The weekly tax table is the ATO’s ready reckoner for working out how much PAYG withholding to take from an employee’s weekly wage. You find the row that matches gross weekly earnings, read across to the correct column, and that figure is the amount withheld for the week. It reflects the tax rates and the $18,200 tax-free threshold for the 2025-26 financial year.

What Are PAYG Withholding Tax Tables?

PAYG withholding is the system where an employer holds back a slice of each employee’s pay and sends it to the ATO on their behalf. It is not a separate tax. It is a prepayment against the income tax that person will owe when they lodge their return.

The ATO tax tables are simply lookup charts that tell you the withholding amounts for a given level of earnings and pay cycle. Each of the tax tables is built from the current marginal rates, the tax-free threshold, the Medicare levy and tax offsets such as the low income tax offset, so you do not have to run the maths yourself. You match the pay to a row, read off the amount withheld, and send it to the ATO.

For 2025-26 the tables carry the official name and number the ATO uses across its documents. The weekly one is NAT 1005 and it applies to payments made from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026. The Federal Budget did not change the rates or income thresholds for this financial year, so the underlying rates are the same as the prior year. The scheduled tax cuts do not start until 2026-27, which is when new tax tables will be published.

Weekly vs Fortnightly vs Monthly Tax Tables

There is a separate ATO tax table for each pay cycle. You use the one that matches how often you actually make payments to the employee.

Pay cycle	ATO tax table	Typical use
Weekly	Weekly tax table (NAT 1005)	Staff paid every week
Fortnightly	Fortnightly tax table	The most common cycle for Australian employers
Monthly	Monthly tax table	Salaried staff paid once a month
Daily or casual	Daily and casual workers table	Irregular, day-based work

The tax tables are not interchangeable. A fortnightly figure is not simply the weekly figure doubled, because the marginal rate steps and the threshold are applied per pay period. If you pay on a weekly basis, you must use the weekly table.

Using the wrong period table is one of the most common payroll withholding errors, and it either short-changes the ATO or over-taxes your staff.

If your pay run does not fall neatly into these buckets, the ATO’s tax withheld calculator lets you pick the period and work out the correct withholding amounts directly.

How to Read the Weekly Tax Table (Step by Step)

Here is the process the ATO sets out for reading NAT 1005.

1. Work out gross weekly earnings. Add up salary or wages, allowances that are subject to withholding, and leave loading for the week. Ignoring cents, round the total down to the nearest dollar.
2. Find the matching row. Go down the first column (“Weekly earnings”) to the row that matches that gross amount.
3. Read across to the right column. Choose the “with tax-free threshold” or “no tax-free threshold” column depending on what the employee ticked on their Tax file number declaration (more on this below).
4. That figure is the amount withheld from that week’s pay.
5. Add any STSL component if the employee has a study or training support loan. This comes from a separate table (covered further down).

Illustrative example (figures illustrative only, not from the ATO table):

Say an employee earns $1,150 gross for the week and claims the tax-free threshold. You would go to the $1,150 row of the weekly table and read the “with tax-free threshold” column. The amount shown there is what you withhold for the week. If the same person had not claimed the threshold, you would read the other column instead, and the amount would be higher.

We have deliberately not printed a dollar figure here, because the only correct source is the current ATO table or calculator, which we link below. Always confirm the exact cents against the official table.

Tax-Free Threshold vs No-Threshold Columns

Every weekly tax table has two main withholding columns, and picking the right one matters more than almost anything else in the read.

• With tax-free threshold. Use this when the employee has claimed the threshold from you on their TFN declaration. It bakes in the first $18,200 of tax-free income spread across the year, so less is withheld each week. This is the column for someone whose job with you is their main or only source of income.
• No tax-free threshold. Use this when the employee has not claimed it, typically because they claim it at another job. More is withheld each week, because no tax-free amount is factored in.

An employee can only claim the threshold from one employer at a time. If someone has a second job, that second employer normally withholds at the higher rate. This is why people with two jobs sometimes feel over-taxed week to week, even though it usually squares up at tax time. For the detail, see our guide on what the tax-free threshold is.

Who the Weekly Table Covers, and the Special-Case Tax Tables

NAT 1005 covers ordinary salary and wage payments to resident employees paid on a weekly basis. Plenty of payees sit outside that, and the ATO publishes other tax tables for them. Foreign residents are the big one: foreign resident employees cannot claim the tax-free threshold, so their withholding rates are different from the first dollar. Working holiday makers have their own schedule again.

Special case	What to use instead
Foreign resident employees	Foreign resident withholding rates in the weekly table notes
Working holiday makers	Working holiday maker schedule
Labour hire workers payments	Tax table for labour hire arrangements
Horticultural industry and shearing	Dedicated industry tax table
Performing artists	Tax table for performing artists
Seniors and pensioners	Seniors and pensioners tax table

If in doubt, check the full list on the ATO tax tables overview so you are applying the right table to each payee. The same overview lists tables for payments to other payees, including seniors and pensioners, and for return-to-work payments. Contractors under voluntary agreements have their own rules again.

Withholding Amounts for Bonuses, Lump Sums and Irregular Payments

The weekly table is designed for regular payments: ordinary wage and salary payments made every week. Irregular payments are treated differently. Bonuses and commissions, back payments, accident payments and lump sum amounts such as unused leave and leave loading paid out on termination each have their own schedule for working out the withholding amounts, and some lump sum categories are taxed at flat rates.

Employee claims on a withholding declaration change the numbers too. If an employee claims tax offsets, you reduce withholding by the weekly value of those offsets. If they qualify for a Medicare levy adjustment, claimed through a Medicare levy variation declaration (for example a Medicare levy exemption or reduction, or because the Medicare levy surcharge does not apply to them), the amount withheld changes again. There are also provisions for extra withholding where an employee asks you to take more out to avoid a bill.

Employees on variable hours can swing between rows of the table from week to week. The table still works. You simply read the row that matches each week’s pay, and the withholding amounts adjust with the weekly earnings, exactly as they do for regular payments.

Where to Get the Official Current ATO Tax Tables and Calculator

Do not rely on an old PDF saved on a desktop. The ATO tax tables are updated when rates or loan settings change, and using a stale copy is a common source of withholding errors. Always pull the current version straight from the ATO.

• Weekly tax table (NAT 1005): the ATO publishes a downloadable PDF lookup table on its weekly tax table page.
• Fortnightly and monthly tables: available from the ATO tax tables overview.
• Tax withheld calculator: the ATO’s tax withheld calculator lets you enter the pay period and earnings and returns the exact amount to withhold, including current study and training loan settings. This is the safest option for one-off or unusual payments.

If you build your own payroll software, the ATO also publishes Schedule 1, the statement of formulas, so you can calculate withholding amounts directly rather than looking them up.

STSL, HELP and Study Loan Components

If an employee has a study or training support loan, extra withholding applies on top of the normal tax. This covers loans under the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP, formerly HECS), VET Student Loans, Student Start-up Loans, Financial Supplement and Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans.

The employee flags their study loans on the TFN declaration. When they do, you look up the extra amount from the separate Study and training support loans weekly tax table (NAT 2173) and add it to the amount you already worked out from NAT 1005. There is also a lookup tool for the STSL component if you prefer a spreadsheet.

One current-year change to note: following the law that reduced student loan debts and lifted the compulsory repayment threshold, the ATO updated the STSL tax tables during the 2025-26 financial year, with the reduced withholding taking effect from 24 September 2025. If you run payroll manually, make sure you are using the updated STSL table and not an earlier version. Payroll software should have picked this up in an update, but it is worth a check.

What Employers Must Do

If you employ staff, the weekly tax table is not optional reading. Your core PAYG withholding obligations are to:

• Have each new employee complete a TFN declaration so you know which column to use.
• Withhold the correct amount from all payments each pay run using the right table and the right column.
• Add the STSL component where it applies, and apply any Medicare levy adjustment or tax offsets the employee has claimed.
• Report and pay the withheld amounts to the ATO through Single Touch Payroll and your activity statements.
• Keep the withholding current whenever the ATO publishes new tax tables mid-year.

Modern payroll software (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks) applies the current tax tables automatically, which removes most manual lookup errors. The tables still matter, because you need to understand what the software is doing, sanity-check a figure that looks off, and handle one-off payments the software does not cover cleanly.

If payroll is eating your time or you are not confident the withholding is right, get professional advice rather than guessing. You do not need a financial advisor for this; a registered tax or BAS agent is the right professional for withholding questions, and our team can set it up and run it for you. See how BOX can help with your bookkeeping and payroll so you can hand the compliance across and get back to running the business.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article is general information only and does not take your personal circumstances into account. Speak to a registered tax or BAS agent for professional advice before acting.