Short version: the Cleaning Services Award 2020 (MA000022) pays part-time cleaners a 15% allowance and casuals a 25% loading, sets minimum shift lengths by the size of the cleaning area, and lifts pay for shifts that start early or finish late, for non-rotating night work, and on weekends and public holidays — at different percentages for full-time, part-time and casual employees. Most underpayments come from rounded shift times, missed minimums and allowances nobody flagged. Your payroll system applies the award; what you can control is the record it starts from.
Who the award covers
The award covers employers in the contract cleaning services industry throughout Australia — the business of providing cleaning services under a contract — and their employees in the classifications it defines. That includes cleaning (including event cleaning), hygiene and pollution control, trolley collection other than trolley collection covered by the retail award, and minor property maintenance incidental to cleaning. It also covers on-hire employees working in contract cleaning and the labour hire businesses that employ them. Where an enterprise agreement covers an employee, the award generally does not apply, although the agreement’s base pay cannot fall below the award’s and the National Employment Standards still apply.
Classifications
Employees are classified as Cleaning Services Employee level 1, 2 or 3, using the award’s classification definitions. Each level has its own minimum weekly and hourly rate, so an employee whose duties fit a higher level but who is paid at level 1 is underpaid however carefully the shift loadings are calculated.
Part-time and casual pay
- Part-time allowance: part-time employees are paid an allowance of 15% on top of the minimum hourly rate for each ordinary hour. The award notes this allows them to be rostered up to 7.6 hours a day, 5 days a week, or 38 ordinary hours a week without overtime.
- Casual loading: casual employees are paid a 25% loading on top of the minimum hourly rate.
- Ordinary hours: part-time and casual employees can work periods of up to 7.6 ordinary hours a day on up to 5 days a week, and ordinary hours can fall on any day of the week.
Minimum shift lengths
This is one of the award’s most distinctive rules. A part-time or casual employee must be rostered for a minimum shift that depends on the total cleaning area at the location, and must be paid for that minimum even if they work less:
| Location | Minimum shift |
|---|---|
| The only employee at a small stand-alone location of no more than 300 square metres, where a longer shift across two or more locations is not practicable | 1 hour |
| Total cleaning area up to 2,000 square metres | 2 consecutive hours |
| 2,000 square metres up to 5,000 square metres | 3 consecutive hours |
| 5,000 square metres or more | 4 consecutive hours |
A roster built from short, scattered slots without checking each site’s cleaning area is a pay risk as well as a rostering one. Full-time and part-time employees must also have a roster showing their start and finish times, posted where they can easily see it.
Shift, weekend and public holiday rates
Penalty rates depend on when the work happens, and they differ by employment type. The percentages below are of the minimum hourly rate; the part-time and casual columns already include the 15% part-time allowance and the 25% casual loading. They apply to hours that are not paid at overtime rates.
| When the work is done | Full-time | Part-time | Casual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday to Friday shift that starts before 6.00 am or finishes after 6.00 pm (not a public holiday) — for the entire shift | 115% | 130% | 140% |
| Shift that finishes after midnight but no later than 8.00 am and does not rotate or alternate with another shift or day work (not public holiday hours) | 130% | 130% | 155% |
| Saturday (midnight Friday to midnight Saturday) | 150% | 165% | 175% |
| Sunday (midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday) | 200% | 215% | 225% |
| Public holiday | 250% | 265% | 275% |
Source: Cleaning Services Award 2020, clause 20.2, Table 7 — Penalty rates, as consolidated to 1 July 2026. Check the current award before relying on these figures.
Because the first row applies to the whole shift when it starts before 6.00 am or finishes after 6.00 pm, a start time recorded as 6.00 am when the cleaner actually started at 5.45 am can change the pay for the entire shift, not just fifteen minutes of it.
Broken shifts
Under the award, an employee works a broken shift when they are required to work a rostered shift on a day in two periods of duty (not counting meal and rest breaks), within a maximum spread of 13 hours, with a break of more than one hour between them. The employer must pay a broken shift allowance for that day, up to a weekly maximum. Because the definition turns on the 13-hour spread and the break of more than one hour, check both before treating a morning-and-evening pattern as a broken shift.
Other allowances
- Toilet cleaning allowance — for an employee employed for the major portion of any day or shift to clean toilets, paid per shift or per week.
- Leading hand allowance — for an employee placed in charge of other employees, with the weekly amount depending on how many they are in charge of.
- Travel time and fares — an employee required to travel from one workplace to another is paid for the travel time as if working, and the employer pays the fares.
- Uniform — the employer reimburses the cost of a uniform the employee is required to wear.
- Others — including height, cold work, hot work, first aid, refuse collection, meal and vehicle allowances.
Dollar amounts change each year, so take them from the current award or the Fair Work pay guide rather than last year’s figures.
What changed on 1 July 2026
The Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review 2026 increased minimum award wages from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2026, and this award’s rates, penalty table and allowances were updated from that date. On the same day, superannuation moved to Payday Super.
Superannuation
From 1 July 2026, the super guarantee is 12% of an employee’s qualifying earnings and is paid for each payday, reaching the fund within 7 business days (with some exceptions, such as for new employees). Before 1 July 2026 the same 12% applied to ordinary time earnings, paid quarterly. Qualifying earnings bring together ordinary time earnings, commissions, certain salary-sacrifice amounts and other amounts that already counted for super, and the ATO says what counts as ordinary time earnings has not changed: casual loading and shift penalties count, but overtime does not where the award clearly identifies ordinary hours. Whether a particular allowance counts depends on the allowance — check the ATO’s list. See also Payday Super for labour hire agencies.
Records
Employers must keep time and wages records for 7 years — including any loadings, penalty rates and allowances paid — and give each employee a pay slip within one working day of payday.
Where cleaning payroll most often goes wrong
- Rounded or estimated times that move a shift out of the early-morning or evening rate.
- Minimum shifts paid as worked, without checking the cleaning area at each location.
- The part-time allowance left out, or part-time employees paid at full-time penalty rates.
- Broken shifts not flagged, so the allowance is never paid — or the 13-hour spread and one-hour break never checked.
- Toilet cleaning or leading hand allowances applied inconsistently for what is effectively the same work.
Where OnCrew fits, and where it does not
OnCrew does not interpret the award. It does not decide which award applies, classify workers, calculate rates, loadings, penalties or allowances, check minimum shift lengths against cleaning areas, run payroll or pay super. That belongs in your payroll system and with the people who run it.
What OnCrew handles is the record that payroll starts from:
- Actual clock times. Cleaners clock in and out from their phone, and the times are stored as they happened, not rounded. Each clock-in is location-checked against the site — one from outside the boundary is recorded and flagged for review rather than blocked — and clock-out is time-stamped but not location-checked.
- Hours, as you configure them. By default, hours are the time between clock-in and clock-out, less the unpaid break your agency sets. Sites can instead be set to pay the rostered shift, and agencies on weekly timesheets have workers enter their own hours — so check your setup matches how you intend to pay.
- Shift labels. A shift can be set up as a broken shift, and that label travels with the hours in the export. OnCrew does not check the award’s 13-hour spread or calculate the allowance.
- Supervisor approval and export. Supervisors approve hours from their phone. The Employment Hero-format export carries each shift’s date, start and finish times, break, hours, work type and client — the start and finish times are what time-of-day rates depend on. OnCrew also exports for MYOB AccountRight and, through the UpSheets bridge, for Xero; that file carries hours and work type rather than start and finish times.
Your payroll system then applies the award. OnCrew makes the input more reliable; it does not make the payroll compliant on its own. More on cleaning rostering and cleaning and facilities staffing.
Official sources checked for this guide (October 2026): Cleaning Services Award 2020 (consolidated to 1 July 2026) · Fair Work Ombudsman — MA000022 summary · Fair Work Ombudsman — Pay and Conditions Tool · Fair Work Ombudsman — about awards · Fair Work Ombudsman — Annual Wage Review 2026 · Fair Work Ombudsman — record-keeping · ATO — about Payday Super · ATO — what payments are qualifying earnings
