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Wage Underpayment Calculator (Australia)

Estimate your back-pay liability and the penalty exposure now that intentional underpayment is a criminal offence.

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Is wage underpayment a crime in Australia?

Intentional underpayment became a criminal offence on 1 January 2025 under the Closing Loopholes reforms. Honest, inadvertent mistakes are excluded from the criminal provisions.

Where Compono fits

A number this size is a board-level risk, and the way you reduce it is by making pay and classification decisions you can defend. Compono adds the people-insight layer to your existing process records, so the call on who sits where, and why, is documented and consistent rather than ad hoc. Built on decades of psychometric research and trusted by government departments and mid-market employers across ANZ, rated 4.8 out of 5 on Capterra.

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How it's calculated

Back-pay liability is the number of affected employees multiplied by the estimated average weekly underpayment, multiplied by the number of weeks. The headline risk figure applies a penalty multiplier of up to three times the underpayment, which is the upper bound for corporate penalties under the reforms. Figures and thresholds reflect the Closing Loopholes criminal underpayment provisions and the Fair Work Ombudsman guidance (2025). This is an estimate to size the exposure, not legal advice.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of wage theft in the HR Glossary.

Common questions

How large can the penalties be?

For companies, penalties can reach the greater of three times the amount underpaid or about $8.25 million, alongside the back-pay owed to employees.

What is the safe harbour for small business?

The Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code provides a safe harbour. A small business that complies with the code will not be referred for criminal prosecution for an underpayment.

Does this calculator give legal advice?

No. It estimates the financial scale of a potential exposure so you can decide whether to seek advice and act. For a specific situation, consult a workplace relations lawyer or the Fair Work Ombudsman.

This page is general information, not legal advice. We check figures annually and update them on a best-efforts basis, but employment rules change and we cannot promise everything here is current or complete. Before you act on it, confirm the detail with the Fair Work Ombudsman or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.