Public holiday pay for Australian salons: is it worth opening?

The rules, in plain English

• If someone works a public holiday, the award pays full-time and part-time staff 250% of their ordinary rate for the hours they work, and casuals 250% with their loading included.
• If you close and it's a day they'd normally work, full-time and part-time staff are still paid their ordinary hours. Casuals aren't.
• There's no automatic day in lieu. Unlike some countries, working the holiday doesn't earn a paid day off later. The penalty rate is the whole deal.
• You can swap the day by agreement. If you and an employee agree in writing, another day can stand in for the public holiday. Then the substitute day is the one that carries the penalty rate and the paid day off.
• Part-day holidays count. Christmas Eve from 7pm in South Australia and the Northern Territory, from 6pm in Queensland, and New Year's Eve from 7pm in SA and the NT are public holidays for those hours. Late trading on those evenings is paid at the public holiday rate.
• Weekend holidays still count. Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday are public holidays in most states, and when Christmas or Boxing Day lands on a weekend the extra Monday or Tuesday is a holiday too. Anyone rostered on the weekend day is on the holiday rate for it.

Those are the Hair and Beauty Industry Award 2020 rules and the National Employment Standards. An employee can reasonably refuse to work a public holiday, and you can only ask if the request is reasonable. Check fairwork.gov.au for anything specific to your team.

The dates coming up, by state

Statewide holidays from now to Anzac Day 2027. Regional days (show days, the Royal Hobart Regatta, Recreation Day and the like) are left out, so add yours if you have one.

Dates are from each state and territory government's own list. The Saturday holidays matter in salons, because Saturday is the big day: a stylist rostered on Easter Saturday or Boxing Day is on the public holiday rate for the whole shift.

Can you open at all?

Shop trading laws are state by state, and most of them are about selling goods, not services, so a salon can usually open on any public holiday. Queensland lists hairdressers, beauticians and barbers as exempt shops with unrestricted hours, and South Australia exempts hairdressers and any shop under 200 square metres. Western Australia is the odd one out: hairdressing is a "prescribed service" under its Retail Trading Hours Act, so a hairdressing salon in the Perth metro area is treated as a retail shop and must close on Good Friday, Anzac Day and Christmas Day unless it holds a free small retail shop certificate, which most salons qualify for. A beauty-only salon in WA is outside the Act. Tasmania asks shops to stay shut until 12.30pm on Anzac Day. Trading rules don't change what staff are owed.

A worked example

A full-time stylist on $30 an hour works an eight hour public holiday that would normally be a working day for them:

Two and a half days' pay for one day's work. If you'd have closed, you'd still pay the $240, so opening costs $360 more in wages for this stylist, plus super on all of it. A casual on the same ordinary rate would be paid at 250%, but nothing if you close.

So when does opening pay?

A public holiday surcharge can cover it, and it's still allowed: the ban on card surcharges since 1 October 2026 stops you adding a fee for paying by EFTPOS, Mastercard or Visa, but a surcharge on the whole bill for the day is a price, not a card fee. It only works if it's set on your real roster and takings, and only if those clients wouldn't have come on Tuesday anyway. If the day just moves bookings around, you've paid more for the same takings.

Three questions worth answering before you open: what's the extra wage cost across the whole roster, casuals and full-timers counted differently, how many of the bookings are genuinely extra, and what surcharge makes the day worth it?

An example. Who is owed what depends on each person's normal working days and employment type. General information, not employment advice.