FIFO Pay Calculator

How it works

This FIFO pay calculator (also handy as a mining roster pay calculator or fifo salary calculator) converts a swing roster and hourly rate into real net pay for a PAYG employee — someone paid wages and taxed at source, not an ABN contractor. It first works out how many days you actually work in a year from your roster cycle, then applies ordinary individual income tax and the Medicare levy to the gross pay that produces.

The calculation runs in these steps:

Cycle length          = Days on + Days off
Cycles per year        = 365 ÷ Cycle length
Days worked per year    = Cycles per year × Days on
Gross annual pay        = (Days worked per year × Hours per shift × Hourly rate) + (Cycles per year × Swing allowance)
Income tax               = ATO individual marginal tax rates applied to gross annual pay
Medicare levy             = Gross annual pay × 2%
Net annual pay            = Gross annual pay − Income tax − Medicare levy
Net pay per swing         = Net annual pay ÷ Cycles per year

Income tax is calculated using the ATO’s individual resident tax brackets for FY2026-27, and the 2% Medicare levy is added on top, per the ATO’s Medicare levy page. An 8 and 6 roster pay pattern (8 days on, 6 off) is the default, but the same formula covers a 2 weeks on/1 off swing, a 4 days on/3 off roster, and a 3 weeks on/1 week off roster — just change the days-on and days-off figures behind the roster selector. Any flat swing or site allowance you’re paid is added to gross pay before tax, the same as your ordinary wages.

Important: some living-away-from-home allowances (LAFHA) can receive concessional tax treatment, but that depends entirely on your individual circumstances — your usual home, your family situation, and how your employer structures the allowance. This calculator does not model LAFHA concessions. It treats every dollar, including any swing allowance you enter, as ordinary assessable income taxed in full. If you receive a genuine living-away-from-home allowance, check the ATO’s Medicare levy and tax rates pages and the ATO’s specific LAFHA guidance, or talk to a registered tax agent, before assuming your real take-home pay will match this figure exactly.

Worked example

Dale is a driller from Perth who’s just started a fly-in fly-out job at a Pilbara iron ore site, on an 8 and 6 roster paid $55 an hour across 12-hour shifts, with no separate swing allowance. His cycle runs 14 days (8 on, 6 off), giving him roughly 26.07 swings and about 209 rostered work days a year. Gross pay for the year comes to $137,657, and after income tax of $32,003 and the Medicare levy of $2,753, Dale takes home $102,901 — about $3,947.57 net for each 8-day swing he works.

His workmate Priya is offered the same $55/hr rate and 12-hour shifts, but on a 2 weeks on/1 week off roster instead — a longer, less common swing that packs more work days into the year.

	Dale — 8 on / 6 off	Priya — 2 weeks on / 1 off
Days worked per year	~209	~243
Gross pay per year	$137,657	$160,600
Net pay per year	$102,901	$116,896
Net pay per swing	$3,947.57	$6,725.52

Same hourly rate, same shift length — but Priya’s roster fits in more work days across the year, so her gross and net pay both come out higher, even though each individual swing pays out less often.