BOOT Calculator — Enterprise Agreement vs Award

The BOOT is the approval test in s193 of the Fair Work Act 2009. The Fair Work Commission can only approve an enterprise agreement if it is satisfied that each award-covered employee, and each prospective employee, would be better off overall under the agreement than under the relevant modern award. It is a global comparison of the whole package — pay rates, penalties, loadings, allowances AND non-monetary terms like rostering flexibility and breaks — not a line-by-line check of every clause.

An enterprise agreement's base rate of pay can never fall below the award base rate for the same work (s206 Fair Work Act 2009). But an EA can lawfully trade away or roll up penalty rates — Saturday, Sunday, public holiday and overtime loadings — provided the overall package still leaves each employee better off than the award. That is why the same loaded rate can pass the BOOT for a Monday-to-Friday worker and fail it for someone who works most weekends.

Price your actual roster under both instruments. Under the Hospitality Award, for example, a Level 3 worker's base rate is $27.97 an hour (effective 1 July 2026), but Saturdays pay 125%, Sundays 150% and public holidays 225% of base. A loaded rate only leaves you better off if, across the hours you really work, it beats what the award's penalties would have totalled. This calculator does exactly that sum for a typical fortnight and annualises it.

If the agreement is still being bargained or voted on, take the figures to your bargaining representative or union and vote accordingly — the FWC cannot approve an agreement that leaves you worse off overall. If the agreement is already in force, raise it with your employer first, then the Fair Work Ombudsman. An underperforming agreement can also be terminated or varied through the Fair Work Commission, and if you are being paid below the award base rate for your classification that is an underpayment claim regardless of what the EA says.

No. This is a pay comparison: it prices the same roster under your award and your EA using the award rates in our data layer, and shows the annual gap. The legal BOOT is applied by the Fair Work Commission at approval and also weighs allowances, leave loading, shift penalties not in your roster, and non-monetary conditions. Treat the result as one strong, evidence-based input to that question — not a legal determination.