gets the 25% casual loading on top, goes from $33.19 to $34.76 an hour.

The higher classification levels all moved by the same 4.75%. And watch the timing: the rise applies from your first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2026, not on 1 July itself. 1 July 2026 was a Wednesday, so if you run a weekly pay cycle that starts on a Monday, the new rates first apply from Monday 6 July 2026. (The absolute floor across the whole award system is now $26.44 an hour, but hair and beauty starts just above it.)

What it actually costs you, per person

Do this on your own wage book, because the salon-wide number depends entirely on how many people you employ and on your mix.

Take one full-time Level 1 stylist on a 38-hour week:

• The $1.26-an-hour rise is about $48 more a week, or roughly $2,500 a year for that one person.
• Super rides on top. At the 12% super guarantee, the pay rise lifts your super bill too, so the true cost is closer to $2,800 a year for that stylist.

Now multiply by your team. A salon with four stylists near this level is looking at roughly $10,000 a year more in wages, about $11,000 once super is added. That comes straight off your net margin if your prices do not move. The break-even calculator turns it into the number that matters: how many extra heads a week you need just to stand still.

Apprentices and juniors move too, but by less

Salons run on apprentices and junior staff, and here the 4.75% works slightly in your favour. Apprentices and under-18s are paid a percentage of the adult rate, so the same 4.75% is a smaller number of actual cents.

A first-year apprentice who has not finished Year 12 sits on about $14.06 an hour. Their rise is roughly 67 cents an hour, not $1.26. Worth knowing before you assume every wage on your roster jumped by the same dollar amount.

The change that is not about the amount: Payday Super

Here is the one most salon owners have not clocked, because it does not touch what you pay, only when.

From 1 July 2026 a law called Payday Super started (it passed Parliament and received Royal Assent in November 2025, so it is settled, not a proposal). Until now you could pay your team's super quarterly, up to 28 days after the end of each quarter. From July you have to pay super at the same time as wages, and the money has to land in each employee's super fund within 7 business days of payday.

The 12% does not change. Your cash flow does. If you were paying super every three months, you were effectively holding that cash in your account for weeks before it left. Now it goes out with every pay run. For a salon that runs tight between rent days, that is a real shift in when money leaves the bank, and the penalty for being late (the super guarantee charge) is not cheap. Sort your payroll and a small cash buffer for it before your first July run, not after.

The real question the rise asks: how much of your salon runs on your own two hands

Now the part that reaches past this year's wage bill.

A lot of salon owners still work a full column themselves, cutting and colouring alongside the team, and never pay themselves a proper wage for those hours. That makes the salon look profitable, because one of its busiest chairs is staffed for free. A 4.75% rise barely dents a business like that, so it is tempting to shrug the whole thing off.

But that is exactly the salon a buyer marks down. When someone values your salon they work out its seller's discretionary earnings: the profit left after paying for every pair of hands at a proper market rate, including a replacement for you behind your chair at the new $27.81 award floor. Strip out your unpaid labour, re-check the books, and a lot of "profitable" salons barely clear a wage. That is what sets the multiple a buyer will pay, and it is why an award rise quietly touches your exit value: every rise makes the cost of replacing your own hours a little more visible.

The salons that come out ahead manage their wages as a share of revenue, not the hourly rate they cannot control. Hold that ratio steady while the award climbs, through pricing and mix, and the rise is a non-event. Let it drift, and you are slowly turning your own unpaid hours into the only thing propping the profit up. Track it with the KPIs every owner-operated business should watch.