· Built around the Minimum wage calculator
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Most pay disputes are not about big numbers. They are about whether R4 500 a month is legal for a domestic worker, what a Sunday shift is really worth, and why the first payslip in a new job looks short. South African law answers all of these with a few fixed rules: the National Minimum Wage Act sets the floor per hour, and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) turns a monthly salary into an hourly rate and says what overtime, Sundays and public holidays pay. This post works each rule in rands, checks the maths against published examples, and links the calculator that does it for your own numbers - starting with the minimum wage calculator.
Check a wage against the minimum
Type the hours a day, the days a week and what is paid each month. The calculator turns the hourly minimum into a day, a week, a month and a year, and tells you how far short - or above - the pay is.
The rules in one list
- R30.23 for each ordinary hour from 1 March 2026, up from R28.79. Farm and domestic workers get the same rate; Expanded Public Works Programme workers get R16.62.
- It is the cash wage only. Transport, food, accommodation, tips, bonuses and payments in kind do not count towards the minimum.
- Work under four hours on a day and you are paid for four (BCEA s9A) - so a short day is worth at least R120.92.
- A month is 4 1/3 weeks (BCEA s35). Weekly pay x 52 / 12 - or monthly pay x 3 / 13 to go back to a week.
- At most 45 ordinary hours a week, 9 a day on a 5-day week (BCEA s9). Work past that is overtime - see the hours worked calculator.
- Overtime pays at least 1.5 times your hourly wage, only by agreement, and at most 3 hours a day and 10 a week (BCEA s10).
- Sunday work pays double if you do not normally work Sundays, 1.5 times if you do (s16). A public holiday you work pays double a normal day (s18).
- Above R269 600.90 a year these hours and overtime rules do not apply - your contract decides.
Checked against published examples
Before publishing, CalcSA ran the same inputs through its calculators:
- 45 hours a week at R30.23: R5 894.85 a month, R280.80 more than before - the figure in Fasken's "A snapshot of the national minimum wage for 2026" (February 2026), which also gives a daily minimum of R120.92. Our minimum wage calculator gives R5 894.85 with 9 hours a day on 5 days, and R120.92 for a day of four hours or less. At last year's R28.79 the same week gave R5 614.05 - the R280.80 difference matches.
- R20 000 a month on 45 hours: R102.56 an hour, overtime R153.84, five overtime hours R769.20 - PeopleHum's South African overtime example (24 June 2026). Our overtime calculator gives R102.56 an hour and R769.23 for five hours: the 3 cents is rounding, because they round the hourly rate before multiplying.
- Average formal-sector pay of R30 611 a month in May 2026 - Stats SA's Quarterly Employment Statistics as reported by BusinessTech and Bizcommunity. Our average salary calculator uses the same R30 611.
Not verified from a primary source for this post. The weekly take-home figures below follow the worked examples in the SARS Guide for Employers in respect of Tax Deduction Tables (PAYE-GEN-01-G01, 2026/27) as recorded when CalcSA built the calculator; the SARS PDF was not re-opened for this post. The pro rata methods are payroll conventions, not a legal formula, so there is no official example to check them against.
Worked example 1: a domestic worker on 8 hours a day
- Per day: 8 x R30.23 = R241.84. Per week, on 5 days: R1 209.20.
- Per month: R1 209.20 x 52 / 12 = R5 239.87 - the legal minimum for a 40-hour week. Per year that is R62 878.40.
- Paid R4 500 a month? That is R739.87 short - R25.96 an hour, under the R30.23 minimum. Free meals or a room do not make up the gap, because they are not cash wage.
- Nine hours a day, 45 a week, raises the minimum to R5 894.85. Any hour past 45 in a week is overtime on top.
- No income tax on this wage. R62 878.40 a year is well under the R99 000 tax threshold (tax threshold calculator), so only UIF comes off - 1%, R12.09 a week (UIF calculator).
Photo: MART PRODUCTION on Pexels (free licence)
Worked example 2: overtime, a Sunday and a public holiday on R10 000
A worker on R10 000 a month and a 45-hour week works 10 overtime hours in the month, 8 hours on a Sunday they do not normally work, and an 8-hour public holiday that falls on a normal work day.
- Hourly rate: R10 000 x 3 / 13 = R2 307.69 a week, / 45 = R51.28. A day's pay is R461.54.
- Overtime: 10 hours x R76.92 (1.5x) = R769.23.
- Sunday: 8 hours x R102.56 (2x) = R820.51. Work only an hour or two and you still get at least a full day's pay.
- Public holiday: the day pays double, R923.08 - R461.54 of it is already in the salary, so the extra is R461.54.
- Extra pay this month: R2 051.28, before tax. Run the total through the take-home pay calculator to see what PAYE takes from it.
Not sure how many of your hours are overtime? Put your start, finish and break into the hours worked calculator: 07:00 to 17:30 with a 30-minute break on 5 days is 50 hours a week - 45 ordinary and 5 overtime. At R50 an hour that is R2 250 + R375 = R2 625 a week, or R11 375 a month.
Worked example 3: starting mid-month and weekly pay
- Start a R25 000 job on Thursday 15 October 2026 and the first payslip is R13 636.36 - 12 of October's 22 working days. The pro rata salary calculator shows all three common methods.
- The method changes the answer: the BCEA daily rate (R25 000 x 3 / 13 / 5 = R1 153.85 a day) gives R13 846.15, and calendar days (17 of 31) give R13 709.68. Your contract or payroll decides which applies.
- A weekly wage of R3 600 with R160 pension and medical aid for two takes home R3 315.49 - PAYE R88.51 (tax on R3 440 a week less the R188 weekly medical credit), UIF R36.00 and the pension R160. See the weekly take-home pay calculator.
- The same R3 600 with no pension or medical aid takes home R3 258.69 - PAYE R305.31 and UIF R36.00.
How your pay compares with the average
- Stats SA's average is R30 611 a month (May 2026) for formal, non-farm employees, bonuses and overtime included.
- A full-time minimum wage of R5 894.85 is 19% of it. The R10 000 salary in example 2 is 33%.
- R25 000 a month is 82% of the average - R5 611 short, a 22.4% raise away. The average salary calculator also compares you with your industry.
- It is a mean, not the middle salary. A few very high salaries pull it up, so most people earn less than the average.
To turn any of these into an hourly, weekly, monthly or yearly figure, use the salary converter.
What these calculators leave out. Sectoral determinations and bargaining council agreements can set higher wages and different hours. The overtime calculator treats the Sunday top-up to a full day's pay as one Sunday in the month. Senior managers and anyone above the R269 600.90 earnings threshold are outside the BCEA hours rules. If you think you are underpaid, the Department of Employment and Labour and the CCMA handle complaints free of charge.
Sources
- National Minimum Wage Act 9 of 2018, amended by GN R7083, Government Gazette 54075 (3 February 2026): R30.23 an hour from 1 March 2026, R16.62 for EPWP workers: labour.gov.za, figures as used by the CalcSA minimum wage calculator, read 16 October 2026.
- Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, s9, s9A, s10, s14, s16, s18 and s35: gov.za, read 16 October 2026. BCEA earnings threshold R269 600.90 a year from 1 May 2026.
- SARS, Guide for Employers in respect of Tax Deduction Tables (PAYE-GEN-01-G01), 2026/27: sars.gov.za, read 16 October 2026. The guide's worked examples were not re-opened for this post.
- Statistics South Africa, Quarterly Employment Statistics, June 2026 (P0277): R30 611 average monthly earnings in May 2026, as reported by BusinessTech and Bizcommunity, read 16 October 2026.
- Worked example, 45 hours at R30.23 = R5 894.85 a month and R120.92 a day: Fasken, A snapshot of the national minimum wage for 2026, February 2026, read 16 October 2026.
- Worked example, R20 000 a month = R102.56 an hour and R769.20 for five overtime hours: PeopleHum, overtime calculation in South Africa, 24 June 2026, read 16 October 2026.
Calculators used in this post
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