This section answers one question: what actually lands in your account. Enter a salary, an hourly rate or a payslip figure and PayLens applies the 2026–27 resident rules, the Medicare levy, HELP and employer super, then shows every assumption it used so you can check the working line by line.
Tax in Australia is progressive, so there is no factor you can multiply a net figure by. The salary needed to deliver an extra dollar of take-home depends on which bracket that dollar lands in, whether the Medicare levy applies, and whether a HELP repayment is being deducted from the same income.
PayLens solves it the honest way: it applies the full withholding stack to candidate salaries until the net matches your target within a dollar. Results are reported as base salary and as total package, so the figure can be taken straight into a negotiation whichever way the offer is quoted.
The same solve, presented three ways: the annual deduction stack, the base salary across every pay cycle, and the bracket ladder the salary passes through. Each view updates as you change the target.
Type the take-home you want. Nothing else is required: resident rates, the Medicare levy and 12% super are applied by default.
Residency, salary sacrifice, a Medicare exemption, part-year work and a different tax year all live in the full calculator, on the same rule sets.
Employers quote either a base salary plus super or a package including super. Switch the summary to match the offer in front of you, and the figure you name is the one that lands your target.
A HELP debt is repaid out of the same income, so a higher base salary is needed to leave the same amount in your account. With the marginal rates that apply from 1 July 2026, the extra required rises once repayment income passes $67,000 and again past $125,000.
It is the base salary that produces your target take-home under the current rules. Ask for the package form your employer uses: if they quote including super, use the total package figure rather than the base.
Because tax is progressive. Dividing by an average rate understates the salary needed, since the extra income sits in your highest bracket, not your average one.
Not exactly. Payslips use PAYG withholding schedules that approximate your annual liability each pay cycle. Offsets, deductions and variable income are settled at tax time.
Run every setting in the full calculator, or hold the figure against an offer you already have.
