Rent a chair in Australia: what to charge, and the contractor rules.

Start with what one chair costs to run

Every chair carries its share of the salon's running costs, whoever sits in it: rent, power, software, insurance, cleaning, the front desk. In a lot of salons that share is more than the rent being charged for it.

When it is, you're paying for someone to work in your salon, before the towels, backbar and card fees you might be covering too. And a renter who looks like a good deal against an empty chair can still earn the salon far less than an employee would.

What salons charge

Published 2025 guides and listings put weekly chair rent at $500 to $750 in central Sydney, $450 to $700 in Melbourne (the average listing closer to $450), around $600 in Brisbane and Perth and $550 in Adelaide, Canberra and the Gold Coast. Regional towns run $400 to $550. Daily rates sit at $80 to $150. Percentage deals usually give the salon 40% to 60% of the renter's sales, with 50/50 the most common, and some salons use a lower fixed rent plus a percentage.

None of those numbers tells you whether the chair is covered. That's your own costs.

Three numbers worth knowing

• The floor: the lowest rent that covers the chair's share of running costs and anything you supply.
• The employee match: the rent that would leave you as well off as employing someone in that chair, with super, leave loading and penalty rates counted.
• A fair middle: somewhere between the two, as a weekly or daily rent.

GST on the rent

Chair rent is a taxable supply. If the salon is GST registered, the rent carries 10% GST and you give the renter a tax invoice for it. The renter needs an ABN, and has to register for GST themselves once their own turnover reaches $75,000. Under a percentage deal, be clear whose sales are whose: if the client pays the salon and the salon pays the renter, that starts to look like wages.

Test one: are they really a contractor? (Fair Work)

Since 26 August 2024 the Fair Work Act uses a whole-of-relationship test. The written agreement matters, but so does how the chair actually runs day to day. A genuine renter sets their own hours and prices, takes their own bookings, is paid by their own clients, carries their own insurance and can work elsewhere. The salon rostering them, setting their prices, running their bookings through the salon's system, taking payments on the salon's EFTPOS or owning their client list all point towards employee.

Call someone a contractor when they're really an employee and that's sham contracting under the Fair Work Act, with penalties on top of the back pay, leave and super you'd owe.

Test two: is super owed anyway? (the ATO)

This one catches salons out. Even where someone is a genuine contractor for tax, the ATO treats a person paid under a contract that is wholly or principally for their labour as an employee for super. If the salon pays a "contractor" a commission or an hourly amount for doing hair, and they can't send someone else in their place, super at 12% is usually owed on the labour part of what you pay them. An ABN and an invoice don't change that.

Genuine rent a chair points the other way: the stylist pays the salon, sets their own prices, takes their own bookings and payments, and the salon isn't paying them for their labour at all. Keep it that way in practice, not just on paper.

This is a guide, not legal advice. Check fairwork.gov.au and the ATO's employee or contractor pages, and talk to an employment lawyer or your accountant before you set up or change a rent a chair agreement.

Rents are GST-inclusive figures from published 2025 guides and listings. An example. General information, not legal, employment, tax or financial advice.