Queensland Payroll Tax Calculator

Worked examples (FY 2026/2027)

These results are computed live by the calculation engine at page render — they cannot drift from the calculator above.

Registration & lodgement

Queensland payroll tax threshold history

Since FY 2021/2022, the annual payroll tax threshold in Queensland has not changed at all. In FY 2026/2027 it is $1,300,000. The table below shows the threshold and headline rate for every financial year currently tracked in the engine. These values are drawn directly from the statutory registry, so if a legislative amendment is recorded there it will automatically appear here.

Rates and thresholds should be confirmed against the official Payroll Tax Act 1971 (Qld)and the relevant state revenue office website before lodgement.

Queensland's deduction collapses at $6.5M

Queensland's $1,300,000 deduction diminishes by $1 for every $4 of Australian group wages above $1,300,000, reaching zero at $6,500,000. The divisor is 4, not 7 — a distinction that materially changes the shape of the taper for a mid-sized group. At that same $6,500,000 point the rate uplifts from 4.75% to 4.95%.

Regional employers receive a one percentage point discount, bringing the rates to 3.75% and 3.95%. The discount requires the principal place of business to be in regional Queensland and at least 85% of Queensland wages paid to regional employees. It is available until 30 June 2030 and is not available at all where Australian wages exceed $350,000,000.

The divisor is what makes the taper bite. Because the deduction falls by $1 for every $4 of Australian wages above $1,300,000, a group with $3,300,000 of national wages keeps $800,000 of it — half a million of shelter gone for two million of growth. The deduction is also a single entitlement shared across the group, held by the Designated Group Employer and apportioned by Queensland's share of national wages, so a group cannot claim the full $1,300,000 in Queensland while also claiming a threshold elsewhere.

The Mental Health Levy is separate, and it stacks

Queensland's Mental Health Levy commenced on 1 January 2023 — not 2024 — and is assessed separately from payroll tax. It adds 0.25% on Australian group wages above $10,000,000, and a further 0.50% (0.75% in total) above $100,000,000, apportioned to Queensland.

Because the levy and the base rate both key off national wages, a large group can find its effective Queensland rate well above the headline. A group with $120,000,000 of Queensland wages has no deduction left at all — the taper reached zero long before — and pays $6,315,000. For groups of that size the deduction is irrelevant, and the only remaining levers are the rate bands and the levy thresholds.

Queensland is the most generous to GPs, and the narrowest

From 1 December 2024 Queensland exempts wages paid by a medical practice to a general practitioner, whether engaged as an employee or a contractor. There is no bulk-billing condition and no proportional calculation: the GP cohort simply drops out of the deemed wages figure. The exemption includes GP registrars and was legislated by the Revenue Legislation Amendment Bill 2024, confirmed by public ruling PTAQ014.1.1.

It is also the narrowest in scope. Hospitals, non-GP medical specialists and allied health practitioners are excluded, so their payments under relevant contracts remain fully taxable. An administrative amnesty operated before 1 December 2024 for eligible practices and has now closed. The combination — a full exemption for GPs and no relief for anyone else — means a Queensland practice with a mixed clinical team should model the GP and non-GP cohorts separately rather than assuming the exemption covers the practice.

Queensland: registering and lodging even when the GP cohort is exempt

Queensland's exemption removes the tax on wages paid to general practitioners and GP registrars, but it does not remove the obligation to register and lodge. A practice whose only taxable wages are GP wages may conclude it has nothing to report; it still has to be registered, and the exemption is applied within the return rather than by staying silent.

The administrative risk sits in a mixed clinical team. Where a practice engages both GPs and non-GP specialists or allied health practitioners, the exempt and taxable cohorts have to be separable in the payroll records, because the exemption applies to one and not the other. A single service-fee line covering both makes the exemption impossible to apply correctly, and the error surfaces only when the QRO reconstructs the cohorts on review.